Cleo Ventures Closes €30M Fund II to Back Europe's AI-Native Founders
TL;DR
Paris-based Cleo Ventures has closed its second fund at €30 million to back European AI-native founders at pre-seed and seed, writing €300K to €1M first cheques. The fund is led by Antoine Veret and Maxime Le Dantec, anchored by Otium Capital, and structured around a "Trailblazers Club" of 40+ AI operators — including Aircall co-founder Olivier Pailhes, ex-Contentsquare CPO Lucie Buisson, and Meta AI's Llama lead Thomas Scialom — who hold carried interest in the fund itself in exchange for coaching portfolio founders.
Key Takeaways
Operators-as-LPs is now table stakes — operators-as-carry-holders is the new frontier. Cleo's Trailblazers Club gives carry directly to AI operators who advise founders. That economic alignment turns part-time advisors into full-time signal generators. Expect every credible AI-focused emerging fund in 2026 to attempt some version of this structure.
European AI capital is consolidating around dedicated specialists, not generalists. Cleo, Frst, Resonance (Cleo's predecessor), Air Street Capital, Hoxton Ventures' AI cohort — Europe is producing a cluster of small, focused AI funds writing €300K-€2M cheques. They are increasingly the right first call for European AI founders, not US generalist funds.
The team's previous track record under Resonance gives the fund instant credibility. Backing MatX (semiconductor for LLMs), Fintool (exited to Microsoft), DeepIP (patent AI), Animaj, Lightdash, GitGuardian, and Alice & Bob (quantum) is a portfolio most US Tier-1 seed funds would be happy to put up at a comparable check size.
Otium Capital anchoring matters more than the fund size. Otium is one of the most respected European family-office-style LP/principal investors. Their willingness to anchor a €30M second fund signals real institutional comfort with the Cleo thesis after the Resonance track record.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: Cleo Ventures Fund II
Fund Size: €30 million
Stage: Pre-seed and seed (often pre-product / pre-team)
Check Size: €300K to €1M first cheques
Geography: Primarily Europe, with selective US allocations
Focus: AI-native companies only — application, infrastructure, frontier lab, deeptech
Key LPs: Otium Capital; 40+ AI entrepreneurs and operators, including Olivier Pailhes (Aircall), Lucie Buisson (Contentsquare), and Thomas Scialom (Meta AI)
Why This Fund Matters
Cleo Ventures is testing a thesis the broader European venture market has been circling for two years: that AI-native company building is sufficiently different from traditional SaaS that it warrants dedicated capital, not a generalist seed fund pretending to know what it's doing. The Resonance track record (MatX, Fintool, DeepIP, Alice & Bob) gives this thesis empirical backing rather than narrative justification.
The €30M size is also deliberate. Europe is awash in €100-300M seed funds claiming AI expertise; the math of those funds requires writing larger cheques into more derisked rounds, which structurally pushes them out of the pre-product, pre-team stage where Cleo actually invests. A €30M fund writing €300K-€1M first cheques can do 30-40 investments with reserves and stay genuinely first-cheque. That's a structurally defensible position in the European market.
The Trailblazers Club is the most interesting structural innovation. Giving carried interest to 40+ operating advisors converts them from "scout" or "kitchen cabinet" to actual GP-aligned participants in the fund's success. The risk is dilution of GP economics; the reward, if the structure works, is a fundamentally better-informed selection and value-add engine than any generalist seed fund can replicate. Watch whether other emerging managers copy the structure in the next 12 months — that will be the real test of whether the idea scales beyond a single fund.
One risk worth flagging: AI-only thesis funds are exposed to a single sector cycle. If the AI capex cycle decelerates — and there are credible scenarios where it does in 2027-2028 — fund pacing and reserve strategy become harder to manage than a generalist would face. Cleo's response will likely be that AI-native isn't a sector but a building paradigm; we'll see if that argument holds up when valuations compress.
The Team
Antoine Veret, Co-founder and Managing Partner, previously co-founded Resonance, the predecessor angel-investing vehicle that backed MatX, Fintool, DeepIP, Animaj, and Alice & Bob. Veret is one of the more visible European AI investors and has built a reputation for very early conviction on infrastructure-layer companies.
Maxime Le Dantec, Co-founder and Managing Partner, partnered with Veret on Resonance and brings deep operating experience from prior roles in tech. The two-partner GP structure keeps decision velocity high — important for pre-seed where the difference between hearing about a deal and committing to it is often measured in hours.
The Cleo Trailblazers Club currently includes Olivier Pailhes, co-founder and former CEO of Aircall (scaled to $200M ARR and 1,000+ employees); Lucie Buisson, former CPO and employee #13 at Contentsquare (helped build a $5.6B platform); and Thomas Scialom, PhD, Senior Staff Researcher at Meta AI who led Llama 2 and Llama 3 and is now working on Meta's agentic model. These are operator-grade names rare in the European venture ecosystem.
Early Portfolio
Resonance / Cleo's previous track record includes MatX (AI-optimized hardware), Fintool (exited to Microsoft, AI equity analyst), DeepIP (AI patent copilot), Animaj (AI publishing for kids' content), Linc (AI-native payroll engine), Metomic (SaaS data security), Okomera (deeptech personalized cancer treatment), Flagcat (AI webtoon studio), AMI Labs (real-world AI systems), and Piloc (property-management ERP). Across infrastructure, application, and frontier-lab categories.
What This Means for Founders
If you are an AI-native founder in Europe at pre-product or pre-team stage, Cleo Ventures is now arguably the highest-signal first-call available to you. The Trailblazers Club access alone — particularly Pailhes for go-to-market, Buisson for product, and Scialom for technical depth on LLM/agent work — is value-add that no €30M-size US fund can match in Europe.
The trade-off is concentration. A €300K-€1M cheque from Cleo means they want to lead or co-lead the round and play a meaningful role from day one. Founders looking for passive small-cheque syndicate participation should look elsewhere. If you want a true Day 1 partner who will be in the WhatsApp chat at midnight, this is the structure built for you.
Fund Momentum Take
The €30M size is the right call and the Trailblazers Club structure is genuinely novel. Our concern is that AI-only funds will face a difficult narrative test in 2027-2028 if the AI capex cycle compresses; Cleo's pacing discipline and reserve strategy will need to be tight to weather that.
The bull case: Veret and Le Dantec have proven track records, Otium is a credible anchor, the operator bench is best-in-class for Europe, and the structural fund size matches the actual deployment opportunity. This is a much better-engineered emerging fund than 80% of what's launching in Europe right now.
The bet here is that European AI founders increasingly prefer European AI specialist capital to US generalist seed capital — and that the Trailblazers Club's carry-aligned advisors become a real moat rather than a marketing flourish. If both prove true, Cleo Fund II is a sub-€50M vintage with top-quartile potential.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Cleo Ventures' check size?
€300K to €1M first cheques at pre-seed and seed, with reserves for follow-on participation.
Who are the partners at Cleo Ventures?
Antoine Veret and Maxime Le Dantec, both previously of Resonance, the angel-investing predecessor vehicle.
What is the Cleo Trailblazers Club?
A curated group of 40+ AI founders and operators — including Olivier Pailhes (Aircall), Lucie Buisson (Contentsquare), and Thomas Scialom (Meta AI / Llama) — who hold carried interest in the fund in exchange for coaching portfolio companies on GTM, product, research, and org building.
What sectors does Cleo Ventures invest in?
AI-native companies exclusively, spanning application AI, AI infrastructure, frontier labs, and AI-adjacent deeptech.
What is the geography focus?
Primarily European AI founders, with selective US allocations where the team has previously co-invested.
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