Forty.5 Ventures Closes $30M Debut Fund for SE Europe

TL;DR

Forty.5 Ventures, a new pre-seed and seed firm built around a US–Southeastern Europe–Asia Pacific corridor, has closed its debut fund at $30 million. The firm writes $200,000 to $1 million checks into vertical AI, fintech and cybersecurity companies, plus a consumer stack spanning gaming, sports, media, entertainment and creator-economy infrastructure, with home bases in Los Angeles, Belgrade and Singapore. It matters because it is a rare dedicated vehicle betting specifically on Southeastern Europe as a source region, built by a team explicit about wanting the best companies from that region to go global rather than stay regional, backed entirely by family offices, angels and operators rather than institutional LPs.

Key Takeaways

This is a corridor fund, not a single-region fund. Forty.5 Ventures' entire structural premise is that Southeastern European founders need both early capital at home and real doors abroad once they're ready to expand, which is why the firm has built out offices in Los Angeles and Singapore alongside its Belgrade base rather than running a purely regional shop. That's a materially different model from most emerging-market seed funds, which typically stop at writing the check and leave market-entry support to accelerators or later-stage investors.

An all-angel, no-institutional-LP base is unusual for a fund of this size. $30 million raised entirely from family offices, angels and operators, with no disclosed institutional or sovereign LP, is a notable structure for a debut fund at this scale. It suggests the GPs' personal networks and prior operating credibility did the fundraising work that a track record normally would, but it also means the fund enters without the governance and follow-on-capital backstop that a pension fund or fund-of-funds LP typically provides.

The sector mix pairs an obvious thesis with a more contrarian one. Vertical AI, fintech and cybersecurity are crowded, consensus categories that most seed funds already claim to cover. The firm's parallel bet on a "consumer stack", gaming, sports, media, entertainment and creator-economy infrastructure, is the more differentiated part of the thesis, and it lines up with the team's own stated portfolio in sports and entertainment (Sportfolio Group, Arena+).

A two-track model (F5V Build and F5V Capital) blurs venture studio and traditional VC. Forty.5 Ventures runs a free, pre-product venture builder (F5V Build) alongside its $30 million check-writing arm (F5V Capital). That structure lets the firm engage founders before there's anything to underwrite in the traditional sense, effectively building its own deal flow rather than competing for allocation in existing pre-seed rounds.

Fund Overview

Fund Name: Forty.5 Ventures Fund I
Fund Size: $30 million
Stage: Pre-Seed and Seed (with a dedicated Fund II for follow-on and Series A investing reportedly planned)
Check Size: $200,000 to $1 million
Geography: Primary focus on Southeastern Europe, with selective investing in the United States and Asia Pacific
Focus: Vertical AI, FinTech and Cybersecurity, plus a consumer stack spanning Gaming, Sports, Media, Entertainment and creator-economy infrastructure
Key LPs: Family offices, angels and operators across Europe, the US and Asia Pacific; no institutional or sovereign LPs disclosed

Why This Fund Matters

Southeastern Europe has produced a real, if under-covered, run of venture outcomes over the past decade, but dedicated early-stage capital based in the region and written by teams with genuine operating experience in both the region and its target export markets has remained scarce relative to Western Europe, Israel, or even the broader CEE corridor further north. Most capital reaching Southeastern European founders at pre-seed still comes from generalist European seed funds treating the region as one stop on a broader European tour, or from angels without institutional infrastructure behind them.

Forty.5 Ventures is explicitly positioning itself against that gap. The firm's own framing, that a first fund is "bought with belief, not track record", and its choice to build Los Angeles and Singapore offices alongside Belgrade rather than only a regional presence, signals a bet that the binding constraint on Southeastern European founders isn't just capital access at the earliest stage, it's the absence of credible help getting from a regional seed round to a Series A or market entry led by investors and customers in the US or Asia Pacific.

The all-angel LP base is worth sitting with for a moment. Raising $30 million without a single disclosed institutional LP is unusual, and it cuts both ways. On one hand, it reflects real conviction from individuals who know the GPs and the region well enough to write checks before there was a track record to diligence. On the other, institutional LPs typically bring not just capital but follow-on reserves, governance discipline and access to later-stage co-investors; a fund built entirely on angel and family-office capital will need to prove it can replicate those benefits through its own network rather than an LP base built for exactly that purpose.

The parallel F5V Build venture-builder program is also a meaningful structural choice. By engaging founders before product or revenue exists, Forty.5 Ventures is effectively manufacturing its own proprietary deal flow in a region where competing for allocation in the best rounds against well-capitalized Western funds is genuinely difficult for a $30 million debut vehicle. It is a strategy that trades some capital efficiency for control over sourcing, a trade many venture studios have made with mixed but occasionally excellent results.

