LES DETERMINES, LIVE FOR GOOD, HEC and DAPHNI launch Time4 to finance entrepreneurs overlooked by venture capital

Venture capital likes to tell the story that it funds the best entrepreneurs. Yet when one looks at the profiles of founders who actually raise funding, a more prosaic reality emerges: they often come from the same schools, the same networks, and the same cities. In other words, venture capital largely finances what it already knows.

This dynamic raises a simple question: how many entrepreneurs remain under investors’ radar simply because they are not part of the right circles?

This is precisely the question that Time4 seeks to address, a new investment fund launched by Pierre-Éric Leibovici, managing partner at the venture capital firm Daphni. The vehicle has just announced a first closing of fifty million euros, with the ambition of reaching one hundred million euros for its inaugural fund.

The initiative is rooted in an observation that gradually emerged within the Daphni team. For several years, the fund has encountered entrepreneurs coming from programs run by Les Déterminés and Live for Good, two organizations that support project founders across different regions. As these encounters multiplied, a paradox became apparent: the talent is there, the projects exist, yet access to capital remains extremely limited.

“We met incredible entrepreneurs who unfortunately did not always have the codes or the networks required to access investors,” explains Pierre-Éric Leibovici.

The numbers confirm this gap. Barely one percent of venture capital currently flows toward these types of projects, while roughly fifteen percent of public support and subsidies are allocated to them. The imbalance is clear: although public support structures exist, the transition toward private financing remains difficult.

For investors, however, these entrepreneurs often display compelling characteristics. Many have learned to build their projects with limited resources. This constraint fosters a form of frugality that can become a strategic advantage in the startup economy, where the ability to do more with less is often decisive.

But these profiles encounter a more structural barrier: access to the networks and the implicit codes of venture capital. In a market that Pierre-Éric Leibovici readily describes as “herd-like,” investors tend to follow trends and favor founders who have already been identified within established ecosystems.

Time4 is therefore built on a simple conviction: to broaden the pool of entrepreneurs financed by French venture capital.

To structure this approach, the fund is focusing in particular on entrepreneurs located in two types of territories that are often distant from traditional funding circuits: priority urban neighborhoods and rural revitalization zones. The objective is not merely to support social or territorial diversity, but also to anticipate the evolution of the entrepreneurial landscape.

Pierre-Éric Leibovici sees this movement as an extension of what occurred in the early 2000s, when figures such as Xavier Niel, Marc Simoncini, Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet and Jean-Baptiste Rudelle helped democratize technological entrepreneurship in France. At the time, the idea of launching a tech startup remained marginal within many leading schools. Twenty years later, entrepreneurship has become a legitimate professional path.

According to him, a new extension of this dynamic is now underway. Entrepreneurial ambition is gradually expanding to populations that remain poorly served by traditional funding channels.

In this perspective, Time4 is not designed as yet another support program but as a genuine venture capital fund. The objective is to build a portfolio of around sixty startups, with initial investment tickets ranging from two hundred thousand to one million euros in the first round. As in any early-stage fund, a significant portion of the capital is reserved for follow-on rounds in order to maintain meaningful ownership in the most promising companies.

The portfolio logic therefore remains classic. As Pierre-Éric Leibovici notes, the profitability of a venture fund generally relies on a minority of investments that significantly outperform. Some investments merely return the capital, while others fail entirely. It is the third of projects that succeed that ultimately drives the fund’s overall performance.

However, Time4 also distinguishes itself through a dedicated support framework. The fund plans to establish a structured coaching program designed to help entrepreneurs accelerate their development. This dimension responds to several obstacles frequently faced by the founders targeted: the absence of networks, difficulties in understanding investor expectations, and sometimes a lack of confidence or ambition.

For Pierre-Éric Leibovici, the role of the fund is also to remove these inhibitions. The goal is to open access to a network of experts and accelerate the trajectory of startups. In the startup economy, he reminds us, the scarcest resource remains time.

The fund’s first closing has brought together several institutional and private investors who agreed to support the initiative in a context where fundraising remains challenging for asset managers. Among them are Bpifrance, MGEN, Covéa, BNP Paribas, and the investor Philippe Oddo.

For the project’s backers, these commitments are primarily driven by strong convictions. At this stage, the fund must still demonstrate that its investment thesis can deliver performance.

Because despite its societal dimension, Time4 remains first and foremost a venture capital fund. Its credibility will depend on its ability to generate returns comparable to, or even higher than, the market. In other words, inclusion will only become a durable feature of venture capital if it also produces economic performance.

Yet Pierre-Éric Leibovici insists on another objective, one that is more symbolic. The success of the fund will also depend on the emergence of new entrepreneurial role models.

In some territories, he observes, models of success remain limited. Achievement is often associated with sports or artistic careers. Time4 aims to add a new reference: the technological entrepreneur.

The ambition is to see, within the portfolio, a few trajectories capable of inspiring an entire generation of company builders. Three or four success stories could be enough to durably change perceptions.

But this process unfolds over the long term. The value-creation cycle in startups typically exceeds ten years between the founding of a company and its exit. Time4 may therefore require several generations of funds before producing its full effects.

Ultimately, the real success of the project might lie elsewhere. The day entrepreneurs from these territories are financed naturally by the entire venture capital ecosystem, without any dedicated mechanism, Time4 will have fulfilled its mission.