NewSchool.vc Research
Investment Thesis
NewSchool.vc is a solo-GP pre-seed and seed fund based in Belgium, founded and run by Christophe Morbee, who is also CEO of Besox (a Belgian payroll/HR services group). The fund's stated positioning is "new school tech for old school industries," backing founders with conviction who are building technology-driven disruption inside traditionally analog or legacy sectors: HR/payroll, legal services, parking and mobility, agriculture, events, financial infrastructure, and creator/commerce operations. Morbee has framed the fund publicly as bringing an operator's hands-on approach rather than passive capital, drawing on his own experience scaling a services business.
Sector Focus
The firm's homepage names AI, SaaS, Cyber, Robotics, and Compliance as core areas of interest ("AI, SaaS, Cyber, Robotics, Compliance+"). In practice, the realized portfolio skews toward AI-enabled B2B software applied to specific vertical workflows: legal drafting and litigation support (Alice Law), field sales assistance (Donna), pension/benefits administration (Arca Digital), creator and freelancer payouts (Talentir), website conversion and event personalization (Dalton, Exhibitly), sales commission automation (Driven), CFO/finance-team Excel automation (Outline), on-street parking payment automation (NotiPark), and IoT plant-health monitoring for greenhouse growers (Sensie). Cyber and robotics are stated areas of interest on the site but are not yet clearly represented in the disclosed portfolio.
Stage Focus
NewSchool invests exclusively at pre-seed and seed. The firm's own site states a check size of €100k-€500k. Public reporting from the GP describes the fund as "a young pre-seed and seed fund" and consistently references B2B tech founders at the earliest institutional rounds.
Check Size
Typical ticket: €100,000-€500,000 per the firm's own site. Individual disclosed rounds the fund has joined range from roughly €500k (Sensie) up to €4M (Talentir) and $3M (Outline), consistent with a fund that writes a smaller check within a larger syndicate rather than filling a full round alone, though it has also been reported as sole/lead investor on some rounds (e.g., Alice Law, Exhibitly).
Lead Tendency
Mixed. NewSchool has been reported as leading or co-leading select rounds (Alice Law's €1M pre-seed alongside Seeder Fund; Exhibitly's €1.4M pre-seed), while more frequently participating alongside a syndicate lead (Pitchdrive led Driven; Frontline Ventures led Donna; Division Q led Sensie; Tenity backed Talentir). This is typical for a solo-GP fund at this check size.
Recent Activity
As of September 2026, Christophe Morbee publicly reported 32 investments made to date, 6 completed follow-on rounds, and 4 more portfolio rounds expected to close soon, with the fund in the final stages of closing toward a €10M target (having recently added more than €2M in new LP commitments). An earlier update (reported ~January 2026) put cumulative fund size at €6.275M raised from 28 LPs, with ~€1.8M invested across 19 companies in 2025 alone — concentrated in Belgium (15), Germany (2), France (1), and the Netherlands (1) — and flagged growing inbound deal flow with new investments expected in Norway and Spain. The fund appears actively deploying, with disclosed rounds continuing into September 2026 (Outline's $3M seed).
Portfolio Highlights
Notable disclosed portfolio companies include Donna (Ghent-based AI field-sales assistant, closed a $4.8M seed led by Frontline Ventures in December 2025 — the fund's most visible markup to date), Talentir (Vienna/Austrian-Swiss AI-powered payout infrastructure, €4M seed), Arca Digital (Seville-based API-first pension plan infrastructure), Alice Law (Belgian AI litigation/drafting platform), Dalton (Ghent-based AI website optimization, formerly branded getdalton.com), Exhibitly (Ghent-based AI event-website personalization), Sensie (Ghent-based wireless plant-health wearable for greenhouse growers), NotiPark (Paris-based automated on-street parking detection and payment), Driven (Belgian AI sales-commission automation), and Outline (Paris-based AI agent automating Excel-based financial forecasting for finance teams, ex-Alan/Spotify founding team). No disclosed exits or IPOs to date; the fund and most of its portfolio are too young for outcomes to have materialized.
Team
- Christophe Morbee, Solo General Partner — Also CEO of Besox, a Belgian payroll/HR/insurance services group. Publicly describes himself as "passionate about entrepreneurship, investing, running and poker." Runs NewSchool as a solo-GP structure, which he has publicly framed as an advantage: fewer portfolio companies means more founder attention, no internal fund dynamics, and faster decision-making.
Decision Process
Solo GP — Christophe Morbee is the sole decision-maker, explicitly stated on the firm's homepage ("solo-GP fund by Christophe Morbee") and reinforced in his own commentary on the advantages of the solo-GP model versus multi-partner funds.
Founder Preferences
Public commentary and portfolio composition suggest a preference for technical or domain-credible founders tackling unglamorous, legacy-industry workflows (payroll, legal ops, parking, pensions, field sales, agriculture) with modern AI/software tooling, rather than pure consumer or frontier-research plays. Several founding teams have prior operator pedigree at recognizable tech companies (e.g., Outline's founders from Alan and Spotify).
Geographic Focus
Primarily Belgium, with expansion into broader Europe: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria/Switzerland (Talentir), and Spain (Arca Digital), with Norway and Spain flagged as upcoming new geographies. The firm's own site states "Europe, global" as its geographic scope, but disclosed activity to date is overwhelmingly European and Belgium-centric.