Backed VC closes $100M seed fund to invest in Europe's generational founders with global ambitions
13th November 2025, London, UK - European venture firm Backed VC has closed its third fund, Backed 3, at its $100 million cap, alongside making its 100th investment. Backed partners with outlier founders building generational frontier technology companies, who have made a fundamental technological or conceptual breakthrough.
Following two high-performing first funds – Backed’s first fund is a top decile fund and returned a further 35% of capital to investors in October 2025 – Backed is scaling its ambition with Backed 3 with a larger fund, increased presence in the US and an expanded global events strategy. Close to 50% of Backed 3 was committed from 10 leading institutional Fund of Funds, with new investors such as Isomer Capital and Wunderland Capital. Backed 3 also now counts over 50 family offices and entrepreneurs as investors, including founders from Backed’s existing portfolio.
Backed 3 will focus on three areas of frontier tech, in which Backed has previously seeded unicorns: AI-native therapeutics, blockchain and banking infrastructure and manufacturing automation. This fund has already re-invested in 6 of its strongest founders from previous funds Backed leads pre-seed or seed stage rounds with investments between $500k and $5 million.
The firm partnered early on with the founders of companies such as Invisible Technologies, Thought Machine, General Intuition and Flow Engineering – all of which have raised $20-150 million follow-on funding rounds in the last quarter from Tier 1 US firms including Sequoia, General Catalyst, Greycroft and Khosla.
Backed are now at a landmark 100 pre-seed or seed investments, of which five companies have already achieved unicorn status with valuations above $1 billion and eighteen have reached an enterprise value of over $100 million. Backed has a 90% investment follow-on rate from seed, measured by the companies closing a subsequent funding round, becoming profitable or being acquired.
Since its inception in 2016, Backed has differentiated itself by operating at the intersection of venture capital and events to gather the entrepreneurial community. Backed runs an extensive VC event programme globally, with 40 events per year, hosting over 4000 founders and investors. During Slush next week, Backed will host six separate events for 2000 guests.
Andre de Haes, Co-Founder at Backed said:
“Backed partners with founders striving to build the first trillion dollar European businesses, in spaces where most do not dare to build. Over the last decade, we have built a community of humans who have the audacity to take on companies like Nvidia, Google and Goldman Sachs. Their boldness has led to their success. It has created a fly wheel, where our founders are now investing as LPs back into our new fund.”
Alex Brunicki, Co-Founder at Backed said:
“I am inspired by the exceptional talent emerging in Europe at a time of unprecedented technical opportunity, and energised by the search to find those with authentic global ambitions. We want to back generational European founders building companies that will stand the test of time and who are choosing to build their businesses where they are most primed for success, not for convenience: for Aerska, Comind and OchreBio, that is the UK and Europe. But for Flow Engineering, General Intuition and Invisible, that is the US. And we are developing our firm to support exceptional people wherever they choose to build.’
Chris Wade, Co-Founder at Isomer Capital, said:
“We are excited to join Backed Ventures Fund III and their impressive journey of investing in world-class founders who are developing the next generation of global companies. Team Isomer gained conviction as a result of prior funds’ performance and an actual demonstration of an LP partnership in firm development and co-investments.”
Lukas Bennemann, Founding Partner at Wunderland Capital, said:
"We’re delighted to join the Backed VC story in Fund III and support the team as part of the LPAC. Backed has built an exceptional reputation among founders and has matured impressively, showing a repeatable edge at the intersection of technical and scientific breakthroughs. The team genuinely radiates something special — they connect with founders on a deeper level, which truly matters in the highly competitive seed landscape. You can tell who a ‘Backed Founder’ is, showing clearly the culture and focus of the team. Their relentless drive to achieve the best outcomes continues to make them stand out in the European VC landscape."
Francis Pedraza, Founder and Chairman of Invisible Technologies and Infinity Constellation, said:
"When Andre & Alex backed Invisible in 2018, it was a high-stakes contrarian decision: an AI process platform to disrupt SaaS & professional services?! Even though we had less than $1M in revenue, they backed us as our first institutional investor. Although we scaled to $134M in revenue last year with only $8M of seed capital, before raising $100M to scale the business this year after bringing on Matt Fitzpatrick from McKinsey's Quantum Black Labs as our new CEO... along the way there were intense challenges, and at least four "bet the company" decisions - they backed us every time & have earned my lifelong trust: they are true to their brand promise - they're the real deal. And now I'm happy to back them as an LP."
Pim de Witte, CEO at General Intuition:
“Alex was truly the first to believe and Backed supported us from the very start of our journey through some very difficult moments. They are relentless in support of founders and fight when it matters most. It is fair to say, General Intuition might not exist without them. They are world-class, early-stage investors.”