UK and US investor Index Ventures has backed TheFamily through an undisclosed funding round.

On the back of the investment, TheFamily is aiming to work with 100 start-ups a year and has, to date, taken on 30 businesses from 800 applications.

The start-up accelerator was established in January 2013 and opened in March by Oussama Ammar, Alice Zagury and Nicolas Colin. Start-ups do not receive funding from TheFamily and give up 1 per cent of equity to join the process.

Martin Mignot, principal at Index Ventures, comments, ‘Alice, Oussama and Nicolas, form both one of the most unlikely and most complementary teams we have ever come across.

‘The result of putting three extraordinary different personalities to work on a project as wide-ranging as transforming the start-up ecosystem in France, is that you get incredibly bold and innovative ideas that have never been tried elsewhere.’

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The investment comes a year after index ventures closed a new €350 million fund aimed at backing ‘ambitious’ European businesses at an early stage of development.

Index’s new pot was part of €1 billion raised over the last 12 months, which included €500 million for a Growth fund and €150 million a Life Sciences fund.

Mignot adds, ‘[The founders] run TheFamily as a true early-stage start-up, constantly coming up with new products and iterating rapidly to serve their customers (the entrepreneurs in their portfolio) the best they can, and we believe that they have the right mix of sheer creativity and disciplined execution to have a massive impact on entrepreneurship in France.’

Index’s investment will not be used to back companies involved with the accelerator, but instead will be used for working costs.