NewSchool VC Closes €10M Debut Fund for Belgian B2B Tech

TL;DR

Christophe Morbee has closed NewSchool Fund I at €10 million, roughly 64% larger than its €6.1 million first close a year ago, to back pre-seed and seed B2B technology founders — primarily in Belgium, with roughly a quarter of capital reserved for the rest of Europe. It's a solo-GP fund where Morbee himself put up a quarter of the capital, and it's already deployed into 32 companies, which tells you this is a high-velocity, operator-led strategy rather than a slow, concentrated one.

Key Takeaways

Solo-GP with real skin in the game. Morbee funding 25% of his own vehicle out of pocket is a meaningfully different signal than a typical GP commit, and it's the kind of alignment that LPs in smaller, newer funds increasingly demand before writing a check to a first-time manager.

32 investments on €10M is an aggressive pace. That implies an average check well under €300K, consistent with a spray-and-pray-adjacent pre-seed strategy rather than concentrated conviction bets — which has real implications for how much hands-on support each portfolio company can realistically expect.

The thesis is explicitly about go-to-market, not technology. Morbee's framing — that Europe has strong engineering talent but lacks people who "take charge of go-to-market, sales and storytelling" — is a well-worn critique of European venture, but backing it with a fund and a personal operating background (he's CEO of a Belgian payroll/HR company) gives it more credibility than most.

LP base skews operator and entrepreneur, not institutional. With family offices and named entrepreneurs as LPs rather than large institutional allocators, this fund reads as a well-connected local angel syndicate formalized into a fund structure — useful for founders who want operator-LPs in their cap table, less useful if you need a fund with deep follow-on reserves.

Fund Overview

Fund Name: NewSchool Fund I
Fund Size: €10 million (up from a €6.1 million first close in September 2025)
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Check Size: Approximately €100,000–€500,000, based on the fund's stated typical range
Geography: Primarily Belgium (~75% of capital); remaining allocation across Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, France, and the UK
Focus: B2B technology companies automating or modernizing traditional industries, spanning AI, SaaS, cybersecurity, robotics, and compliance
Key LPs: Approximately 50 investors, including six family offices (among them The Millers Office) and named entrepreneur-LPs such as Willem Delbaere and Roeland Delrue of Aikido Security, Jean-Louis Van Houwe of Monizze, and Luc Coopman of Cobofisk

Why This Fund Matters

Belgium doesn't get much venture capital coverage relative to its neighbors, and that's precisely what makes NewSchool's emergence worth a closer look. Most Belgian pre-seed activity has historically run through a handful of established names or spilled over from French and Dutch funds treating Belgium as an afterthought market. A dedicated, Belgium-rooted fund with 75% of its capital staying local is a meaningful data point for the depth of the country's early-stage ecosystem.

The fund's growth trajectory — €6.1 million at first close to €10 million roughly a year later — is itself informative. That's not a fund that struggled to raise; it's one that found LP demand exceeding its initial target and kept the door open. For a solo-GP vehicle with no prior institutional fund track record, that kind of oversubscription-adjacent growth suggests the entrepreneur-LP network Morbee tapped had genuine conviction, not just goodwill.

The "old industries meet new technology" thesis is common across European early-stage investing right now, but NewSchool's execution of it — with an explicit go-to-market value-add promise backed by an LP base full of operators who've actually built and sold companies — is a sharper version of the pitch than most funds making the same claim. Whether that translates into real support at 32-plus portfolio companies and counting is the open question; go-to-market support is one of the hardest things for a small, high-volume fund to deliver consistently.

It's also worth noting what this fund is not: it's not chasing category-defining, venture-scale outcomes with concentrated capital. It's building a high-volume portfolio of B2B companies with real revenue potential in unsexy, often overlooked sectors. That's a legitimate strategy, and arguably a more capital-efficient one for a €10 million fund than trying to compete with larger funds for the same handful of hyped AI deals.

The Team

NewSchool Fund I is run as a solo-GP vehicle by Christophe Morbee, who is also CEO of besox, a Belgian payroll and HR services provider. That dual role — active operator and fund manager simultaneously — is unusual for a fund of this size, and it cuts both ways: it gives Morbee genuine, current operating credibility with founders, but it also means his bandwidth is split between running a company and running a fund with 32-plus portfolio companies already on the books.

Early Portfolio

The fund has made 32 investments to date, with three more reportedly in the pipeline. Named portfolio companies include Warren, Spotable, Cashfeed, Ravical, Donna, Dalton, Feedelity, Alice Law, Exhibitly, Talentir, and Outline — a spread across fintech, legal tech, media, and B2B software that reflects the fund's sector-agnostic, industry-modernization thesis rather than a narrow vertical bet.

What This Means for Founders

If you're a pre-seed or seed B2B founder in Belgium building something that automates a traditional industry workflow, NewSchool is a logical first call, particularly if your own go-to-market muscle is thinner than your product. The fund's stated value-add — hands-on help with sales, positioning, and storytelling — is exactly the gap many technically strong European founding teams struggle to close on their own, and Morbee's own operating background gives that promise more weight than it would carry from a pure financial investor.

Founders outside Belgium in the fund's secondary geographies (Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, France, UK) should understand they're competing for a smaller slice of capital — roughly 25% of the fund — and that Belgian founders will likely get priority given the fund's stated home-market bias.

Fund Momentum Take

We're constructive on NewSchool as a case study in what a well-networked solo-GP fund can accomplish in an underserved market, but we'd flag the deployment pace as the thing to watch most closely. Thirty-two investments out of a €10 million fund means very little dry powder per company for meaningful follow-on participation in later rounds, which puts real pressure on the fund's ability to defend ownership as portfolio companies mature and raise from larger investors.

The entrepreneur-heavy LP base is a genuine differentiator — founders backed by NewSchool get access to operators who've built and exited companies in payroll, payments, and legal services, which is more useful than a generic angel network. But solo-GP funds also carry concentration risk on the manager: if Morbee's attention gets pulled harder toward besox, or if he doesn't raise a Fund II, the platform value for existing portfolio companies could thin out over time.

Our bet: this is a fund worth watching for how it handles the transition from "high-volume pre-seed spray" to "which ten companies get real follow-on support," which is the test every high-velocity early-stage fund eventually faces.

Frequently Asked Questions

How big is NewSchool Fund I?
The fund closed at €10 million, up from a €6.1 million first close in September 2025.

Who runs NewSchool VC?
Christophe Morbee is the solo General Partner. He is also CEO of besox, a Belgian payroll and HR services company, and personally contributed roughly 25% of the fund's capital.

What stage and geography does the fund target?
Pre-seed and seed-stage B2B technology companies, with about 75% of capital allocated to Belgium and the remainder spread across Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, France, and the UK.

How many companies has the fund backed so far?
NewSchool has made 32 investments to date, with three additional deals reportedly in the pipeline.

What sectors does NewSchool invest in?
The fund is sector-agnostic within B2B technology but is particularly focused on AI, SaaS, cybersecurity, robotics, and compliance companies that automate or modernize traditional industries.

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