First Imagine! Research
Investment Thesis
First Imagine! is a European venture capital firm investing in what it calls AdapTech: technologies that strengthen resilience, autonomy and productivity of critical systems in a fragmented, volatile world. The firm says the world is moving from energy transition to adaptation, driven by geopolitical fragmentation, supply-chain disruption, climate stress and cyber risk. It backs scalable technologies across energy, food, water, industry and digital infrastructure, with AI-enabled transformation as a cross-cutting theme. Its approach comes from an engineering, project-development and investment background, so it looks for technologies that solve fundamental problems, can be deployed in the real world and can scale into substantial businesses. The firm's economics-first framing is explicit: customers should adopt the technology because it improves unit economics, with lower emissions as a built-in benefit.
Sector Focus
The site lists four focus areas plus one cross-cutting theme:
- Energy: distributed energy systems, microgrids, storage, energy orchestration and resilience infrastructure
- Water and Food: desalination, precision agriculture, smart irrigation, food security and resource efficiency
- Circularity: resource recovery, advanced recycling, local materials production and zero-waste processes
- Industry 5.0: robotics, automation, advanced manufacturing, industrial AI and agile production
- Cross-cutting: AI-enabled transformation of resilience infrastructure, industrial systems and resource management
The portfolio filter shows 8 energy, 3 water and food, 2 industry 5.0, 2 circularity and 1 resilience company among 16 active holdings.
Stage Focus
The portfolio page says the firm invests from pre-seed to later stage, as a lead investor or a follower, and stays with companies from first cheque to exit. Recorded entry stages include pre-Seed (H.E.A.T.), Seed (HotGreen, NeoEarth, Fibe, Voltaware, Ai Build), pre-Series A (Solar Materials, EH Group) and Series A (HydRegen, Zymofix, IBI-Ag, Pionierkraft), plus a Series B entry in Lumenaza. The centre of gravity is seed through Series A.
Check Size
The firm does not publish check sizes. A Pionierkraft case study describes a high seven-figure Series A led by First Imagine!, which suggests the lead cheque can reach that range. A roughly three-year-old video pitch cites around 150M EUR of dry powder; this is unverified and not used for AUM.
Lead Tendency
Both. The firm led the Pionierkraft Series A (2024) and the Zymofix Series A (2026), and co-led the Solar Materials Series A. It participated rather than led in HydRegen's 8M USD Series A (led by Genoa Ventures, October 2026), and was a follower in Moixa. The portfolio page includes a filter for rounds it led or co-led.
Recent Activity
- October 2026: invested in HydRegen's 8M USD (6M GBP) Series A, led by Genoa Ventures
- September 2026: led Zymofix's Series A, alongside VP Capital, HTGF and The Nest Family Office; Zymofix is building a 6M EUR, 300 tonne per year plant in Deinze, Belgium
- June 2026: reaffirmed support for HotGreen Solutions in an accelerated funding round
- Portfolio news in 2026 includes Dryad's XPRIZE Wildfire award (September), IBI-Ag's North American HQ in Indiana, and HelioRec's Solar4Ports grant of 561,247 EUR
The firm appears to be actively deploying from Fund I, established in 2022.
Portfolio Highlights
- Moixa: home-battery virtual power plant software, first invested 2017, acquired by Lunar Energy in August 2022 (the firm's first exit)
- Lumenaza: SaaS platform for green utilities (Series B entry, 2021)
- Dryad: wildfire detection, later stage, XPRIZE Wildfire award winner
- Solar Materials: PV module recycling, first industrial line in Magdeburg opened April 2025, with an EIC Fund and Saint-Gobain NOVA backed round
- Pionierkraft: local energy sharing for German apartment buildings
- Zymofix: industrial microbial manufacturing for agriculture
- HydRegen: enzyme-based biocatalysis spun out of Oxford
Co-investors named on the site include InnoEnergy, bmp Ventures, Katapult, IBG Sachsen-Anhalt, EIC, Saint-Gobain NOVA, VP Capital, HTGF, The Nest Family Office, Genoa Ventures, TEPCO, Itochu, Honda, Contrarian Ventures and Clim8 Ventures.
Team
- Alexander Starchenko, Managing Partner and founder; former VP at Novolipetsk Steel focused on energy efficiency, 25+ years in energy and industry
- Boris Dorin, Partner; entrepreneur and VC in deep tech, medtech and energy, founder of Bluetens
- Tatiana Mitrova, Partner and Chair of the Investment Committee; energy geopolitics expert, Columbia CGEP, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Sciences Po
- Yulia Kupriyanovskaya, Junior Partner and Head of Operations
- Boris Starchenko, Junior Partner; leads sourcing and screening
- Igor Ryapin, Sergey Donskoy, Anna Frolova, Svetlana Sirotkina: investment team
- Ilya Sukhanov, General Counsel
Decision Process
A partnership with a formal Investment Committee chaired by Tatiana Mitrova. Sourcing and screening start with the junior partners and analysts, with technology and product-market fit, financial due diligence and legal handled by named team members.
Founder Preferences
Technical and scientific founders with deep technology, a real industrial bottleneck and customer demand. Examples include university spin-outs (HydRegen from Oxford) and operators with proven pilots. The firm takes advisory board seats and stays involved after the first cheque.
Geographic Focus
European companies, with the London and Cyprus offices covering northwest to southeast Europe and close ties to the Eastern Mediterranean ecosystem; the site footer lists Cyprus, Paris and London. Portfolio companies sit in Germany, France, the UK, Belgium and Israel-linked ventures, with some expanding into North America. The firm was established in London in 2016 and opened an EU office in Cyprus in 2020 after Brexit.