Venture capital investor Speedinvest has unveiled a €500m (£428.6m) pre-seed and seed tech fund to back early-stage startups across Europe.
A representative for Speedinvest confirmed to UKTN that the fund, “Speedinvest 4”, will be investing in UK-based startups. The fund has already participated in Solvo.ai’s recent £3.5m seed round and femtech The Lowdown’s £2m round, both of which are based in the UK.
Speedinvest, which is headquartered in Vienna, Austria, but is pan-European, is looking to invest in startups operating in deep tech, fintech, health, marketplace and consumer, industrial tech and software as a service.
Oliver Holle, CEO and managing partner, Speedinvest, said: “This new capital proves there is still room to innovate in European VC. As more and more capital and talent floods the ecosystem, further professionalisation of our industry is required.”
Out of the Speedinvest 4 capital, €300m (£257.2m) is allocated to invest in pre-seed and seed companies and the remaining €200m (£171.5m) for follow-on co-investments.
“As our first institutional, pre-seed investor, Speedinvest has been with us since the very beginning. And the team has never taken a backseat,” said Felix Ohswald, founder of GoStudent.
Speedinvest 4 is being funded by capital from New Enterprise Associates, the European Investment Fund, Bpifrance, government funds, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, family offices and previous founders.
The Speedinvest 4 fund brings the investor’s assets under management to over €1bn (£858m). It has offices in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris and Vienna.