Lunar Ventures, an early-stage VC firm that invests in European DeepTech software startups, has announced the close of a €40M first fund.
The Berlin-based VC will invest up to €1M into early-stage DeepTech startups that are software-focused, aiming at the frontier of computer science, machine learning, cryptography, new cloud infrastructures, and next-generation databases.
Computer scientist turned VC, Dr. Elad Verbin, Founding Partner of Lunar Ventures, says, “Technical startup founders in Europe have a big problem. They struggle to find investors who understand what they’re building. Most VCs in Europe don’t come from a technical or scientific background, and they struggle to evaluate the underlying technology, failing to invest in promising science-based moonshots.”
Lunar Ventures: What you need to know
Lunar Ventures was founded in 2019 by Dr. Elad Verbin, a computer science researcher, Mick Halsband, a CTO and software architect, and Luis Shemtov, a product expert and strategist. They are joined by Principal Alberto Cresto, who has led over 20 DeepTech investments across the US and Europe.
Verbin continues, “We are a team of scientists and engineers and we have built Lunar Ventures to solve this problem. We find the best startups building the future, our team conducts rigorous technical due diligence to evaluate their true potential, and then we lead their funding rounds.”
“After investing, Lunar’s technical team provides specialised support and helps these technical founders communicate their unique value to potential clients, hires, and other investors. Our mission is to revolutionise the European DeepTech scene, to ensure that every founder building a moonshot product can obtain funding as easily as in Tel Aviv or the Valley, and to inspire more scientists and engineers to join the VC ecosystem,” he adds.
Invested in 12 startups
The German VC has invested in 12 startups across Europe, including
- Zama is a Paris-based startup that builds end-to-end encryption for machine learning models.
- deepset is a Berlin-based startup that enables computers to understand plain language as easily as they understand numbers.
- Molecule is yet another Berlin-based startup that’s disrupting drug discovery funding by empowering patient groups and individuals to directly finance and govern drug development projects on the Ethereum blockchain.
Lunar made investments alongside prominent super angels and early-stage investors including Charlie Songhurst, HV Capital, System.One and Tiny VC among others.
Lunar Investment’s backers
The German company is backed by many of Europe’s institutional fund investors, including Isomer Capital, Multiple Capital, Aldea Ventures, Compagnia di San Paolo, and the European Investment Fund. Individual investors include founders from Ethereum and DeepTech founders with successful exits.
Joe Schorge, Managing Partner at Isomer Capital, says, “From our first meeting with Elad, Luis, and Mick we realised their ability to deeply connect with founders on a technical level was a perfect fit with our strategy of backing funds with high potential that add value to underserved founders. We found the opportunity so exciting that we decided to incubate Lunar very early on, to push forward their vision of helping European DeepTech companies succeed on a global scale.”
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