Investors Directory

As the innovative venture arm of the renowned Gekko Group, we focus on early-stage lifestyle startups across Europe. Leveraging our expertise and network in hospitality, travel, fashion & beauty, we bring a unique perspective to the startup world and are ready to invest in visionary companies. Our mission is to shape the future of brands by combining Gekko Group’s operational experience with transformative innovations.

Join Capital is a Berlin-based early-stage venture capital firm (also with offices in London and Milan) that focuses on deep tech for industrial, enterprise, and defense applications. They typically invest in Seed to Series A rounds, writing checks of €1–5 million. Their second fund is around €112 million, and they support companies building foundational technologies in areas like advanced manufacturing, quantum computing, robotics, space, and AI.

Planet A Ventures is a Berlin-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage European greentech startups with a strong focus on positive environmental impact. They support innovation in areas like climate mitigation, waste prevention, resource efficiency, and biodiversity protection. What really sets them apart is their in-house science team, which performs life cycle assessments (LCA) as part of due diligence — and can veto investments if a startup doesn’t show significant, quantifiable impact. They closed their first fund at around €160 million.

UBE Corporation (formerly Ube Industries) is a Japanese conglomerate turned specialty-chemicals company. It produces a wide range of products — from basic chemicals and plastics to high-performance materials (like polyimide, ceramics, and membrane materials), pharmaceuticals, and industrial machinery. UBE is also actively investing in sustainability.

We invest in teams transforming the world with technology. Faber is a Lisbon-based venture capital firm investing in outstanding entrepreneurs who innovate at the intersection of science and technology to drive digital transformation and climate action. The firm combines a specialist focus on deep tech early stage startups with dedicated funds, investment teams, and expert advisors to actively help founders build global companies powered by applied science or climate/ocean technologies. Faber’s unique approach in Southern Europe is led by an entrepreneurial management partnership and backed by notable thesis-driven institutions and private investors. Investing since 2013, the firm has been an early investor in hard tech companies such as Unbabel, SWORD Health, Codacy, iLoF, Smartex or Luminate Medical.

Our firm has been on the forefront of financing innovation for over 25 years. Since our inception in the late 90’s we’ve consistently managed to anticipate technology trends and to spot talented entrepreneurs pursuing ambitiously disruptive goals. We were among the first to see the power of eCommerce and successfully rode the first wave of digital transition in the 2000’s investing in emerging B2C/B2B plays in a variety of sectors. With the steady growth of our firm and the maturing of the European Venture Capital ecosystem, we gradually transitioned our investment focus to more tech-heavy initiatives. Over the past 10 years, deep-tech and climate-tech have grown to become a substantial aspect of our investment activities. We had the vision and courage to be European pioneers in backing startups in robotics, machine vision, neuromorphic sensing and space-tech. Anticipating the climate and sustainability challenge, we were among the first to launch a dedicated fund to support much needed technological innovations in areas such as energy storage and waste recycling. As we look towards the future, our commitment remains steadfast to investing in ground-breaking technologies that not only promise substantial market returns but also contribute to a sustainable and prosperous society.

Niterra Ventures is the corporate venture arm of Niterra, formerly known as NGK Spark Plugs, a global technology leader with a 90-year history. With 17,000 employees worldwide, Niterra is the world’s #1 spark plug company. Our core business in spark plugs and sensors for automotive combustion engines generates over $1 billion in free cash flow annually, providing us with the financial flexibility to invest in new growth areas beyond our traditional markets. Niterra Ventures launched its investment program in 2021 with a dedicated $100M CVC fund, where we invest $0.5M to $5M in Series A and onward, with the potential to invest additional capital off the balance sheet for particularly compelling opportunities. Since launch, we have made 15 investments, supporting innovative companies that align with our long-term vision. At Niterra Ventures, our mission is to build the future of Niterra beyond spark plugs by identifying and investing in transformative technologies and business opportunities. We make strategic, minority investments in innovative companies at various stages of growth, with a focus on Series A and onward, that align with our vision for long-term growth.

Ajinomoto Group Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Ajinomoto, a $10B revenue technology leader in amino science. We invest in transformative companies that advance new ways to extend health span, develop new approaches that change the ways information is processed, and answer complex challenges in sustainability. Together with Ajinomoto’s community of scientists and engineers, we enable startup founders to build and scale solutions for the future.

M Ventures is the strategic, corporate venture capital fund of Merck, investing in Biotechnology and Technology. We cover the areas of Healthcare drug development, Life Science tools, Electronics and Frontier Technology & Sustainability. We invest - with dual strategic and financial foci - into visionary companies that find new ways to: treat the most challenging diseases, empower scientists with cutting-edge research and development tools, develop new solutions that change the way in which information is accessed, stored, processed, and displayed and address some of the most complex challenges in sustainability and technology convergence. We take an active role in our portfolio companies and team up with entrepreneurs and co-investors to translate innovation towards commercial success.

Our Mission: Making a brighter future with the talents we work with. Yanmar Ventures Co., Ltd commits to invest to leading-edge technology and deep tech startups, and strive to incubate them in co-creation with all our networks, thereby delivering social impacts and enriching people's lives for all our tomorrows. We focus on investing in start-ups related to four areas in order to realize "A Sustainable Future" such as sustainable food production, global warming measures, UX/DX, human assistive technologies.

Technological innovation and entrepreneurial ambition hold the keys to transforming our economy. KOMPAS VC is a specialist early-stage venture capital firm with offices in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, and Copenhagen. Fund II (€150m) invests in innovative technology for the manufacturing industry and the built environment - two sectors that are major contributors to CO₂ emissions, face persistent productivity challenges, geopolitical instability, supply chain disruptions, and cyber threats. We provide high-growth software and hardware companies with capital and strategic industry access to enable the transition within those two industries towards an economic model that balances growth and prosperity while respecting planetary boundaries.

Atlantic Bridge is a Growth Equity Firm with a Cross Border Value Add strategy. We invest in deep technology companies in Europe, the UK and the US. Our team is made up of successful entrepreneurs and senior technology industry executives and we invest in strong ambitious entrepreneurs and management teams that have the passion and drive to scale up and exploit major growth opportunities. We help our portfolio companies expand and grow internationally through our global platform with our team and offices in Dublin, London, Munich, Paris and Palo Alto.

Visionaries Tomorrow is an EUR 100m early-stage industrial deep tech fund backed by some of the world's most influential unicorn founders and industrial leaders. We're supercharging mission-driven founders working on breakthrough solutions to rebuild the fundamentals of our world's largest industries. Portfolio companies include pathbreaking ventures such as Proxima Fusion (fusion energy), Cosmic Aerospace (electric aviation), Radical Dot (green chemicals), SirenOpt (manufacturing intelligence), and Hestia (white hydrogen).

Backing the future of European industry! We fund European early-stage industrial hardware and software companies, empowering them to become global leaders.

Climentum Capital is an investment fund based in Copenhagen, Berlin, Stockholm, and Oslo. We are an Article 9 climate tech fund leading Seed & Series A investments in European B2B hard tech companies that cut emissions at the core of industries. As one of the first funds with a dual carry structure (with both financial and impact targets), Climentum Capital is dedicated to only investing in companies that can deliver true greenhouse gas emissions reductions.