Startup studio eFounders raises $5.3 million because it can’t get enough of SaaS

European startup studio eFounders is raising an additional $5.3 million (€5 million) from entrepreneurs and family offices. eFounders has been behind some very promising software-as-a-service startups, providing human and financial resources for the first year or so before the startups can go and do great things on their own. In exchange, the startup studio takes a significant portion of the initial equity.

In fact, I’ve covered quite a lot of these companies already as they tend to have clever solutions to specific enterprise problems. Portfolio startups include Mailjet, TextMaster, Mention, Front, Aircall, illustrio, Hivy, Spendesk and Forestadmin.

With today’s funding round, the startup studio plans to keep going at full speed. The goal is to create eight new startups over the next couple of years. Four new startups per year sounds like an ambitious goal, so let’s see if the eFounders model can scale.

Investors in eFounders include Stupeflix CEO Nicolas Steegmann, Captain Train founder Jean-Daniel Guyot, Resto-in and Stuart founder Clément Benoit and dozens of others. This is also a great way to build a network of business angels who will be able to invest in future eFounders startups.

I remember the early days of eFounders when the studio was still learning the best way to create software-as-a-service startups. While focusing on this niche was interesting, it has been a long and bumpy ride.

But I’ve been impressed lately by the current pace at eFounders. While some projects struggle more than others, eFounders has been trying many different things and replicating what works best across different startups, often managing multiple startups at the same time. Now let’s see what they have in store.