Fundraising in 2023 was not easy, for founders or VCs. Sifted tracked just over 40 new first-time funds that announced a first or second close in 2023 — compared to over 60 in 2022.
Will 2024 be rosier?
We’re not too sure.
Limited partnerships are still waiting for more established funds to return capital, the public listing market is still on ice and the mood music remains muted.
But those dogged VCs who do succeed in closing a fund in 2024 we’ll list right here.
This article was first published on January 10 and last updated on December 18.
All the new first-time VC funds raised in 2024
Syndicate One
HQ: Brussels
Fund size: €6.5m
Focus: Belgian founders
Stage: Early
Syndicate One, which announced a first close at the start of the year, is big on Belgium. Its LPs include four Belgian government funds — PMV, SFPIM, Finance&invest.brussels, and Wallonie Entreprendre — and 100s of founders and investors from the ecosystem.
Digital Ocean Ventures
HQ: Krakow
Fund size: €10.6m
Focus: Polish startups
Stage:Pre-seed and seed
Digital Ocean Ventures is a venture builder focused on investing in and working with early-stage Polish startups. Its anchor investor is Polish state fund PFR Ventures.
Evercurious VC
HQ: Athens
Fund size: Closed €12.5m, target €20m
Focus: Greek startups expanding internationally, and European startups expanding in Greece
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Founded by a former researcher at CERN, turned startup operator, turned VC and an engineer-turned-VC, Evercurious is a new Greek fund backed by the Hellenic Development Investment Bank, founders and angel investors.
Axeleo
HQ: Lyon
Fund size: Closed €125m, target €250m
Focus: First-of-a-kind technology
Stage: Series A and B
French VC Axeleo has raised two funds previously — but this is its first dedicated to FOAK climate technology. It’ll invest €3m-10m in companies. LPs include the Révolution Environnementale et Solidaire fund, Bpifrance and the Veolia utilities group.
Creative Capital Ventures
HQ: Lisbon and London
Fund size: Closed €18m, target €50m
Focus: Digital media and consumer tech
Stage: Early
Creative Capital Ventures is a venture studio which now has a VC fund, focused on investing in media, entertainment and lifestyle companies. Alongside capital, it also helps startups with hiring fractional C-suites, along with operational advice.
Iona Star
HQ: London and Belfast
Fund size: Closed £22m, target £40m
Focus: AI and data
Stage: Early
Iona Star is an operator-led VC investing in AI startups with proprietary datasets. One major LP is Frasers Group (the owner of UK retailers House of Frasers and Sports Direct).
Araya Super Angel Fund
HQ: London
Fund size: Closed £8.25m, target £19m
Focus: Climate tech, healthtech, fintech, commerce and work
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Araya Ventures, founded by exited entrepreneur Rupa Popat, plans to back 60 early-stage startups with cheques of $200k-550k from its first fund. It has over 80 LPs, including many founders.
PSV Hafnium
HQ: Lyngby, Denmark
Fund size: Closed €55m, target €80.4m
Focus: Science-based technology
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
PSV Hafnium is a Danish VC dedicated solely to deeptech. Its LPs include the EIF, which has committed €24.8m to the fund, and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO), which has committed €13.4m. The team will primarily invest in teams with strong scientific backgrounds based in Denmark.
Dutch Operator Fund
HQ: Amsterdam
Fund size: Closed €2m
Focus: Dutch startups
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Set up by seven Dutch entrepreneurs and angels, the Dutch Operator Fund will invest €75k-200k into early-stage companies in the Netherlands.
Primo Climate
HQ: Milan
Fund size: €60m target, closed €40m
Focus: Climate tech
Stage: Early
Primo Climate is a new fund launched by Italian VC and PE firm Primo Capital to invest in energy, circular economy, green industry, agri- and foodtech and mobility.
BlackWood Ventures
HQ: Copenhagen
Fund size: €14.7m closed
Focus: Generalist
Stage: Early stage
BlackWood is a new pan-European VC with a big angel investor network.
Resurge
HQ: London
Fund size: €120m target, closed “just under half”
Focus: So-called VC orphans
Stage: Series A to B
Resurge aims to fund or buy out ‘VC orphans’ — ie. those companies that VCs think aren’t growing fast enough, and aren’t profitable or large enough for PE firms to snap up yet. It’ll invest €10m-25m into European and Israeli companies at Series A to B, aiming to gain “operational” control of them.
Backtrace
HQ: Munich
Fund size: €10m closed, €30m target
Focus: Dev tools, security and AI infrastructure
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Backtrace, founded by two former Target Partners investors, backs “boring” infrastructure tech startups. It’ll invest pre-seed cheques of €750k-1m and seed cheques of more than €1m, and plans to lead or co-lead deals.
