Berlin-based VC Fly Ventures launches €53M Fund II to invest in deep tech seed-stage startups across Europe

Based out of Berlin, Fly Ventures is a VC firm focused on investing in deep tech seed-stage companies across Europe. In the latest development, the German VC firm has announced €53 million funding to uncover the next-generation of industry-defining founders in pan-European tech. This takes its total raised to €88 million since 2017. 

Gabriel Matuschka, the co-founder, says: “Fly is built with our founders in mind; structured to serve their most pressing needs – building complex, industry-defining technologies and selling it to large clients. Fly delivers on this through its two-team approach, combining the best commercial expertise with leading technical knowledge. A rarity in European venture and one that makes us the best partner for Enterprise and Deep Tech startups in Europe.”

Back startups that close the gap!

According to the company claims, many enterprise employees enjoy modern software in their personal lives but have outdated, legacy systems at work. Fly seeks to back startups that close this gap for enterprise clients. Furthermore, Fly Ventures believes it is a multi-trillion-dollar transition in the making.

Proprietary, specialised, and difficult to replicate!

In the deep tech space, investments are focused on founders and startups developing novel, advanced technology at the cutting edge of their respective sectors. 

These technologies should be proprietary and specialised, difficult to replicate, and often do not have a clear path to market or proven revenue case at the time of the initial investment. 

As per the German VC, this potential can only be unlocked through founders with deep expertise and unparalleled knowledge. Fly Ventures will use Fund II to make initial investments between €500k and €1.3 million

Fund I’s standout investment!

Talking about the Fund I, some of the standout investments include autonomous driving pioneers Wayve, clinical trials marketplace Inato, and cybersecurity startup GitGuardian. Notably, two of the 28 Fund I investments already exited. 

Also, Fly Ventures was an early investor in a couple of startups – Bloomsbury AI and Scape. Both companies were acquired by Facebook. 

Cross-functional team!

Fly Venture has a cross-functional team – Fredrik was one of the brains behind the Google Assistant program, while Gabriel opened and led the Berlin office for Partech Ventures before forming Fly in 2016. Also, Matt Wichrowski, who joined Fly Ventures from Entrepreneur First in March and is helping to establish Fly Ventures’ position in the UK. It’s worth mentioning that, with Fund II, existing members Marie Wennergren, Felix Wolf, and David Malinge have been promoted to partner. 

Matt Wichrowski, added: “We have a vast talent pool in Europe with deep expertise and experience. That talent has the potential to remake entire industries and that’s what we want our fund to unlock. The venture is pretty simple: find great people and make hard, risky bets that have huge outcomes. A lot of ventures today have lost this ethos. It’s become more reserved with risk-taking. We at Fly are going back to the heart of what VC is all about; using our vast expertise in building and selling to uncover, identify, develop and finally make use of the abundance of enterprise and deep tech talent to build super large outcomes for all involved.”

Eric Fourrier, the co-founder at GitGuardian, said: “Fly Ventures represents a rare breed of investor that not only shares our passion for technology and the complex problems we’re trying to solve but supports us in building and selling our products. They understand our vision, recognize our potential, and are willing to take risks because they, like us, understand just how important such technologies are.”

Main image credits: Fly Ventures