First Momentum Ventures Research
Overview
First Momentum Ventures (FMV) is a pre-seed venture fund for technical B2B and deep tech startups in Europe, based in Karlsruhe, Germany. It was founded in 2018 by Sebastian Böhmer and Andreas Fischer, who earlier built the incubator of Germany's largest campus entrepreneurship association (launched 2015). Startups supported there went on to raise more than 500M euros, including multiple exits. The firm's tagline is "Engineers at heart, investors by choice", and its pitch is a "From Founders to Founders" mindset.
Investment Thesis
FMV looks for highly ambitious teams that address hard problems with complex technology. The team is made up of engineers and scientists and says it can speak a technical founder's language on products, markets and commercialization paths. Focus areas on the site are climate and energy, compute, manufacturing and robotics, deep tech, AI and ML, aerospace, software infrastructure and computational biology. It also backs enterprise software and dev tools companies with a strong technical edge (Roofline, Unikraft, Lightly, Tilores). No explicit anti-thesis is published.
Stage Focus
Pre-seed, and the firm says it has lived and breathed pre-seed since 2015. It invests as a lead or co-investor in a first round and often shows up again in later rounds as the company grows.
Check Size
The site states 0.25 to 1.5M euros per pre-seed investment. Press on the Fund II close described first cheques of 200K to 1M euros.
Fund Status and Recent Activity
Fund II closed at 35M euros in April 2025 (oversubscribed). It is backed by family offices, industrial corporates, public institutions and fund of funds, plus more than 70 LPs including technology founders and executives. The plan is up to 35 early-stage B2B startups, and about 20 were already backed at close. Fund II is still actively deploying: third-party trackers list Turn2X as a September 2026 investment and six investments in 2026 so far. FMV says it has made more than 50 investments and that its portfolio companies are worth over 1 billion euros.
Recent portfolio news published by FMV:
- Oct 2026: Atlas Bio (Basel, AI for drug trials) came out of stealth with an $11M seed led by Creandum. FMV invested at pre-seed.
- Sep 2026: Magentic raised an $18M Series A led by Felicis (procurement AI agents).
- Aug 2026: Zenline AI (AI agents for retail assortment teams) profiled by Forbes Switzerland, about 15 retailers after a $1.6M pre-seed.
- Jul 2026: Pliant (enterprise credit card infrastructure) reached $100M ARR.
Portfolio Highlights
The portfolio page lists about 37 companies. Highlights:
- Pliant (fintech infrastructure, $100M ARR)
- Ninetailed (personalization API, acquired by Contentful)
- Unikraft (high-performance serverless cloud)
- Roofline (edge AI compiler)
- Quantum Diamonds (quantum sensing), ZuriQ and Kipu Quantum (quantum computing and software)
- Gauss Fusion (nuclear fusion), Telura (deep geothermal), Brineworks (direct air capture), Turn2X (renewable natural gas)
- Atlas Bio, Magentic, Lightly, ContextSDK, QuantPi, Cello
No stage-at-investment sources were collected, so stages are not recorded for portfolio entries.
Team
- Sebastian Böhmer: Founding Partner
- Andreas Fischer: Founding Partner
- Lena Späth: Head of Platform
- Roland Stern: Head of Finance
- Maximilian Ochs: Principal
- Christian Neumann: Principal
- Janine de Leeuw: Founder's Associate
- Lukas Thiele: Platform Team
- Linus Habetha: Investment Team
Decision Process
Founding partners Sebastian Böhmer and Andreas Fischer oversee all investment decisions, supported by a full-time investment team. This is a partnership model. A network of more than 100 venture scouts at European universities and research hubs sources deals, and the website has a venture scout program page.
Founder Preferences
Technical founders and scientists at hour zero, including academic spinoffs. FMV runs the Spinoff Summit (a European platform for academic entrepreneurship), publishes the Deep Tech Hardware Napkin guide to fundraising for hardware founders, and has a PhD fellowship program. Founder testimonials stress help with hiring, customer intros and follow-on investors, and a family-like relationship.
Lead Tendency
The site says it invests as a lead or co-investor, so lead tendency is recorded as both. Co-investors seen on recent rounds include Creandum (Atlas Bio) and Felicis (Magentic).
Geographic Focus
Europe, with a German and DACH base. Portfolio locations include Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Denmark and the UK.
Gaps
AUM is not published beyond Fund II (35M euros), so it is left blank. Stage at investment and investment dates for most portfolio companies are not on the site.