Newfund Closes Europe's First BrainTech VC Fund HEKA at €60M, Engineered as a Transatlantic Bridge
TL;DR
Paris-based Newfund has closed HEKA, a €60 million specialist fund dedicated to BrainTech, which it bills as Europe's first fund purpose-built for brain science and neuro-adjacent technologies. The vehicle writes $250K to $2M first checks into pre-seed and seed rounds spanning AI, digital therapeutics, advanced medical imaging, and biotech, with a plan to back 25 companies. HEKA has already screened more than 900 startups and built a nine-company portfolio ahead of final close. The fund is engineered to connect European brain science with the US commercialization pipeline via Newfund's Palo Alto presence.
Key Takeaways
BrainTech is finally getting its own category fund in Europe. Neuroscience, neuro-AI, and brain-focused therapeutics have historically been funded piecemeal by generalist biotech VCs, healthtech specialists, or mission-driven foundations. A dedicated €60 million vehicle with scientific specialisation and a 25-company mandate creates real category gravity for founders who have been forced to shop their decks across mismatched investor theses.
The transatlantic bridge is the real differentiation. European neuroscience research output is world-class, but commercialization has historically been captured by US buyers, clinical networks, and capital. Newfund's 17-year US footprint, a Palo Alto office, and a portfolio of 50 American startups converts that geography gap from a bug into a structural edge for HEKA's founders.
$250K-$2M first checks with follow-on reserves is the right architecture for this category. BrainTech companies need real capital to get to clinical validation but also benefit enormously from disciplined pre-seed and seed pacing to de-risk scientific hypotheses before a priced round. HEKA's check size and follow-on flexibility match the category's capital absorption curve better than most generalist seed funds.
Nine deals pre-close at a 1% hit rate signals genuine deal selectivity. Having reviewed over 900 companies and met 550-plus founding teams before deploying into nine, HEKA has effectively run a forced-rank exercise that should translate into better cohort outcomes than the typical spray-and-pray seed strategy. That is worth watching as a Fund I underwriting methodology.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: HEKA (by Newfund Capital)
Fund Size: €60 million
Stage: Pre-seed and seed, with follow-on reserves
Check Size: $250K to $2M for first checks, follow-on in subsequent rounds
Geography: Europe (primary), with active bridge to the US ecosystem
Focus: BrainTech, spanning AI, digital therapeutics, advanced imaging, and biotech
Key LPs: Not publicly disclosed
Why This Fund Matters
BrainTech has been one of the most scientifically interesting and commercially awkward categories in European venture. The underlying research is strong: Europe hosts multiple top-10 global neuroscience institutions, and governments have been pouring public money into flagship programs, with the EU's quantum and AI initiatives now spilling over into brain-adjacent computing. What has been missing is venture capital willing to underwrite the specific science-to-clinic pathway that BrainTech companies need to traverse. Generalist seed funds struggle with regulatory timelines. Biotech specialists default to small-molecule pipelines. Healthtech VCs want faster SaaS-style revenue curves. HEKA plants a flag for founders who have been stuck between categories.
The €60 million size is more significant than it looks for a seed fund. At $250K to $2M initial checks and a 25-company target, HEKA has roughly €30M to €35M deployable in initial positions and another €25M in follow-on reserves. That is enough to meaningfully participate in Series A rounds for the best performers, which is exactly where European BrainTech companies have historically lost ownership to US-led rounds. The ability to hold pro-rata through a Series A priced in London or Paris, and then introduce US investors for the Series B, is a real strategic weapon.
The category itself is riding several cyclical and structural tailwinds. Neurological disease burden is rising with aging demographics. Regulators are warming up to digital therapeutics and software-as-medical-device pathways. Foundation models are accelerating computational neuroscience and medical imaging workflows. Consumer brain health and cognitive performance are becoming legitimate venture categories. Any fund manager with scientific depth and operational discipline stands to benefit from this convergence, and HEKA is positioned closer to the frontier than almost any other European seed fund operating today.
