Auriga Partners reaches €80 million interim close for second fund dedicated to cybersecurity

Auriga Partners, a Paris-based asset management firm specialising in venture capital and innovation investment, has announced an €80 million interim close for Auriga Cyber Ventures II, its second fund dedicated exclusively to cybersecurity.

Auriga Cyber Ventures II is backed by Bpifrance through the French National Seed Fund No. 3, managed on behalf of the French State as part of the France 2030 investment plan. It also benefits from the support of the European Union under the InvestEU fund, through the European Investment Fund (EIF), as well as an Equity Guarantee managed by Bpifrance’s Investor Partnerships and Guarantees team.

“Given the economic, industrial and sovereignty challenges posed by cybersecurity, Europe must equip itself to develop global leaders. We have a particularly dynamic pool of talent, technologies and startups, but they need both substantial capital and specialised support to realise their potential,” said Geoffroy Rosset, Managing Partner, Auriga Partners.

Founded in 1998 by Jacques Chatain, Bernard Daugeras, and Patrick Bamas, Auriga Partners calls itself a pioneer in venture capital in France. Since its inception, it has backed more than 150 companies, including Neolane, Nexthink, Wallix, Vade and Vestiaire Collective. The latter two investments enabled Auriga to distribute more than €500 million to its investors over the 2025-26 period alone.

The firm’s cybersecurity approach is built on the expertise of a network of industry founders, including Jean-Noël de Galzain, founder of Wallix; Georges Lotigier, founder of Vade; Thierry Rouquet, founder of Sentryo, which was acquired by Cisco; and Édouard de Rémur, co-founder of Oodrive and Virtual Browser.

“Our community of experts and entrepreneurs, which we continuously strive to expand, provides startups with more than just capital. It brings collective intelligence, combining in-depth market knowledge, privileged access to industry decision-makers, support for business development and expertise in international expansion. In cybersecurity, the ability to provide hands-on support is just as critical as funding,” said William Lecat, Managing Partner, Auriga Partners.

Auriga Partners’ second dedicated fund for cybersecurity firms comes amidst the escalating urgency around digital security. With more than 30 billion connected devices globally, a cyberattack occurs every 39 seconds, and the global cost of cybercrime is estimated at $10.5 trillion in 2025, equivalent to the world’s third-largest economy.

The Auriga Cyber Ventures II fund has a target of €100 million and a hard cap of €120 million, and it builds on the success of Auriga’s first €55 million cybersecurity vehicle launched in 2022. The fund primarily targets early-stage European startups, from pre-Seed to Series A, with investment tickets ranging from €500,000 to €5 million.

It will take minority equity stakes and plans to allocate roughly half its capital to follow-on investments in its most promising portfolio companies. The fund aims to back around 30 startups, with a focus on two high-priority segments: artificial intelligence security (protecting AI models, data and emerging applications) and identity and data protection, which addresses increasingly sophisticated fraud and digital access proliferation.

Since 2022, Auriga says its teams have analysed more than 2,000 European cybersecurity startups, and it has already deployed capital from the new fund into four startups: Finovox (document fraud prevention), Fleuret (AI-powered automated penetration testing), Mankind’s (AI systems auditing and compliance), and Nextident (AI agent security). It plans two to three further investments before the end of 2026.

Over the past five years, the firm has backed 30 European companies spanning the full cybersecurity value chain, including Tenancy, Patrowl, Emproof, Cytix and Mindflow. Auriga Partners has already established what it describes as Europe’s largest dedicated cybersecurity startup portfolio, and with Auriga Cyber Ventures II, the firm plans to build on that portfolio.

The post Auriga Partners reaches €80 million interim close for second fund dedicated to cybersecurity appeared first on EU-Startups.