Cloudberry VC Research
Investment Thesis
Cloudberry VC describes itself as Europe's first dedicated semiconductor venture capital firm. The pitch is that semiconductor startups deserve a semiconductor VC: investors who understand fabs, tape-outs, long development cycles and the capital intensity of hardware. The firm argues that Europe has world-class R&D talent in semiconductors, photonics and advanced materials, plus an industrial base (ASML, NXP, Infineon, STMicroelectronics) but has lacked specialist early-stage capital. Its stated ambition is to back the founders who will build a trillion-dollar European computing hardware company. It cites the EU Chips Act and national semiconductor strategies as policy tailwinds.
Focus Areas
The firm invests across the full semiconductor value chain in three domains:
- Semiconductors (compute and electronics): compute and control platforms with more performance per watt, in space, datacentres, wearables and medical devices.
- Photonics (connectivity and sensing): photonic and mixed electro-optic systems for communications, imaging, diagnostics and instrumentation.
- Advanced materials (equipment, design tools, metrology): materials, equipment, design software and measurement tools that extend what fabs can do and move lab results into repeatable production.
Stage Focus and Check Size
Cloudberry invests at pre-seed and seed. Initial tickets run from EUR 400K to EUR 1M (the homepage says up to EUR 1M). The fund is EUR 30M, announced as an initial close in December 2025. At those check sizes that supports roughly 25 to 40 initial positions before reserves, though the firm does not disclose a reserve policy.
Lead Tendency
The firm does not state whether it leads. Its public record is mixed: it is named as a participant, not the lead, in Tendrils Compute's USD 30M seed (led by Benchmark, November 2026). Lead tendency is recorded as unknown.
Recent Activity
The firm has publicly announced four portfolio companies, all in 2026 posts: PROUD (June 2026), Last Mile Semiconductor (July 2026) and Tendrils Compute (November 2026), plus Proteins.1. It announced partnerships with Siemens Cre8Ventures (July 2026) and Racyics (August 2026, design enablement and EuroCDP access for fabless startups). It published a thesis response to Hello Tomorrow's 2026 Semiconductor Innovation Report (July 2026). The fund appears to be actively deploying.
Portfolio Highlights
- Proteins.1 (photonics): physics-based, enzyme-free multiomics platform for single-molecule investigation; VTT-originating.
- PROUD (advanced materials): low-temperature (400C) diamond deposition on top of transistors to address thermal limits in advanced chips.
- Last Mile Semiconductor (semiconductors): first single-chip DECT NR+ radio.
- Tendrils Compute (semiconductors): a processor built on interaction nets, which raised a USD 30M seed led by Benchmark.
Team
- Rene Kromhof, Founding Partner (Netherlands): former leadership team at Heptagon (optical sensors), acquired by ams AG in 2017; began at ASML in engineering and product management.
- Veera Pietikainen, Founding Partner (Finland): nearly a decade supporting early-stage deep tech teams across investments, portfolio support, legal and fund administration; fractional CFO experience.
- Lawrence Lundy-Bryan, General Partner and Head of Research (UK): early to crypto (2015) and deep tech (2020); most interested in photonic memory, compound semiconductors and edge computing.
- Tuomas Hollman, Venture Partner: VP and head of the Optics business area at Bosch Sensortec; earlier roles at Texas Instruments and MaxLinear.
- Lukas Steinmann, Venture Partner: Egon Zehnder industrial and technology practice; formerly SVP at ams Osram and strategy head at Heptagon.
Strategic LPs and Decision Process
GlobalFoundries and Radiant Opto-Electronics are strategic LPs, offering founders access to technology roadmaps, industrial know-how and manufacturing networks. The decision process is not published; with three general partners it is most likely a partnership model. It is recorded as partnership with low confidence.
Founder Preferences
The firm wants deeply technical founders, often coming out of European research institutions (VTT, imec-style spinouts), building hardware where specialist investor knowledge matters. It is not a generalist deep tech fund and is unlikely to back software-only companies unless they are chip design or fab tooling.
Geographic Focus
Mainly Europe. Offices are in Helsinki (c/o Maria01) and London. The portfolio spans Finland, Switzerland, Germany and the UK.
Gaps
Check-size reserves, lead policy, exact investment dates and round sizes for Proteins.1, PROUD and Last Mile Semiconductor are not disclosed on the site. AUM is the EUR 30M fund, converted here at roughly USD 35M per press reports.