United Founders Research
Investment Thesis
United Founders is a founder-led, pan-European early-stage VC fund with a stated mission of European technological sovereignty. It backs technological breakthroughs made in Europe from day one, in sectors it considers the next trillion-dollar opportunities: AI and robotics, medtech and healthtech, cybersecurity and dual-use, sustainable tech, and quantum and next-generation compute. The firm argues that Europe has the talent density (4.7 million STEM professionals, 43% of global patent applications) but that successful founders rarely reinvest across borders, and that US VCs have cut European investment since 2021.
Founders Force
The core differentiator is Founders Force, a community of 100+ accomplished founders, operators, CTOs and domain experts from 26 countries who invest money and time. Named members include Florian Seibel (Quantum Systems), Alissa Hsu Lynch (The Honest Company), Michal Pechoucek (Avast/Gen), Laurent Philonenko (Cisco, Asana), Sebastien Borget (The Sandbox), Alexander Glatzle (planqc) and David Pavlik (Rohlik). The firm says the community gives expert feedback within 72 hours of discovering a founder, runs a six-month structured Kick-Off Unit, and holds quarterly European Founder Board sessions. An AI-powered operations platform matches founders with relevant members.
Stage Focus
Pre-seed and seed. The firm targets valuations of EUR 3M to 10M, target equity of 5% to 15%, product at TRL 4+, and teams led by active founders with demonstrated ability to sell. It looks for potential to build a EUR 1B+ business.
Check Size
Initial tickets of EUR 100K to 1M, with follow-ons up to EUR 2M. About 50% of the fund is reserved for follow-on investments.
Lead Tendency
Mixed, leaning follower or co-investor on larger rounds. In AMI Labs' $1.03B seed and Peak Quantum's EUR 2.2M pre-seed (led by Cloudberry Ventures) it participated rather than led. The site lists "Co-investors" against each spotlighted portfolio company and describes a strong VC syndication network.
Fund Status and Recent Activity
The EUR 80M+ fund (United Founders SCSp, Luxembourg) was announced in November 2025 with a first close of about EUR 30M, aiming for EUR 80M within 12 months and about 40 portfolio companies. The team has committed over EUR 16M of its own capital. The fund is actively deploying. Recent disclosed investments: AMI Labs (Yann LeCun and Alex LeBrun's world-model startup, $1.03B seed, March 2026) and Peak Quantum (Munich quantum chips, EUR 2.2M pre-seed, April 2026). Other portfolio names on the site: Wonderful (enterprise AI agents, Israel), Oligo+ (drone-delivered precision nutrition, France), Continium (high-speed data converter chips, Slovakia) and Agent F (AI-native ERP, Germany).
Portfolio Highlights
The portfolio page shows six companies: AMI Labs (France, AI and robotics), Peak Quantum (Germany, quantum), Wonderful (Israel, AI), Oligo+ (France, sustainable tech), Continium (Slovakia, quantum and next-gen compute) and Agent F (Germany, AI). The firm's GPs cite a prior track record of EUR 170M+ invested across 150+ companies, 4.0x MOIC and 3 unicorns.
Team
- Maxime Paradis, Managing Partner (Paris, Zurich)
- Clark Parsons, Managing Partner (Munich, Berlin, Brussels)
- Vaclav Pavlecka, Managing Partner (Prague)
- Vit Horky, General Partner and Co-Founder (Prague)
- Ivan Kristel, Investment Director (Bratislava)
- Dusan Zabrodsky, General Partner Representative (Prague)
- Markus Raunig, Venture Partner (Vienna)
- Maximilian Schmidt, Venture Partner (Munich)
- Jan Gabriel, CFO; Honza Siroky, CTO (proprietary tech and automation); Jirina Stirling, Operations Manager; analysts Milana Idrisova, Nicole Gavrijaseva, Lujza Sobotova
Decision Process
Partnership model with Managing Partners in each market sourcing locally through universities and spin-off centers (Ecole Polytechnique, HEC Paris, INSEAD, TU Munich, Slovak University of Technology, Czech Academy of Sciences). Founders apply through app.unitedfounders.vc/apply. No timeline is published.
Founder Preferences
Founders with relevant experience and strong skills, active-founder-led companies, complementary teams, and traction. Deep tech and frontier tech from university spin-offs are the sweet spot. The firm sells sovereignty and operator help, not just capital.
Geographic Focus
European-focused, with on-the-ground presence in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Czechia, Slovakia and Austria (Paris, Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Zurich, Vienna, Prague, Bratislava). Portfolio companies include one Israeli company with CEE expansion.
Gaps
Continium and Agent F captions on the portfolio page were unreadable images, so they are named here from page text but not in the structured portfolio list. Fund size and AUM are targets, not closed totals. No LinkedIn URLs were published for the team.