VentureFriends Research
Investment Thesis
VentureFriends (VF) is a pan-European early-stage fund run by operators and founders turned investors. The firm describes itself as a "hard conviction" investor: a smaller number of companies that it backs with real capital and the support of the whole team. It says it first looks for founders "who have what it takes" rather than a fixed sector, and it calls itself founder friendly because the partners have built companies themselves. Portfolio founders quoted on the site repeat the same point, that VF acts like an extension of the team, including in hard times.
Stage Focus
VF invests predominantly at Pre-Seed and Seed, and says it has backed companies that were pre-product and pre-revenue. The ratio of initial to follow-on investment is stated as 1:2, so it reserves meaningfully for follow-ons (it has followed on in Embat, NeuralTrust and Capalo AI, among others). Tracxn counts 48 seed entries and 10 Series A entries among its 93 recorded portfolio companies.
Check Size
First tickets run from EUR 500k to EUR 3m. The firm makes roughly 10 to 12 new investments a year, which fits a fund of this size.
Lead Tendency
VF leads or co-leads many of its rounds. It led Kodesage's USD 6.6M seed (June 2026), led Valeria's USD 2M round (February 2026) and led Capalo AI's EUR 3.8M seed alongside PROfounders (March 2025). In NeuralTrust's USD 20M seed (June 2026) it participated behind lead Alstin Capital. Overall it both leads and follows.
Recent Activity
- Kodesage, USD 6.6M seed led by VF (June 2026)
- NeuralTrust, USD 20M seed, VF participating (June 2026)
- Valeria, USD 2M round led by VF (February 2026)
- Capalo AI, EUR 3.8M seed led by VF (March 2025); Capalo later raised an EUR 11M Series A
- Embat, Series B participation reported by Tracxn (May 2026)
- Fund status: VF4 launched in 2025, so the firm is actively deploying. On the blog it published a September 2026 piece on building an AI operating system for venture capital.
Fund History
VF1 was a EUR 20M fund (2016). VF2 was EUR 50M (2018, London office opened). VF3 was EUR 100M (2021, Warsaw and Barcelona offices opened). VF4 launched in 2025. The site states EUR 300m+ in AUM, 4 funds raised, 80+ investments, 200+ founders and 20+ countries. The site also notes support from InnovFin Equity under EU programmes.
Portfolio Highlights
- Exits and scale: Blueground (furnished rentals, unicorn), Jeeves (corporate cards, unicorn), InstaShop (marketplace, acquired 2024), Plum (consumer fintech), Huspy (proptech), Carmoola (consumer fintech), Belvo (open finance), Shift Technologies (IPO 2019, per Tracxn)
- Recent: Embat (treasury), Valeria (AI payroll), Capalo AI (battery storage optimisation), NeuralTrust (AI agent security), Kodesage (legacy modernisation), Merx (conversational commerce), Barte (payments), Harborlab
Team
- Apostolos Apostolakis, Founding Partner (co-founder of e-food and Doctoranytime)
- George Dimopoulos, Founding Partner (early angel in Beat, acquired by Daimler)
- Pavlos Pavlakis, Partner
- Lily Joo, Venture Partner
- Fivos Tsoukatos, Principal
- George Karabelas, Principal
- Anna Lauring, Associate
- Maria Piotrowska, Senior Associate
- Alexandros Lagoudakis, VP of Finance and Operations
Decision Process
The site does not state a formal process. The partnership is small and the team works across four European countries, so decisions look like partnership-based rather than a committee.
Founder Preferences
Ambitious founders with global scope who move fast. Operators with lived experience of the problem (for example Valeria's founders from Uber, Glovo and Getir) are common. VF supports with fundraising, go-to-market and hiring and brings in its network of operators.
Geographic Focus
UK, Europe, MENA and CEE. Offices and team members are in Athens, London, Warsaw and Barcelona. Tracxn shows most first-round investments in the UK (12), Greece (11) and the US (11), then Spain (4) and Brazil (3).
Sector Themes
Fintech, B2B SaaS, B2C and marketplaces, cybersecurity, proptech, climate and energy tech, and increasingly AI-native enterprise software. VF says it talks to founders from any sector.
Gaps
The site gives no exact fund-size breakdown for VF4, no board-seat policy and no decision timeline. EUR figures are submitted as stated; no currency conversion was applied.