The founders of University2Ventures previously headed the pre-seed fund that was part of European VC Earlybird.
University2Ventures (U2V), a European venture capital firm previously known as Earlybird-X, has formed a €60m ($70m) fund to invest in deep tech spinouts from European universities.
The fund will invest in pre-seed and seed stage startups focused on AI and novel computing, industrial tech and clean tech.
The firm says it has proprietary access to Europe’s leading research universities including ETH Zürich, Technical University of Munich, RWTH Aachen University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London and French university École Polytechnique.
U2V’s founding team, including partners Philipp Semmer and Michael Schmitt (pictured), previously led Earlybird-X, a pre-seed venture fund that was part of German venture capital firm Earlybird. Earlybird-X recently renamed U2V to better reflect its mission, according to the firm.
The fund’s limited partners include German manufacturer Jungheinrich through its corporate venturing arm, Uplift Ventures, and other German midsized businesses.
Academic spinouts from European universities have seen strong growth over the past decade. The combined enterprise value of spinouts from Europe’s universities and research centres are worth nearly $400bn, a 25% increase from 2021, according to a recent Dealroom.co report.
Spinouts are also becoming a larger part of the European startup ecosystem, accounting for 40% of deep tech and life science new startups since 2019.
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