QuantumLight Closes $500M Fund II: Storonsky's AI-Driven VC Bet
TL;DR
QuantumLight, the AI-driven venture firm co-founded by Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky and led day-to-day by CEO Ilya Kondrashov, has closed its second fund at €432 million (roughly $500 million), nearly double the €222 million ($250 million) it raised for Fund I just fifteen months earlier in May 2025. The London-based firm leans on an in-house AI system called Aleph to screen and evaluate growth-stage opportunities across AI, fintech, SaaS, healthtech and deep tech, and says the round was oversubscribed. With five of its 27 portfolio companies already at unicorn status, including Together AI and Function Health, QuantumLight is making the case that algorithmic sourcing can compete with, and maybe outpace, the relationship-driven model that has defined venture for seven decades.
Key Takeaways
A near-2x step-up in fifteen months is a statement, not a coincidence. Going from €222M to €432M inside 15 months is an unusually fast follow-on for a firm with a two-year track record. LPs typically want two or three years of realized signal before doubling down; here they got unrealized marks and a thesis instead, which says as much about the AI-investing narrative's pull on capital as it does about QuantumLight's actual returns.
Storonsky's brand is doing real fundraising work. A solo GP or first-time manager raising €432M on a two-year track record would be almost unheard of. Storonsky's built-and-scaled Revolut to a $45B valuation, and that operator credibility is clearly substituting for the long realized-return history LPs would otherwise demand. It's a name-brand premium, and it's worth watching whether it holds if Aleph's picks underperform.
Systematic sourcing is a real experiment worth tracking, not a gimmick. Most "AI-powered VC" claims amount to marketing gloss on top of a normal partner-driven process. QuantumLight's pitch, that Aleph does the screening with limited human involvement, is a genuine structural bet against how venture has worked since its inception. Whether that holds up through a full cycle of markdowns is the real test, and Fund II is large enough now that the results will be legible.
Growth-stage AI is getting crowded at the top. Together AI and Function Health as anchor wins put QuantumLight in the same rooms as Sequoia, a16z, and Index on growth-stage AI infrastructure and consumer-health deals. A quant-flavored underwriting process could be a genuine differentiator for winning allocation in competitive rounds, or it could just mean QuantumLight is paying up for the same deals everyone else wants.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: QuantumLight Fund II
Fund Size: €432 million (~$500 million), oversubscribed
Stage: Growth-stage, with some earlier positions
Check Size: Not disclosed
Geography: Global, with a London base and a stated bias toward the US and Europe
Focus: AI, fintech, SaaS, healthtech and deep tech, sourced and screened via QuantumLight's proprietary "Aleph" AI system
Key LPs: Not publicly disclosed
Why This Fund Matters
Every AI cycle produces a wave of managers who claim technology gives them an edge in sourcing or underwriting. Most of those claims don't survive contact with an actual portfolio. QuantumLight is a sharper test case than most because the founder isn't a fintech operator dabbling in venture as a side project, he built one of Europe's largest fintechs from scratch, which means the "we use AI to pick better" pitch comes attached to genuine pattern-recognition credibility rather than just capital.
The size and speed of this raise also says something about where LP dollars are flowing inside venture right now. A near-doubling in fifteen months, with a firm barely two years old, is the kind of number that would have been unthinkable for a first-time-plus-one fund five years ago. It reflects both genuine conviction in the algorithmic-sourcing thesis and a broader scramble among institutional LPs to get exposure to AI-native managers before the category matures and access tightens.
There's a structural tension worth watching here too. Venture has always been a business built on asymmetric information and relationships, the stuff that's hardest to systematize. If Aleph is genuinely surfacing deals or making underwriting calls that a traditional partnership would miss, that's a real edge. If it's mostly a sophisticated filter layered on top of a conventional network-driven pipeline (which is far more common in "AI-powered" claims across the industry), then the tool is a nice-to-have rather than the differentiator the fundraising narrative implies.
For founders, the practical upshot is that QuantumLight is now a well-capitalized check writer at growth stage with a specific and unusual evaluation process. That's worth understanding before you take the meeting, because a data-driven underwriting process can mean faster, more legible decisions, or it can mean your traction metrics get run through a model you'll never see and never get to argue with.
