Invention and innovation are the driving force behind economic growth.
Eman Pulis has cultivated an oversized presence in the tech investment community in the past years, building up his reputation for spotting trends in frontier technologies.
Ikigai Ventures is Pulis’ new project – a Luxembourg-based, seed-stage, venture capital firm committed to supporting bright ideas worldwide.
At the moment the company is focusing its efforts on investments in verticals such as gaming (cash games and free-to-play), betting, esports, blockchain, fintech, AI and other frontier tech. The fund believes that these verticals will swallow up more VC opportunities down the road and it’s time to start betting on them now.
We have decided we need to take a network-driven approach
When asked about this VC Fund, Pulis said: “Thanks to our conferences, I’ve been blessed with a worldwide network of hyper-successful investors, entrepreneurs, and legal minds, most of whom are interested to join this fund in some capacity.
“Additionally, the deal flow is constant: startups have been coming to me for guidance for quite some time. I’m excited and I’m cautiously optimistic. Ikigai Ventures has a very promising future ahead.”
Over half of the funding has already been committed and the fund will start deploying its capital in Q1 2022. The limited partners are leading European tech founders and investors or collectives that have built and scaled some of Europe’s biggest companies in these verticals.
A team of global experienced capitalists and industry experts with multiple exits have been assigned to the same VC Fund. All investors in the fund will be meeting once a year during Malta Week for the fund’s annual general meeting.
“As the space continues to expand, we obviously can’t hire 100 people in-house,” Pulis added.
“And so we have decided we need to take a network-driven approach, and in order to build a network that grows bigger, faster and adds more value to all stakeholders, we have built the Ikigai Collective. These are the founders and other builders in the space that act as our scouts and extended partners, and we have over 20 of them in the fund.”