Capmont Technology
HQ: Munich
Fund size: €100m closed
Focus: B2B tech startups in Europe
Stage: Late seed to Series B
Capmont, previously known as DI Technology, has been doing investments on a deal-by-deal basis since 2016 — but this is its first fund. Its portfolio includes startups working in enterprise SaaS and industrial tech, in fields including robotics, industrial automation, manufacturing, IoT and supply chain and procurement. From its new fund, it’ll write cheques of €2m-5m into 15-16 startups.
Zaka
HQ: Prague
Fund size: €10.5m closed, €15m target
Focus: B2B software
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Zaka has grown out of the family office of two Czech serial entrepreneurs, who decided to raise external capital to capitalise on the “great dealflow” they’ve been seeing. With Zaka’s first fund, it hopes to back 40-50 companies, writing cheques of €250k-300k — and expand its focus beyond startups based in central and eastern Europe.
Kembara
HQ: Madrid
Fund size: Closed €350m, target €1bn
Focus: Climate and deeptech
Stage: Series B and C
Mundi Ventures, the Madrid-based VC, has raised €350m from the EIF’s Tech Champions Initiative for a new €1bn sister fund, Kembara. It will invest in around 20 deeptech and climate tech startups at Series B and C, primarily in Germany, Spain, France and Sweden, writing cheques of €50m on average, with capacity to follow on.
Booom
HQ: Berlin
Fund size: Closed €17m
Focus: B2B SaaS
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Solo GP Felix Plapperer's Booom announced a final close of its first fund at €17m in July 2024. The three founders of German logistics unicorn sennder — David Nothacker, Julius Köhler and Nicolaus Schefenacker — are LPs, and have committed to mentor all of Booom's portfolio companies.
Wind
HQ: Paris
Fund size: Closed €90m, target €130m
Focus: Climate and deeptech
Stage: Seed and Series A
Wind, an article 9 fund, invests in startups working on adaptation tech — solutions to help us deal with the effects of climate change. Its founders, Thierry Vandewalle and Xavier Gury, are serial entrepreneurs who’ve invested in more than 80 companies between them. It announced its first close in June.
Breega Africa Fund
HQ: Paris
Fund size: Closed $52m, target $75m
Focus: African startups
Stage: Seed
Breega — a well-established French VC — launched a new fund to invest in African startups in June. It will focus on the continent's startup hotspots — Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa and Kenya — along with French-speaking markets such as Morocco, Senegal, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and the DRC.
Radix Ventures
HQ: Warsaw
Fund size: Closed €41m, target €60m
Focus: Deeptech
Stage: Seed to Series B
Radix plans to back 16 deeptech startups in the CEE region, from late seed up to Series B, writing cheques of €1.5m-9m. Its anchor investor is the EIF, which invested €25m; it's also backed by PFR Ventures.
Italian Founders Fund
HQ: Milan
Fund size: Closed €50m
Focus: Italian founders (no matter where they are based)
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
The aptly-named Italian Founders Fund (IFF) announced its first fund — backed by over 100 Italian founders — in June. IFF hopes to lead investments into 25 startups, writing cheques of €500k to €1.5m. It will reserve up to €2.5m per company for follow-ons.
Equilibrium Ventures
HQ: Helsinki
Fund size: Closed €6m, target €30m
Focus: Crypto
Stage: Seed
Crypto isn't dead — or at least, that's what Equilibrium Ventures (EQV) is betting on. It's an offshoot of engineering company Equilibrium, and the team is hoping that the ability to draw on its parent company's technical expertise will give it an edge when competing for deals, especially when it comes to crypto infrastructure.
Openseed
HQ: London
Fund size: Closed "30% minimum fund size", targeting $10m
Focus: Operator-led startups in Europe and Africa
Stage: Even earlier than pre-seed
Founded by Maria Rotilu, a former Octopus Ventures, Oxford Seed Fund and Hustle Fund investor, and Uber country manager for Nigeria, Openseed will invest in operator-led startups in Europe and Africa. Rotilu, Europe's first Black solo GP, announced a first close in May 2024.
Identity.vc
HQ: Berlin
Fund size: Closed €15m, target €50m
Focus: LGBTQ+ led startups
Stage: Pre-seed to Series A
Identity.vc is focused on backing startups with LGBTQ+ representation in the leadership team — a first of its kind in Europe. According to the firm, an estimated 15% of startups in Europe have an LGBTQ+ founder. Identity.vc will write cheques of €250k-€1.5m into roughly 25 companies.