The Team
Nik Storonsky co-founded QuantumLight in 2023 as what's been widely described as a side project alongside running Revolut, the fintech he co-founded in 2015 and grew into one of Europe's most valuable startups, reported at a $45 billion valuation with more than $4 billion in revenue and 60 million-plus users across nearly 40 countries. Storonsky is publicly positioned as co-founder rather than day-to-day operator of the fund.
Ilya Kondrashov serves as CEO and runs the firm operationally. He's described in Sifted's profile of him as the person tasked with translating Storonsky's systematic, relentless approach into an actual functioning investment operation, QuantumLight employs roughly 26 people. Beyond Storonsky and Kondrashov, the firm has not publicly disclosed a broader general partner bench; readers should treat any additional names attached to QuantumLight in third-party databases as unconfirmed until the firm's own materials name them.
Early Portfolio
QuantumLight has backed 27 companies since inception, with five having reached unicorn status: Together AI, Function Health, Factory, Robin AI, and Ben, alongside energy-sector investment Fuse Energy. Together AI (AI infrastructure/compute) and Function Health (consumer health diagnostics) are the most prominent names in that group and give a reasonable read on where Fund II capital is likely to concentrate.
What This Means for Founders
If you're raising a growth round in AI, fintech, SaaS, healthtech or deep tech and want a lead or co-investor with real dry powder, QuantumLight now has half a billion euros to deploy and a demonstrated willingness to write large, concentrated checks into category leaders. The Aleph-driven diligence process is worth asking about directly in the first conversation, understanding what data the model weighs and how much a partner's judgment can override it will tell you a lot about how predictable your fundraising process with them will be.
This is not the right fit for pre-seed or seed founders looking for a hands-on, high-touch first check. QuantumLight's profile, growth-stage, data-driven, backed by a fintech billionaire's brand, suits founders who already have traction data worth feeding into a model and want a well-capitalized, high-conviction partner for a competitive round rather than a builder-in-the-trenches co-founder type of investor.
Fund Momentum Take
We're genuinely uncertain whether QuantumLight's systematic approach represents a durable edge or a well-marketed variant of conventional growth investing with a AI story wrapped around it, and we'd flag that as speculation rather than a confident call either way. What's not speculative is that LPs are willing to underwrite a near-2x step-up on a two-year track record when the founder's operating pedigree is strong enough, and that's a data point about capital allocation in 2026 as much as it is about QuantumLight specifically.
The real risk sits in what happens during the next markdown cycle. Algorithmic sourcing claims tend to look brilliant in a bull market for AI names and much shakier once multiples compress and the model's picks have to be judged on cash-on-cash returns rather than paper marks. QuantumLight's unicorn count (five of 27) is a solid early hit rate, but hit rate at the mark-up stage and hit rate at exit are two very different numbers, and we won't know which one QuantumLight actually has for a few more years.
Our bet: this is a firm worth tracking closely rather than dismissing as hype. Storonsky has a track record of building things that work at scale, and if Aleph genuinely improves signal quality even modestly, a half-billion-euro fund deployed with real discipline could produce an unusually clean outcome. We'd rather watch the next 18 months of deployment than bet the thesis either way today.
Frequently Asked Questions
How big is QuantumLight's Fund II?
€432 million (approximately $500 million), and the firm says the round was oversubscribed.
How does this compare to QuantumLight's first fund?
Fund I closed at €222 million (~$250 million) in May 2025, so Fund II represents nearly a 2x step-up in about fifteen months.
Who runs QuantumLight day to day?
CEO Ilya Kondrashov manages operations; Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky is co-founder and the public face of the firm's investing thesis.
What makes QuantumLight's investment process different?
The firm uses a proprietary AI system called Aleph to screen and evaluate opportunities with what it describes as limited human involvement, applying a more systematic, quant-influenced process to venture underwriting.
What stage and sectors does QuantumLight invest in?
Primarily growth-stage companies in AI, fintech, SaaS, healthtech and deep tech, with a portfolio that includes Together AI, Function Health, Factory, Robin AI, Ben and Fuse Energy.
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