German VC agency Lunar Ventures introduced in the present day its €50 million Fund II elevate, three and a half years after its preliminary €40 million fund – purpose-built for pre-Seed DeepTech investments in technical Founders fixing important issues.
Fund II is backed by main establishments together with Isomer Capital, Exor’s Lingotto, the Intesa San Paolo Endowment, and the Grinnell Faculty Endowment, alongside a cohort of tech Founders and GPs from European funds.
Mick Halsband, Founder and Common Associate at Lunar Ventures, says: “We got down to construct a special type of agency: a complementary crew of engineers, operators, and PhDs devoted to being the earliest and most technical companion to DeepTech Founders. At Lunar, we again technical builders from day zero, earlier than traction or hype, with the in-house experience to construct conviction earlier than consensus.
“Previously decade, capital flows into DeepTech grew tenfold to $15 billion, but Founders nonetheless prioritise mission-aligned companions who perceive the science behind the hype, and are in it for the lengthy haul. Since 2019, Lunar has been an early believer in LLMs, homomorphic encryption, decentralised science, local-first infra, and extra – all since found by the market. We’re keen to satisfy the Founders shaping what comes subsequent.”
Based in 2017 by companions Dr Elad Verbin, Mick Halsband and Luis Shemtov, Lunar Ventures is a pre-Seed Enterprise fund with a crew of 11 professional who make investments on the intersection of infrastructure, AI, autonomy, and science.
Fund I backed 25 firms together with Deepset, Zama, Electrical, Molecule, and Hathora — all later funded by US VCs corresponding to Upfront Ventures, Spark Capital, Google Ventures, SignalFire, and Founders Fund.
Lunar Ventures argues that the DeepTech sector has generated vital returns since exploding in reputation, resulting in an inflow of VC corporations throughout Europe in search of to capitalise. Consequently, in 2023 DeepTech accounted for about 44% of all tech investments in Europe, up 18% since 2019. The results of this inflow amongst VCs, nevertheless, is an absence of crucial specialisation and deep, technical experience, plus, an absence of real, confirmed expertise – as per Lunar Ventures.
Funding by Lunar’s Fund II is already underway, with lead participation in pre-Seed rounds with trendy knowledge stack crew Bruin, in addition to Lodestar, an area robotics crew.
- Berlin-based Bruin unifies knowledge high quality, observability, governance, and transformation in a single highly effective platform, so groups can cease wrangling infrastructure and begin driving the enterprise ahead.
- London-based Lodestar House builds autonomous, mission-ready robotic techniques to determine, interact, and reply to in-orbit threats to crucial area infrastructure. The crew is already backed by each the UK and European House Businesses to advance sovereign EU area robotics.
The Fund II portfolio has already seen two up-rounds. The fund’s eight investments to this point have coated themes together with multi-engine knowledge processing, AI drug discovery for covalent medicines, compliant agentic AI for regulated environments, and extra.
Lunar is deploying Fund II amongst a complete of 25-30 firms, with investments between €750k – 1 million “at as early a stage as potential“. The crew expects roughly 20% of the fund to be invested in underserved US-based firms, outdoors of the Bay Space.
Neil Buchanan, CEO and Co-founder of Lodestar House, says: “Lunar had the technical depth to know what we had been constructing and the conviction to again us earlier than anybody. They then introduced readability, conviction, and hands-on help when it mattered most.”
Lunar Ventures Fund I closed in 2021 and initially focused €20 million, earlier than ultimately closing 2x oversubscribed at €40 million. With Fund II, Lunar continues to give attention to the transatlantic alternative: early-stage DeepTech expertise in Europe, derisked for prime traders within the US.
Lunar Ventures can be asserting the promotion of Morris Clay to Common Associate. Clay is an AI engineer and serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of expertise in massive tech and rising startups.
