Connect Ventures, a London-based early-stage venture capital firm, has completed a $55 million first close for its fifth fund, targeting $80 million in total commitments. The new fund will continue backing European startups from their earliest stages, with an increased emphasis on founders whose technical expertise provides a foundation for developing differentiated products and businesses.
Fund V will lead pre-seed financing rounds across Europe, typically investing between $500,000 and $5 million per company. The strategy focuses on entrepreneurs building globally ambitious businesses in areas including artificial intelligence, infrastructure, hardware, robotics, and biotechnology.
The fund is anchored by the British Business Bank, with significant participation from returning limited partners including Aldea Ventures, Sella Venture Partners, and Molten Ventures. New investors include European family offices and founders of companies previously backed by Connect Ventures.
The first close provides Connect with capital to continue its existing investment strategy while pursuing the remaining commitments toward its $80 million fundraising target. The firm has not announced a final closing date.
Founded in 2012, Connect Ventures has invested in more than 120 companies, concentrating on startups at the inception, pre-seed, and seed stages.
With Fund V, the firm is sharpening its investment focus around founders who possess substantial technical knowledge of the problems they are attempting to solve. Its investment thesis emphasizes entrepreneurs whose experience in engineering, scientific research, software development, or other specialized fields directly informs their products.
Connect believes this expertise can help startups develop technologies that are difficult for competitors to replicate, accelerate product development, and address problems requiring specialized technical capabilities.
The firm has already begun applying this investment approach through recent investments in ai-coustics, Mosaico, and Molecular Glue Labs.
Germany-based ai-coustics develops AI-powered speech enhancement technology designed to improve audio quality. The company operates within AI infrastructure, one of the areas Connect has identified for investment through its fifth fund.
Mosaico, an Italian robotics technology company, is developing open-source data infrastructure for physical AI and robotics. Its technology addresses the data requirements of AI systems designed to operate in physical environments.
UK-based Molecular Glue Labs operates at the intersection of biotechnology and artificial intelligence, developing technologies focused on the discovery of molecular glues.
These investments illustrate the range of technical disciplines Connect intends to support, spanning AI software, robotics infrastructure, and computational biotechnology.
Despite the increased emphasis on technical founders, Connect is maintaining its established approach to early-stage investing.
The firm operates through a general partner-only investment team, with founders working directly with the partner responsible for their investment rather than being assigned to junior investment professionals.
Its investment team includes Pietro Bezza, Sitar Teli, and Rory Stirling, who work directly with portfolio companies from the initial investment process through subsequent stages of development.
Connect intends to maintain a relatively concentrated portfolio, making a limited number of investments while providing substantial support to its founders.
This approach allows the firm to dedicate resources to investment decisions, product development challenges, fundraising, and other issues facing early-stage companies.
The fifth fund builds on a portfolio that includes Aikido Security and TrueLayer, two companies Connect backed during their early development.
Aikido Security is a European cybersecurity company developing security solutions for software and AI applications.
TrueLayer operates a payments infrastructure platform specializing in open banking and pay-by-bank technology. Its founder, Francesco Simoneschi, has also become an investor in Connect’s fifth fund.
The participation of founders from existing portfolio companies adds to the fund’s investor base and reflects Connect’s effort to maintain relationships with entrepreneurs beyond its initial investments.
Alongside its investment activities, Connect is expanding Built By Few, its event series bringing together European technology founders, investors, and industry leaders.
Originally established as a flagship event in London, the initiative has expanded into additional European technology centers, including Ghent, Milan, Barcelona, and Berlin, with Amsterdam also planned.
Previous speakers have included founders of Arduino, TrueLayer, Dust, and Aikido.
The program provides another way for Connect to engage with Europe’s technology ecosystem while supporting its broader emphasis on founders developing technically complex products.
The launch of Fund V continues Connect’s established early-stage strategy while placing greater emphasis on companies where specialized technical expertise is central to product development.
