The first 20 participants of Europe’s inaugural VC fundraising accelerator have been selected, out of over 500 applicants.
The 10-week programme, which is being run by advisory firm Mountside Ventures, aims to help VCs “become better fundraisers,” Jonathan Hollis, managing partner, told Sifted when the accelerator opened applications last year.
“It’s not to help investors become better investors; it’s to identify and connect them with relevant LPs.”
The VCs participating, who are all raising their first, second or third funds, are based all over Europe — and 40% of the selected general partners are female. Just under a quarter of the participants are solo GPs, and only 30% of them were previously investment professionals; 31% have been founders, and 22% operators.
“There’s been a lot of anti-Europe rhetoric recently, much of it unwarranted. The sheer volume of applications we received for the programme, alongside the quality of the managers who applied for a spot makes us very excited about the future of European tech and suggests 2025 will be a record year for emerging managers launching their fund,” says Hollis.
The scheme
Over the next 10 weeks, the participating VCs will receive warm introductions to LPs through a series of in-person events, and a curated list of international LPs and family offices.
They’ll also receive mentoring from the founding partners of some of Europe’s top VC firms — including LocalGlobe’s Robin Klein, Dawn Capital’s Haakon Overli, Hoxton Ventures’ Hussein Kanji and Connect Ventures’ Sitar Teli.
There will also be workshops on fundraising, and matchmaking events.
The participating funds
Andrena Ventures
HQ: London
Funding raised: $12m target (fund 1)
Focus: Startups spun off from Europe’s leading tech companies
Stage: Pre-seed
A solo GP fund from Gideon Valkin, former commercial director at digital bank Monzo and investor at seed VC Entrée Capital. LPs include RTP Global, Taavet+Sten, Cherry Ventures partners Filip Dames, Christian Meerman and Sophia Bendz. Valkin tells Sifted he’s closed around half of his target amount of funding.
Backtrace VC
HQ: Munich
Funding raised: €10m closed, €30m target (fund 1)
Focus: Dev tools, security and AI infrastructure
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Backtrace, founded by two former Target Partners investors, Michael Münnix and Dominik Tobschall, backs “boring” infrastructure tech startups. It’ll invest pre-seed cheques of €750k-1m and seed cheques of more than €1m, and plans to lead or co-lead deals.
Belief Capital
HQ: London
Funding raised: $1m closed, $20m target (fund 1)
Focus: ‘Accelerating the transition into a future of abundance’
Stage: Pre-incorporation/idea stage
Belief Capital was founded by Kevin Costa, a 26-year-old angel investor and former head of operations at healthtech startup PetsApp and investor at early-stage VC La Famiglia. Its backers include: Christian Reber, founder of Pitch; Ricardo Sequerra Amram, general partner at Point Nine; and Firat Ileri, general partner at Hummingbird. Costa’s big on backing the companies we’ll want in our lives in a future era of abundance — think robot house cleaners and advanced healthcare apps — and likes to invest super early.
Circle & Co
HQ: London
Funding raised: £7.5m closed, £10m target (fund 1)
Focus: Technology that powers consumer industries
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Founded by solo GP and former Venrex partner Sasha Trower, Circle & Co is an early-stage fund backing founders building technology for consumer industries. Its portfolio includes training app Runna and productivity tool Workflow Design. Trower tells Sifted she launched her fund in October last year, and hopes to do a final close in April.
Common Magic
HQ: London
Funding raised: £10m (fund 1)
Focus: Products with community at their core
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Angel investor and ex-Googler Sarah Drinkwater’s solo GP fund closed in December 2024. It plans to back around 30 companies with cheques of £100k-£150k on average. LPs include Atomico, Basecamp, Taavet+Sten, Isomer, Seedcamp and Allocator One.
Course Corrected
HQ: Stockholm
Funding raised: Unconfirmed
Focus: Climate tech
Stage: Early
A rare VC with three female GPs — Katja Bergman, Kerstin Cooley and Christine Ahlstrand — Course Corrected was founded in 2021. Its portfolio includes plywood wind farm builder Modvion.
Defiant VC
HQ: London and Lisbon
Funding raised: $30m closed, $70m target (fund 1)
Focus: B2B SaaS and fintech
Stage: Seed and Series A
Defiant announced a first close of its fund in January. It plans to invest between $1m-10m in B2B SaaS and fintech startups.
Managing partners Joseph Pizzolato, former Felix Capital investor, and Cam Rail, former founder and trader, are childhood friends who bill their firm as a data-driven VC.
