Meet Europe’s 25 most active angel investors

After a difficult couple of years, Europe’s tech scene bounced back in 2024 — with investment rising for startups across the board, from pre-seed to late-stage. With angel investments also on the rise, Sifted wanted to find out how Europe’s most prominent angel investors played their chips.

The most prolific angel investor of the year was Thibaud Elzière, a man who has reportedly backed over 100 companies. Sifted tracked 17 investments of his last year, covering AI, spacetech and everything in between.

As director of Paris startup hub Station F, Roxanne Varza has a ringside seat to France’s emerging tech hits. She was the second busiest angel investor in Europe last year — and the only woman to appear on this list. Her investments were AI-heavy: mysterious startup H received money from her, as did fellow Parisian companies Dottxt and Adaptive ML.

Last year also saw the continued growth of footballer Mario Götze’s remarkable tech side-hustle: the man who scored the winning goal for Germany against Argentina in the 2014 World Cup final was Europe’s fifth most active angel, backing eight companies.

The top 25 angel investors tracked by Sifted backed 139 companies last year overall. A few of these companies attracted money from multiple heavy hitter angels. Paris-based automation specialist Twin Labs, for example, has a raft of top angels behind it: three appear in our top 25 list (alongside Elzière there’s DeepMind’s Mehdi Ghissassi and Dataiku cofounder Florian Douetteau).

Recognisable investors just outside the top 10 include French billionaire Xavier Niel — he also backed France’s H last year — UK-based Diary of a CEO podcast host Steven Bartlett and Stan Boland, who has built and sold four companies.

Europe’s 10 most active angel investors

1) Thibaud Elzière, France

Deal count in 2024 — 17
Notable investments in 2024: Twin Labs, Skynopy

It would be a lot quicker to list the projects Elzière hasn’t backed — past ventures touch on stock photography, solar sails, “micro” cars, luxury hotels and an online search engine. Last year he was characteristically busy, with 17 investments in companies including Presti AI — a tool that can remove and replace photo backgrounds for furniture retailers in a blink — and Skynopy, which aims to simplify data transfer services between ground stations and satellites. The serial dart thrower has hit several bullseyes in his time, with past investments in AI open source unicorn Hugging Face and productivity software app Notion.

2) Roxanne Varza, France

Deal count — 11
Notable investments: H, Adaptive ML, Dottxt

Station F has helped magic up a number of startup hits since launching in 2017 and Varza is as well placed as anyone in Europe to catch potential breakout stars. One intriguing company she backed last year was Robeauté, which is developing microscopic robots that could one day run around your brain and help doctors make diagnoses.

3) Trond Riiber Knudsen, Norway

Deal count — 9
Notable investments: Fantasy Chess, Starflow

The McKinsey partner made a string of investments last year, with bets on everything from energy management tech for homes (Starflow) and a games platform founded by 17-time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen (Fantasy Chess).

4) Jonathan Milner, UK

Deal count — 9
Notable investments: Healx, clock.bio

British molecular geneticist with a notable hit under his belt: he founded antibody supplier Abcam, which grew to become a company with a market cap in excess of $5bn. In 2024, he chipped into huge rounds for life sciences companies Constructive Bio and PhoreMost.

5) Mario Götze, Germany

Deal count — 8
Notable investments: Zeit AI, Roundtable

King of the pitch(deck), 32-year old Götze continues to spray passes and cheques. He made a mix of bets last year, from restaurant management software to a new messaging app for truckers.

6) Bob van Luijt, the Netherlands

Deal count — 8
Notable investments: Dottxt

Van Luijt, one of brains behind “vector database” company Weaviate — which converts images, videos, emails and social media posts into numerical representations, to help chatbots understand how relevant each item is to the other — is helping to seed the next AI up-and-comers like Paris’s Dottxt —which appeared in Station F’s influential “Future 40” list last year — and Amsterdam-based Lleverage AI, which aims to make it easier for companies to use AI.

7) Sebastien Borget, France

Deal count — 7
Notable investments: PlayMakers, Next Wallet

Cast your mind back to 2022 and The Sandbox — a virtual world filled with digital assets like houses and trainers — was one of the biggest things around. The metaverse has since lost its shine but it could be due a revival, with the crypto/blockchain industry roaring again due (in large part) to memecoin-loving Trump’s White House return. Sandbox cofounder Borget still believes in a Web3–tinted future, with a number of crypto/blockchain deals last year.

8) Mark Ransford, UK

Deal count — 7
Notable investments: Flowpay

With over 20 years’ experience in financial services, Ransford has backed some of Europe’s most notable unicorns, including Lendable, Zego, Wayflyer and Payhawk. In 2024, he made bets on startups tackling everything from SME lending to embedded finance and cross-border payments.

9) Lorenz Bogaert, Belgium

Deal count — 6
Notable investments: Otamiser

The Belgian serial entrepreneur behind social media site Massive Media has seen a number of his ventures get acquired over the years. His recent bets include AI-powered analytics, proptech and healthtech companies.

10) Felipe Navio, Spain

Deal count — 6
Notable investments: Gendo

This angel knows what it takes to build a successful business — he’s done it himself with recruitment site Job&Talent, which caught the wave of new unicorns in 2021. Navio’s not picky on sectors, with investments last year ranging from fintech to specialty coffee.