The Team
François Véron, Managing Partner and co-founder, has led Newfund since its 2008 launch, investing across more than 130 companies over 17 years. He is one of the more scientifically literate VCs in the Paris ecosystem and has been a consistent public voice on European research commercialization gaps. Anne-Sophie Saint-Martin serves as Partner in charge of HEKA's investment strategy, bringing deep operational fluency in the fund's target categories. Henri Deshays, Partner since 2017, runs the US bridge from Palo Alto and is the architect of the transatlantic deployment model. The broader team includes Patrick Malka, Salim Hassad, and Pierre Frouin, all with specialist backgrounds in deep-tech and health-tech investing.
This is a disciplined, science-literate team with a track record of deploying in Europe and managing US-facing strategic introductions, which is the critical capability for BrainTech founders who need to access FDA regulatory pathways, US academic medical center partnerships, and US commercial payers.
Early Portfolio
HEKA has already built a nine-company portfolio pre-close, drawn from a screened funnel of 900-plus BrainTech startups. Disclosed portfolio themes span AI-assisted radiology tools, acute stroke triage, ultrasound-based screening, post-stroke rehabilitation robotics, mRNA therapy manufacturing, digital treatment for depression, and platforms supporting drug discovery and EMDR therapy. The breadth indicates that HEKA is deliberately building exposure across therapeutic, diagnostic, and enabling-technology layers rather than concentrating bets in a single subsector.
What This Means for Founders
If you are building anything at the intersection of neuroscience and applied technology, HEKA should be on your first-meeting list. The check size matches where most European BrainTech companies need to be funded, the scientific literacy of the team means you will not waste diligence cycles explaining basics, and the US bridge is a concrete asset when you need to raise your next round. Expect HEKA to be proactive about intellectual property strategy, clinical validation pathways, and regulatory positioning in ways that most generalist seed VCs cannot match.
Where HEKA is less obvious a fit is for pure software plays that happen to mention the brain (e.g., generic productivity apps, consumer wellness apps with weak scientific grounding). The fund's deal velocity suggests it will not be seduced by brain-adjacent branding without underlying scientific differentiation. Founders should lead with data, papers, and clinical endpoints, not TAM slides.
Fund Momentum Take
HEKA is one of the more thesis-coherent seed funds launching in Europe this year, and we think it has a credible path to top-quartile BrainTech seed returns if the macro environment for digital therapeutics and medical AI continues to normalize. The combination of Paris-based scientific deal flow, US-based commercialization support, and a €60M war chest is a structural advantage that will be hard for pure-play generalist seed funds to replicate.
Key risks are category-specific. Digital therapeutics has had a brutal public market cycle, with several previously high-flying names trading far below issuance pricing. Regulatory pathways for software-as-medical-device remain variable across jurisdictions. And the Series B gap for European BrainTech is still painful, which means HEKA's portfolio exits will likely depend heavily on US strategic acquirers rather than clean IPO paths. A reasonable investor should price in extended holding periods and uneven DPI pacing.
Our bet: HEKA will surface at least two category-defining European BrainTech breakouts from Fund I, and Newfund will return to raise a significantly larger HEKA II (we would guess €150M to €200M) within 36 months, anchored by US strategic LPs who see the fund as a pipeline into early-stage European neuroscience assets. This is a fund we expect to be on most neurotech founder shortlists by the end of 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is BrainTech?
BrainTech refers to technology at the intersection of neuroscience and applied tools, including AI for medical imaging, digital therapeutics for mental health and neurological conditions, brain-computer interfaces, cognitive assessment platforms, and drug discovery tools targeting central nervous system disorders.
Is HEKA really the first European BrainTech fund?
It is the first European fund that is purely specialist in BrainTech with a dedicated thematic mandate at scale. Other European VCs have brain-adjacent portfolios within broader healthtech or biotech vehicles, but HEKA's architecture is category-specific.
Who leads HEKA?
François Véron (Managing Partner), Anne-Sophie Saint-Martin (Partner, HEKA investment strategy), and Henri Deshays (Partner, US bridge based in Palo Alto), supported by the broader Newfund team including Patrick Malka, Salim Hassad, and Pierre Frouin.
What check sizes will HEKA write?
First checks of $250K to $2M into pre-seed and seed rounds, with follow-on reserves for subsequent rounds. The fund targets 25 portfolio companies in total.
Does HEKA only invest in France or Europe broadly?
The fund is European-focused on deployment, but Newfund's active US presence and 50 American portfolio companies means HEKA-backed founders can access the US market through the firm's Palo Alto office. Some US-linked investments within the European thesis are plausible.
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