Auxxo Closes €33.3M Female Catalyst Fund II, Launches Matchmaker
TL;DR
Berlin-based Auxxo has reached final close on its second Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund II vehicle at €33.3 million, up 75% from its €19 million debut vehicle and 28% above the €26 million first close it announced back in July 2025. The European Investment Fund anchored the raise, joined by Aurum Impact, EnBW New Ventures, Cherry Ventures and Speedinvest, with more than half of the fund's LP base being women. Auxxo invests pre-seed and seed checks pan-European into startups with at least one female founder holding 20% or more of the cap table, has already deployed into 11 companies from the new fund, and is simultaneously launching a pan-European co-founder matchmaking platform. It matters because it's a concrete data point that gender-lens venture capital in Europe is not just surviving a brutal fundraising market, it's compounding, and Auxxo is now trying to attack the pipeline problem directly rather than just writing checks into whatever diverse deal flow shows up.
Key Takeaways
A 14-month gap between first and final close is a realistic, not alarming, timeline in 2026. Auxxo announced its €26 million first close in July 2025 and only reached final close at €33.3 million roughly fourteen months later. In a fundraising environment where many emerging managers are taking 18 to 24 months to close a fund at all, that pace, plus a genuine step-up in size, is a healthier signal than the headline number alone suggests.
EIF anchoring is doing real work for gender-lens funds in Europe right now. The European Investment Fund's continued willingness to anchor funds explicitly targeting female-founded companies is one of the more durable tailwinds in European venture, and it's increasingly the difference between emerging managers reaching a credible final close and stalling out after a first close.
The LP base itself is the product, not just the funding source. More than 50% of Auxxo's LPs are women, and the roster mixes a public development bank (EIF), a corporate venture arm (EnBW New Ventures), multiplatform VCs (Cherry Ventures, Speedinvest) and impact capital (Aurum Impact). That's a genuinely diversified base for a fund this size, and it reduces reliance on any single LP relationship for the next fund.
Launching a co-founder matchmaking platform alongside the close is a pipeline play, not a marketing stunt. The single biggest structural bottleneck for female-founder-led venture deals isn't capital, it's the shortage of investable teams reaching pre-seed with a complete founding bench. A matchmaking platform run by the fund that will ultimately write checks into the teams it helps assemble is a vertically integrated bet on solving origination rather than waiting for it.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund II
Fund Size: €33.3 million (final close); €26 million first close (July 2025); predecessor Fund I closed at €19 million
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Check Size: Not disclosed in primary materials
Geography: Pan-European
Focus: Sector-agnostic, requires at least one female founder holding a minimum 20% of founder shares
Key LPs: European Investment Fund (anchor), Aurum Impact, EnBW New Ventures, Cherry Ventures, Speedinvest, plus family offices and business angels across Europe (50%+ of LPs are women)
Why This Fund Matters
European gender-lens venture capital has spent the last several years proving it can raise a first fund. The harder test, the one that actually determines whether the category is structural or a passing allocation trend, is whether firms can step up meaningfully on a second or third vehicle once the novelty has worn off and LPs are underwriting purely on returns. Auxxo's jump from €19 million to €33.3 million, a 75% increase, clears that bar. It's not a mega-fund by any European standard, but it's a real step-up raised in one of the tightest fundraising markets emerging managers have faced in years.
The EIF's anchor position matters beyond the check itself. European public LPs, and the EIF in particular, have increasingly conditioned commitments to emerging managers on demonstrable diversity outcomes, both in portfolio composition and in a fund's own LP base. Auxxo hitting north of 50% female LPs isn't incidental to the raise, it's very likely part of why the EIF anchored it, and it sets a reference point other gender-lens managers in the region will be measured against when they go out for their own Fund IIs.
The corporate and platform-VC participation, EnBW New Ventures alongside Cherry Ventures and Speedinvest, is also worth noting. Those aren't typical fund-of-funds LPs; they're active operating VCs choosing to also be limited partners in a smaller, more specialized vehicle, likely as much for co-investment access and diverse-team dealflow as for the financial return. That's a distribution advantage for Auxxo's portfolio companies when they go raise their next round.
The launch of a pan-European co-founder matchmaking platform alongside the close is the more structurally interesting move. Most funds that talk about "pipeline problems" in underrepresented founder investing mean it as an excuse. Auxxo building and operating a matching product, timed to launch the same week as the fund close, is a bet that the firm can source proprietary deal flow at the team-formation stage, before a company even exists, rather than competing for already-formed teams against every other seed fund in Europe.
