Onsight Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Onsight Ventures is a deep tech-focused venture capital firm based in Innsbruck, Austria, founded in 2021 by Jasmin Güngör and Klaus Grössinger as a spin-off from the Hermann Hauser Family Office. The firm's name is drawn from "onsight climbing" — completing a climb on the first attempt with no prior knowledge of the route — reflecting its self-described investment style of precision, ambition, and unwavering commitment to helping deep tech founders scale breakthrough science into market-leading companies. Onsight explicitly frames its mission around contributing to European technological sovereignty: backing frontier science that keeps Europe competitive in semiconductors, quantum computing, AI, and biotechnology rather than ceding these categories to the US and Asia.
Sector Focus
The firm organizes its thesis around four verticals: New Compute (semiconductors, analog computing, photonics, new architectures and materials, quantum computing hardware), Quantum Technology (quantum communication and security, quantum sensing, quantum computing and applications), Physical AI & Cybersecurity (agentic and task-specific AI, LLMs, edge AI and small language models, human-machine collaboration, domain-specific AI applications), and TechBio & Synthetic Biology (computational biology, bioinformatics, protein engineering, AI-based healthcare, drug discovery, biodefense). This is a hard deep tech mandate — no generalist consumer or SaaS investing.
Stage Focus
Onsight invests at pre-seed and seed, positioning itself as the first institutional check into spin-outs and university-adjacent deep tech ventures. Third-party investor databases (EU-Startups) confirm a Pre-Seed/Seed stage focus.
Check Size
EU-Startups lists a typical investment range of €1.5M–€3M. The firm's syndicate behavior (e.g., a modest allocation inside QuantumDiamonds' €15M equity tranche, led by World Fund) is consistent with a check size at the smaller end of that range on follow-on rounds, with larger allocations likely reserved for the earliest institutional round.
Lead Tendency
Evidence is mixed: Onsight appears to be the first institutional investor in several portfolio companies (consistent with a lead role at pre-seed), but on later rounds it shows up as one participant among several co-investors (e.g., the 2026 QuantumDiamonds round led by World Fund with Bayern Kapital, IQ Capital, Earlybird, First Momentum, UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators, Creator Fund, and Onsight Ventures all participating). Classified as unknown pending clearer first-check evidence.
Recent Activity
The firm remains actively deploying: QuantumDiamonds (a portfolio company since 2023) closed a €91M round in July 2026 (€15M equity led by World Fund, €76M EU Chips Act non-dilutive funding) with Onsight participating; Plumerai raised an $8.7M Series A in September 2025; Q.ANT raised €62M in July 2025 for photonic computing; Lidrotec secured $13.5M in June 2025. Kipu Quantum commercialized its optimization application on IBM's Qiskit Functions Catalog in March 2025, and portfolio company zerothird partnered with Erste Group on quantum-safe encryption for bank data (February 2026).
Portfolio Highlights
Onsight's public portfolio spans 18 active companies across its four verticals, including Kipu Quantum and Quantum Diamonds (2023, quantum technology), Q.ANT (2025, photonic computing), Black Semiconductor and TeraSi (New Compute), Synteny Biotechnology, Cellevate, Xolo, and Refined Laser Systems (TechBio & Synthetic Biology), and Plumerai and RooflineAI (AI). No exits have been publicly reported to date.
Team
- Jasmin Güngör, General Partner — 14 years across startups, VC, and impact investing; blockchain/FinTech background; former lecturer at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management's Blockchain Center
- Klaus Grössinger, General Partner — 16 years in high-tech startup investment and technology transfer; founder/CEO of a life science spin-off; former supervisory board member of a major Austrian biotech company
- Dennis Weiß, Investment Manager — forestry/wood technology background; Investment Manager at Hermann Hauser Investment GmbH since 2022
- Andrea Waldhart, Investor Relations & Fund Management
- Kathrin Vallant, Back Office — supports Hermann Hauser Investment GmbH's back office since 2020, joined Onsight in 2025
- Thijs Gieben, Program Management
- Sophie Leimgruber, Program Management & Communications
- Advisory board: Dr. Hermann Hauser (Acorn/ARM co-founder, Amadeus Capital), Christoph Huber (BioNTech co-founder), Martin Spitznagel, Gabriel Dielacher, Christoph Holz
Decision Process
Run as a partnership between two General Partners (Güngör and Grössinger) supported by an investment team and an advisory board of deep tech operators — not a solo-GP structure.
Founder Preferences
Onsight backs technical, often academic-spinout founding teams (e.g., TU Munich, TU Dresden, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, NanoLund/Lund University spin-offs) commercializing hard science with defensible IP.
Geographic Focus
Pan-European, with a concentration in Germany and Austria and portfolio companies also based in Sweden; the firm describes itself as having "unparalleled access to proprietary deal flow" across Europe's deep tech ecosystem.