Lunar Ventures, a brand new, technically oriented VC fund geared toward early-stage deep tech startups, is asserting the closing of its €40 million first fund.
Lunar was based in Berlin in 2019 by Dr Elad Verbin, a pc science researcher; Mick Halsband, a CTO and software program architect; and Luis Shemtov, a former entrepreneur.
The launch is well timed: Deep tech investments in Europe have nearly tripled within the final 5 years, nearing €10 billion in 2020. That’s roughly 1 / 4 of the whole VC investments within the continent.
Verbin mentioned, “Technical startup founders in Europe have an enormous drawback. They wrestle to seek out buyers who truly perceive what they’re constructing. Most VCs in Europe don’t come from a technical or scientific background, and so they wrestle to judge the underlying expertise, failing to put money into promising science-based moonshots.” Personally, that is additionally my expertise.
Verbin continued: “We’re a group of scientists and engineers and now we have constructed Lunar Ventures to unravel this drawback. We discover one of the best startups constructing the longer term, our group conducts rigorous technical due diligence to judge their true potential, after which we lead their funding rounds.”
The fund will make investments as much as €1 million into early-stage deep tech startups which are software-focused, aiming on the frontier of pc science, machine studying, cryptography, new cloud infrastructures and next-generation databases.
Up to now it’s invested in Zama, a Paris-based startup constructing end-to-end encryption for machine studying fashions; Berlin-based Deepset, enabling computer systems to grasp plain language; and Molecule, a drug discovery platform utilizing the Ethereum blockchain.
Lunar is backed by LPs corresponding to Isomer Capital, A number of Capital, Aldea Ventures, Compagnia di San Paolo and the European Funding Fund.