Golden Egg Check Research
Overview
Golden Egg Check (GEC) is an Amersfoort, Netherlands based startup analyst firm that grew from a founder community and investor-matching platform into a venture fund. Its team mixes startup analysts, data scientists and software developers. It helps startups with investor readiness and fundraising, supports researchers taking technology to market, and invests through its own fund, Golden Egg Check Capital. The firm also runs StartupRoulette, a monthly online speed-dating event for selected startups and relevant investors (VCs and angels), and a startup challenge platform for corporates.
Investment Thesis
GEC Capital invests in complementary teams with international ambitions and scalable technology. It is broad on market and technology but invests mostly in software/AI and deeptech. It prefers B2B and does not rule out B2C. Beyond capital it offers access to follow-on capital through its angel and VC network, a peer founder community, and go-to-market support covering GTM strategy, talent and hiring, and access to top operators.
Stage Focus
Pre-Seed and Seed. GEC wants a logical relationship between funding need, valuation and traction. Fund II is described on the homepage as a EUR 15M pre-seed fund for the best early-stage founders in frontier AI, software and deeptech.
Check Size
Not disclosed. The site says the fund makes small tickets (convertible, SAFE or equity) alongside other investors. Check size fields are left empty rather than guessed.
Lead Tendency
Follows. Since 2022 GEC has run a co-investment fund that joins rounds with good angels and top-tier VCs, including General Catalyst, Speedinvest, Cherry Ventures, Point Nine and Notion Capital. Its recent announcements describe joining rounds led by others (for example Khosla Ventures led General Intuition's Series A).
Recent Activity
- September 2026: joined LeoTrace's EUR 1.7M pre-seed round (AI coding security) from its second fund.
- June 2026: backed General Intuition's $320M Series A at a $2.3B valuation via Coalition Capital's SPV, its second physical AI / world models investment after Saturn Dynamics.
- Fund II portfolio on the site (2026) includes Duely, Bavest, Experial, Taxnova, Radiogenesis, LeoTrace, Biscuit, Alfa AI, Kotzilla, Vitroscope and a stealth fusion company.
- Fund status: actively deploying from Fund II.
Portfolio Highlights
Fund I (from 2022) and Fund II companies span legal AI, fintech, quantum (Peak Quantum), space hardware (Edge Aerospace), health (Inne, Circle Health, Moovd), climate and energy (Nox Energy, Lucend, Cawa), and developer and AI infrastructure (Orq.ai, Deeploy, Kotzilla). General Intuition and Saturn Dynamics are its physical AI bets. Exits announced on the site include Flow, Quan and Bringly. Some portfolio logos carried no legible caption, so a handful of companies named only in page text (such as Propel, The Social Handshake, Cariqa, Cawa, Lucend and NeutroGen) are not in the structured portfolio list.
Team
- Thomas Mensink, General Partner (CEO of GEC)
- Ytsen van der Meer, General Partner
- Anna Dyachenko, Investment Associate
- Maud Vermeulen, Investment Associate
- Gilles Meijer, Co-founder and Venture Partner
- Machiel Kunst, Operating Partner
- Erwin Starke, Software Developer; Lucia Meseguer, Analyst
Decision Process
Partnership of two General Partners with associates and a venture partner. Timeline is not disclosed. Founders can send a pitch deck through the site.
Founder Preferences
Complementary founding teams, international ambition, scalable technology, diverse teams. Good founders can come from anywhere.
Geographic Focus
Mainly Europe, with a preference for Benelux, Germany and Scandinavia, though the portfolio also includes UK, French, Irish, Luxembourg and a US/LatAm company.