b2venture Closes €150M Fund V to Back Europe’s Next Wave of Deep Tech and B2B Leaders

Key Takeaways

1. b2venture has closed its fifth fund at €150M, the largest in the firm’s history.
2. The fund will back early-stage European startups, with strong emphasis on deep tech and scalable B2B models.
3. b2venture continues its hybrid model combining institutional capital with one of Europe’s largest founder-angel networks.

Why This Fund Matters

Raising €150M for an early-stage European fund in the current market is not a routine event. It signals durability, trust from LPs, and a strategy that has survived multiple venture cycles.

b2venture is not a new name in European tech. Over more than two decades, the firm has quietly built a reputation for backing technically ambitious founders early, long before categories become fashionable.

Fund V is a continuation of that playbook, but at a larger scale.

For founders, this matters because early capital is becoming more selective, more structured, and increasingly concentrated in funds that can demonstrate long-term performance rather than short-term hype.

Investment Strategy: Deep Tech with Commercial Discipline

b2venture remains industry-agnostic in principle, but not in practice. Its investments tend to cluster around businesses that combine three traits:

1. strong technical differentiation
2. complex problem spaces
3. and enterprise-grade monetisation paths

Fund V will primarily target:

1. artificial intelligence and machine intelligence
2. robotics and automation
3. industrial and manufacturing technology
4. infrastructure and developer platforms
5. data-intensive B2B software

This is not consumer trend investing. The fund is structured around building companies that grow slowly at first, but compound for a decade.

The Community Model as a Competitive Advantage

What differentiates b2venture from many European funds is its embedded founder-angel network.

Over the years, the firm has assembled hundreds of operators, repeat founders, and technical leaders who actively participate in:

1. deal sourcing
2. early customer introductions
3. hiring
4. product feedback
5. follow-on financing

Fund V formalizes this approach even further. Instead of treating angels as passive co-investors, b2venture treats them as part of its operating system.

For founders, this often translates into faster enterprise access, warmer introductions, and practical help during the most fragile company stages.

What €150M Changes in Practice

At this fund size, b2venture gains several structural advantages:

1. ability to lead seed rounds consistently
2. capacity to reserve meaningful follow-on capital
3. stronger positioning in competitive deals
4. greater continuity from pre-seed through Series A
5. increased credibility with international growth funds

This reduces one of the biggest risks for early founders: being orphaned after the first round.

What This Signals for European Founders

Fund V sends a few clear signals to the market:

1. Deep tech in Europe is no longer a niche category
2. Institutional LPs are comfortable underwriting long development cycles again
3. Early-stage investing is shifting toward fewer, more conviction-driven partners
4. Founder-operator networks are becoming a serious competitive moat

For teams building technically complex products outside the traditional consumer spotlight, this is a meaningful tailwind.

Conclusion

b2venture’s fifth fund is not about changing strategy. It is about scaling a model that already works.

By combining institutional capital, founder-angels, and long-cycle conviction investing, the firm is positioning itself as one of the central early-stage platforms for Europe’s next generation of infrastructure, AI, and industrial technology companies.

For founders building real systems rather than short-term narratives, Fund V represents something increasingly rare: patient capital with operational depth.