The Team
Auxxo was founded by Bettine Schmitz and Dr. Gesa Miczaika, both of whom hold General Partner titles at the firm today. Schmitz's background spans strategy consulting and product management, including accelerating close to 100 companies through Axel Springer Plug and Play, alongside her own angel investing track record. Miczaika's background is in strategy consulting and startup operating roles, including time at Blacklane and Entrepreneur First.
Fabiola Hochkirchen, one of Auxxo's original founders and the person who established Auxxo Beteiligungen GmbH in 2019, is listed on the firm's own site today as an Initiating Partner rather than a General Partner, a distinction worth getting right given how often departed or transitioned founders get miscredited with an active GP title in trade coverage. She brings angel investing and private equity experience to that continuing role. Rounding out the team, Alena Redeker serves as Principal with a finance and M&A background, and Melanie Higgs is CFO and Operating Partner, bringing more than two decades of finance experience to the firm's operations.
Early Portfolio
Auxxo has already deployed into 11 companies from Female Catalyst Fund II. Publicly named investments include Emidat (climate data infrastructure for the built environment), Resolutiion (an AI platform for commercial dispute resolution), Stanhope.ai (neuroscience-driven autonomous systems), Marble Imaging (Earth observation satellites paired with AI analysis), Delta Labs (synthetic customer simulation for product and research teams), and Radiogenesis (AI-driven radiopharmaceutical design). The mix spans deep tech, climate infrastructure and applied AI rather than a single vertical thesis, consistent with Auxxo's sector-agnostic mandate.
What This Means for Founders
The clearest fit here is a pre-seed or seed startup anywhere in Europe with at least one female founder holding 20% or more of the company, in any sector, since Auxxo explicitly does not run a narrow thematic filter. Given the fund's new matchmaking platform, this is also a relevant stop for a strong solo technical or commercial operator who doesn't yet have a complete founding team; Auxxo is now actively building the infrastructure to pair such operators with co-founders before they'd otherwise be investable.
Founders should note that Auxxo's LP base itself, EIF, corporate and platform-VC participation, is a genuine value-add on top of the check: those relationships plausibly translate into warmer introductions at the Series A stage than a purely financial LP roster would provide, particularly for portfolio companies that end up as good co-investment fits for Cherry Ventures or Speedinvest downstream.
Fund Momentum Take
We think the step-up itself is the least interesting part of this story. Plenty of emerging managers post a 50-100% increase on a second fund and it means little beyond "the first fund didn't blow up." What we'd flag instead is the sequencing: Auxxo waited until it had a credible, EIF-anchored final close before launching a founder-matching product, rather than leading with the platform as a fundraising narrative. That ordering suggests the platform is meant to actually generate proprietary dealflow for Fund II and beyond, not just generate press for the raise.
The risk worth watching is dilution of focus. Running an active matchmaking platform alongside a sector-agnostic, pan-European investing mandate is a meaningfully heavier operating lift for a team of five than simply sourcing and writing checks, and it's fair to ask whether it pulls GP time away from portfolio support at exactly the stage, pre-seed and seed, where hands-on help matters most. Our bet is that if the platform genuinely produces differentiated, well-matched founding teams, it becomes Auxxo's durable edge over the next several funds. If it doesn't convert into meaningfully better deal quality within a year or two, it's the kind of ancillary initiative that quietly gets wound down.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did Auxxo raise for Female Catalyst Fund II?
The fund closed at €33.3 million, up from a €26 million first close in July 2025 and a 75% increase over the €19 million Fund I.
Who are Auxxo's General Partners?
Bettine Schmitz and Dr. Gesa Miczaika are General Partners. Co-founder Fabiola Hochkirchen holds the title of Initiating Partner rather than General Partner today.
What stage and criteria does the fund invest at?
Pre-seed and seed, sector-agnostic, pan-European, requiring at least one female founder holding a minimum of 20% of founder shares.
Who are the fund's main LPs?
The European Investment Fund anchored the round, joined by Aurum Impact, EnBW New Ventures, Cherry Ventures, Speedinvest, and a mix of family offices and angels. More than half of the LP base is women.
What is the new matchmaking platform Auxxo launched?
A pan-European platform designed to connect solo founders, experienced operators and capital-seeking teams to help build more diverse founding teams, launched alongside the fund's final close.
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