Backfuture Ventures
HQ: London
Fund size: Closed $3m, target $10m
Focus: SaaS
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Launched by the founder of software startup conference SaaStock, Backfuture Ventures announced a first close of its first fund in June. It will write £100k-200k cheques into pre-seed and seed-stage SaaS startups, primarily in Europe. Solo GP Alex Theuma hopes to close the fund by the end of the summer.
Impact Shakers
HQ: Belgium
Fund size: Closed €5m, targeting €20m
Focus: Impact startups
Stage: Early-stage
Impact Shakers, which began as an organisation running incubator and accelerator programmes for diverse founders working on impact startups, announced a first close of its first VC fund in April. It will run one accelerator per year, for four years, and invest in six to eight companies from each cohort. It writes initial cheques of €150k and reserves up to €1.5m per company for follow-ons. It’s particularly focused on founders from diverse backgrounds working on climate tech, impact infrastructure and inclusion tech.
Rialto Ventures
HQ: Venice, Italy
Fund size: Closed €55m, target €100m
Focus: B2B tech
Stage: Series A
In May, Rialto Ventures announced its first fund to invest in 'hard tech' founders across Europe — and said it has done eight deals already. Its general partners are Simone Brunozzi, a founder and investor, and Stefano Quintarelli, who founded I.NET, Italy’s first internet service provider and invented Italy’s public ID system SPID. Alessandro Profumo, formerly the head of several Italian banks, is also a partner at the fund.
14Peaks Capital
HQ: Switzerland
Fund size: $30m closed
Focus: B2B SaaS startups
Stage: Pre-seed to Series A
Edoardo Ermotti joined Europe's growing pack of solo GPs in April when he announced a final close of his first fund, 14 Peaks Capital. He invests in Europe and the US, with a specific focus on fintech and the future of work.
Isomer Secondaries Fund
HQ: London
Fund size: Closed £20m+, targeting £100m
Focus: Secondaries
Not a new investment firm — but a new type of fund. Isomer Capital, best known as a VC fund of funds, announced a new dedicated secondaries fund in April. The secondaries fund will primarily buy LP stakes in VC funds from existing LPs, but will also buy stakes in a small number of private companies.
JuneX Evergreen Fund
HQ: London and Nice
Fund size: Closed €100m
Focus: European startups, scaleups and VCs
In April, JuneX announced the closure of an €100m evergreen fund to invest in startups and VC funds. It offers equity, debt and bridge financings. Its founders, Régis Micheli and Benjamin Vedrenne-Cloquet, are former entrepreneurs turned investors.
Varsity VC
HQ: Paris
Fund size: Closed €75m, targeting €150m
Focus: Fintech, healthtech, climate tech and enterprise software
Stage: Seed
Banking veteran and ex-Société Générale deputy CEO Didier Valet announced a first close of his first fund to invest in seed-stage startups in February. Varsity VC plans to back up to 30 companies, and save two-thirds of the fund for follow-ons.
Kost Capital
HQ: Frederiksberg, Denmark
Fund size: Undisclosed amount closed in January, €25m target
Focus: Foodtech
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Kost invests in the “inputs” — think ingredients and manufacturing solutions — that will power next gen food startups. It writes cheques of €750k-1m. The team includes general partner Bodil Sidén, who was previously a partner at Stockholm-based VC blq invest, founding partner Mark Emil Hermansen, cofounder of flavour and drinks startup Empirical and former concept manager at Noma, and founding partner Kasper Hulthin, cofounder of Peakon. The fund has grown out of a food development studio, which helps turn ideas from universities into commercially viable products.
Prequel Ventures
HQ: Berlin
Fund size: Just over 10% closed late 2023, target €10m
Focus: Supply chain tech across Europe
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Born out of a research project to map supply chain tech startups in Europe, Prequel Ventures is a new (very specialised) early-stage fund announced in January 2024. It has two founding partners, writes cheques of €50-100k and has made three investments as of the start of 2024.
33N Ventures
HQ: Porto and Madrid
Fund size: Closed €50m, target €150m
Focus: Cybersecurity and infrastructure software startups
Stage: Series A and B
33N was set up by two investors with remarkably similar names — Carlos Alberto Silva and Carlos Moreira da Silva — in partnership with financial services firm Alantra. The fund plans to write cheques of around €10m into growth-stage cybersecurity startups. It's backed by Caixa Capital, the VC arm of the Portuguese Bank and Portuguese investment firm Golden Wealth Management.
This article was last updated on December 18, 2024.
