Andre de Haes and Alex Brunicki founded the fund to address a gap in European seed-stage investment.
We launched Fund I with €50M, prioritising community building. Since then, 80% of our investments have targeted this pivotal early stage, with seed ticket sizes from €500K to €2.5M.
Backed 1 is now a top decile fund.
We launched our second Fund II and Encore I, raising €150M to support European founders. We made bold bets in healthcare, backing OchreBio and CoMind, as well as crypto companies in Decentralised Finance and banking.
We’re setting the pace for our latest Fund 3. We’re leading or co-leading 92% of Backed 3 deals, demonstrating our commitment to the startups we back.
Our first fund achieved 100% follow-on funding, and we maintain a 96% win rate in competitive deals.
In November 2025, we made our 100th investment. Now our portfolio includes 6 unicorns, 8 companies surpassing €25M ARR, and 21 companies at $100m+ enterprise value.
We’re doubling down on our best founders and re-backing six in Backed 3!
Our Story
We launched our second fund and Encore I, raising €150M to support European founders. We made bold bets on fintech, including crypto and Web3 gaming, backing innovators like Axie Infinity and Hutch.
Now in 2025, we’re setting the pace for our latest fund 3. We’re leading or co-leading 100% of Backed 3 deals, demonstrating our commitment to the startups we back, an increase on 93% in Backed 2 and 80% in Backed 1.
Our first fund achieved 100% follow-on funding, and we maintain a 96% win rate in competitive deals. With six portfolio companies surpassing €25M ARR, we're only getting started.
Manifesto
Our mission is to invest in Europe's generational founders with global ambitions. We are focused on frontier tech, where companies are building at the intersection of technical and scientific breakthroughs and near-term real-world applications.
Backed 3 is focussed on three core themes of the Future of Healthcare, the Future of Finance and the Future of Manufacturing. We believe Europe offers founders talent, structural and market advantages in markets with $tn global opportunities.
We invest at seed, where we believe the magic happens and where we can deliver the most impact.
With over 100 investments, our track record speaks for itself, featuring 6 unicorns - Invisible Technologies, ThoughtMachine, Sky Mavis, Immutable and Moonpay - with another announcing soon. We have 7 successful exits (including Hutch, Foundries, DataSeat) and 21 companies now valued over $100M.
Our human centric ethos is the foundation of who we are.
From inception, we've differentiated via our events strategy. We deliver unique edge through hosting an extensive event programme globally. We gather the entrepreneurial community
across Europe, building deep sector communities.
As well as our network access, we provide a scalable platform for our founders to benefit from extensive post-investment support, fuelling their journey from seed to Series A, and beyond.
We plant the flag
We invest in Europe's generational founders with global ambitions
Our Principles
Bold
We seed the founders who will change the world.
Human
We galvanise communities of extraordinary people.
Contrarian
We inspire remarkable and unbounded lives.
Our Values
PLANT THE
FLAG
Be brave enough to take a stand, take risks and break new ground. Whatever you do, show up and represent with pride and purpose.
Put People
First
Be an awesome human above all else. People are our biggest asset. Back founders over markets. Invest in communities over commodities.
KEEP YOUR
WORD
Be 100% accountable for your words and your actions. Choose progress over perfection and get s**t done.
Seek the
Truth
Be infinitely curious and relentless in the pursuit of truth. Deal only in first principles.
FIND YOUR
PEOPLE
Testimonial
Jack
O'Meara
Founder
Stealth biotech
Backed, in my view, are the top frontier tech fund in Europe. Alex & Andre have built an exceptional support team that becomes an ancillary force for their portfolio companies. Beyond the practicalities of company building, they are well attuned to the personal challenges of entrepreneurship, and their human approach builds trust. They have a very strong reputation among founders, and are well connected to later stage domain-specific capital. They are the first fund I called when starting my second company, before it was even fully formed. And they’re also good people - what a treat!
