Aspire11, a new Prague-based investment firm, has raised a €500m inaugural fund to invest in VC funds and growth companies, primarily in Europe. The fund is backed solely by Czech financial organisation The Partners Group and its pension company Rentea — and is hoping to set an example that other pension funds might soon follow.
Aspire11 hopes to “awake the sleeping capital,” says founder and partner Pavel Mucha, who previously founded VC firm Kaya.
Calls are mounting across Europe for more pension fund money to be channelled into venture capital — and Mucha hopes that funds like his will be able to prove that it’s a sensible asset class to park pensioners’ wealth in.
“If you have your companies over the years receiving this type of capital from many other parts of the world — mostly North America, but also sovereign wealth funds coming from non-European corners — it [begs] the question, 'How come our pension capital is not working in our opportunities?'”
“The status quo is not sustainable,” he adds.
Risky business
Unlike in the US and Canada, European pension funds have long been wary of VC as an asset class, believing it to be too risky. Although this is slowly changing and regulation is improving, it’s largely deprived the EU market of big limited partner (LP) money. According to European private markets trade association Invest Europe’s 2024 analysis, pension funds accounted for just 11% of VC fundraising (government agencies, for example, made up the lion's share, with 25%) — a growing but still low number.
Mucha’s new fund is backed by pension company Rentea, which is part of Czech financial organisation The Partners Group. The group is currently Aspire11’s sole LP, but the firm plans to raise more money from other pension funds in the future.
Roughly 25% of the fund will be invested into other VC funds and about 75% will be invested into growth-stage companies. Mucha says Aspire11 will write cheques of up to €30m in up to 12 growth companies, starting at Series B to C, which it will hold for 20-plus years. Mucha says the firm is open to investing in both hardware and software, as well as things like advanced industrial tech and biology.
Apsire11 says it will invest its €500m over the next five years, but Mucha tells Sifted he hopes to raise upwards of €2bn to meet the challenge in the future. He says the current fund was raised in nine months.
The team
Mucha previously founded CEE-focused VC Kaya. Kaya has backed companies like patient management startup Docplanner, AI agents startup Zeta Labs and clean energy marketplace Woltair. Tülin Tokatli, who is joining Aspire11 as a partner to focus on fund investments, previously worked as a fund of funds investor at the European Investment Fund (EIF).
Mucha is betting the dynamic is changing: he notes that thanks to shifts in EU pension and long-term investment rules, pension funds are more free to dabble in VC. “The learning curve is probably the biggest challenge most of them have” right now, he says. “If more of us who have been trained in private markets can join and help, we could shortcut that learning curve.”