The Team

Forty.5 Ventures is led by Zoran Vasiljev, Group CEO and founding partner, and Danijela Vasiljev, general partner, both based in the United States. Riccardo Monti serves as chairman and venture partner covering Europe; in the firm's own announcement, Monti frames the team's value proposition around operating experience rather than advice: "We've built companies, and we've sold them, so we know what a founder actually needs at pre-seed, and it usually isn't advice."

The broader partner bench is structured regionally: Bobby Napiltonia and Greg Tarr serve as venture partners in the United States, Stipe Maric and Rade Popovic as venture partners in Europe, and Veljko Vasic as venture partner covering Asia. It's worth noting that, per the firm's own team listing, only Zoran and Danijela Vasiljev carry general partner or founding partner titles; Monti and the remaining regional partners hold venture partner designations, an operating and network-support role distinct from fund decision-making authority in most VC structures, though the firm has not published details on its formal investment committee.

Early Portfolio

Forty.5 Ventures' own site lists nine portfolio companies to date spanning its target sectors: qooob and GetStuffDone (B2B/AI, seed stage), OTLRS (infrastructure/payments, pre-seed), yooop (consumer/AI, seed), Maestro (infrastructure/AI, Series A), Hi-Duke (infrastructure/technology, seed), Sportfolio Group and Arena+ (sports/entertainment, Series A), and ANDEIM (consumer/hard-tech, seed). The firm also lists a separate set of advisory or studio relationships, including InvestingNote and Fashory in Southeast Asia and Veli, Lupa Technologies, Farmit and The Social Formula across Europe and the Balkans, reflecting the breadth of the F5V Build venture-studio arm alongside direct fund investments.

What This Means for Founders

For Southeastern European founders, Forty.5 Ventures represents a rare check-writer that is both locally based (Belgrade) and structurally built to help with international expansion, rather than a fly-in fund or a purely domestic angel syndicate. Founders building in vertical AI, fintech, cybersecurity or the firm's consumer-stack categories, and with credible ambitions beyond the home region, look like the clearest fit given the stated thesis and the Los Angeles and Singapore presence.

Founders earlier than a fundable seed round should also look at F5V Build, the firm's free venture-builder track for founders "before product, before revenue." That program appears designed to be a feeder into F5V Capital's check-writing, so engaging there could be a lower-friction way to build a relationship with the firm ahead of a formal raise.

Fund Momentum Take

We like the specificity of this fund's positioning. "Southeastern Europe with real doors in LA and Singapore" is a genuinely differentiated thesis in a seed landscape crowded with funds claiming broad, undifferentiated geographic mandates, and the team's decision to staff regional venture partners across all three legs of that corridor (Napiltonia and Tarr in the US, Maric and Popovic in Europe, Vasic in Asia) gives the thesis some real organizational teeth rather than being a slide-deck claim.

The honest risk sits with fund size and LP composition. $30 million split across $200,000 to $1 million checks gives Forty.5 Ventures room for roughly 30 to 60 initial positions before reserves, which is a workable but not generous amount of capital to build a genuinely diversified portfolio across three geographies and five-plus sectors simultaneously. Combined with an LP base of family offices and angels rather than institutions built for follow-on support, the fund's ability to protect ownership in its winners through Series A and beyond will depend heavily on syndicate relationships the GPs build deal by deal, rather than dedicated reserve capital or a deep-pocketed anchor LP. Our bet is that the team's stated operating experience (Monti's framing of having "built and sold" companies) and the region-spanning partner structure give this fund a real shot at sourcing well; the follow-on capital question is the one to watch as the portfolio matures toward Series A.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much did Forty.5 Ventures raise for its debut fund?
$30 million for Fund I, its first institutional vehicle.

What stage and check sizes does the fund invest at?
Pre-seed and seed, with checks ranging from $200,000 to $1 million per company.

What sectors and geographies does Forty.5 Ventures focus on?
Primarily Southeastern Europe, with selective investing in the US and Asia Pacific, across vertical AI, fintech, cybersecurity, and a consumer stack of gaming, sports, media, entertainment and creator-economy infrastructure.

Who are the fund's general partners?
Zoran Vasiljev (Group CEO and founding partner) and Danijela Vasiljev (general partner) lead the firm, both based in the United States, with Riccardo Monti chairing the firm as venture partner for Europe.

Who backed the fund?
Family offices, angels and operators across Europe, the US and Asia Pacific; the firm has not disclosed any institutional or sovereign LPs in Fund I.

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