The pair have built a tool to source new deals, analyse pitch decks and score startups. Defiant is also working on benchmarking tools for startups. LPs include family offices and general partners at Atomico, Cherry Ventures, Hedosophia, Earlybird and Mubadala.
e2vc
HQ: Istanbul
Funding raised: €10m (fund 1), $75m (fund 2), $100m target (fund 3)
Focus: Founders from eastern Europe and Turkey
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Previously known as 500 Emerging Europe, e2vc invests in early-stage startups across eastern Europe and Turkey. It’s now raising its third fund, with a target of $100m. “Through this programme, I aim to strengthen my presence in London, enabling me to do more deals in the UK, deepen ties between Emerging Europe and the UK, and diversify our LP base,” general partner Enis Hulli tells Sifted.
Endurance Ventures
HQ: London
Funding raised: Undisclosed
Focus: SaaS, ex-unicorn spinout founders
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Endurance Ventures is a new VC founded in 2024 by former Klarna US corporate strategy lead and Fin Capital partner — and now solo GP — Henry Cashin.
Intuition VC
HQ: Paris and New York
Funding raised: €15m (fund 1)
Focus: Consumer AI
Stage: Pre-seed
General partners Etienne Boutan, a basketball player turned founder, and Hugo Amsellem, a former director at French investor The Family, launched Intuition last year to invest in chronically unloved consumer startups. The firm spent last year on a ‘tour’ which saw it host events with a handful of other VCs in cities around Europe and the US, including EQT Ventures, a16z and Felix Capital.
Momentum Partners
HQ: Bergen, Norway
Funding raised: Unconfirmed
Focus: Climate tech
Stage: Seed
Momentum invests in climate tech, and in ocean tech, agriculture, renewables and construction in particular. It has 19 portfolio companies, and has raised two funds so far.
Mudcake
HQ: Stockholm
Funding raised: $18m (fund 1)
Focus: Food tech
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Mudcake, formerly called Trellis Road, invests in companies reshaping the way we produce, distribute and consume food. It typically writes cheques of $200k-$800k, and invests globally. Its general partners are Anna Ottosson and Erik Byrenius, both former founders. The portfolio includes alternative fish startup BettaFish, alt-meat maker Project Eaden, dairy-free cheese startup Stockeld Dreamery and alt-meat company This.
NP-Hard Ventures
HQ: Amsterdam
Funding raised: €12m (fund 1)
Focus: B2B SaaS
Stage: Pre-seed
NP-Hard Ventures was started by angel investor and operator Anke Huiskes and closed its debut fund in November 2023. It will invest cheques of around €250k into about 35 pre-seed startups, mostly in Europe.
Nucleus Capital
HQ: Berlin
Funding raised: €7m (fund 1), €40m target (fund 2)
Focus: Climate deeptech
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Nucleus, founded by former FoodLabs investor Maximilian Schwarz and industrial engineer Isabella Fandrych, backs companies rethinking food production or industrial production using synthetic biology. Its first ‘proof of concept’ fund invested in 27 companies between 2021 and 2023, including Munich-based Planet A Foods,which is making cocoa-free chocolate,. The team told Sifted their second fund was 90% subscribed in November.
Purple
HQ: Paris
Funding raised: €8.5m (fund 1), €25m target (fund 2)
Focus: ‘Great founders’
Stage: Pre-seed and seed
Purple is a VC fund anchored by investment from Laurent Ritter, cofounder of gaming company Voodoo. It’s run by founding partners Raphaël Mosca and Arnaud Mauduit, and is hyper focused on French startups. The team is currently raising a second fund, of €25m, and have 60% already committed. It launched in 2022, and has 36 companies in its portfolio.
Terminus
HQ: Prague
Funding raised: Unconfirmed
Focus: Central and eastern Europe
Stage: Seed
Terminus’ website says it is “launching soon”.
The Nordic Web Ventures
HQ: Copenhagen
Funding raised: €500k (fund 1), €1.5m (fund 2), €13m target (fund 3)
Focus: Nordics
Stage: Early
A solo GP fund run by Neil Murray, founder of The Nordic Web, backed by European entrepreneurs, investors and community builders. Murray tells Sifted: “As a founder I had the fortune of being backed by Y Combinator, but the misfortune of it being during Covid meaning I missed out on an in-person programme. Now as an emerging VC, I’m looking forward to the opportunity and serendipity the Mountside programme provides to meet and learn from peers, and from established VCs and LPs.”
A further three participating funds are still incognito.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/mountside-vc-accelerator-fund-participants/
