Early-stage investment fund Plural announced today a new €400 million fund to back the most ambitious founders on a mission to change the world through technology.
Plural was launched in June 2022 with the aim of giving serious founders in Europe investors the experience to match their ambition.
Only 8 percent of European VCs have built a company before, yet investors will better serve founders building hard companies with first-hand experience.
Plural’s investor team of Carina Namih, Ian Hogarth, Khaled Helioui, Sten Tamkivi and Taavet Hinrikus have decades of company-building experience having spearheaded globally significant tech companies including Wise, Skype, Songkick, Teleport, Bigpoint, and HelixNano.
Since its inception, Plural has invested in 26 transformative companies in six countries across Denmark, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and US. Its largest sectors by investment are AI (31 percent), frontier tech (16 percent) and climate & energy (14 percent). Portfolio examples include Sano Genetics, RobinAI, VS Particle, Isometric, and Proxima Fusion, and Teton.It offers early-stage investment cheques from €1 million to €15 millio
The fresh capital, raised just 18 months after the debut fund, continues Plural’s momentum following its first 26 investments, the expansion of the investment and platform scaling team and significant appetite from sophisticated LPs to invest in Plural’s unique model.
Over the past 18 months, the Plural team has grown to 15, based in Tallinn and London. Its platform scaling team now comprises seasoned operators with deep industry experience, who provide support to Plural’s portfolio founders across a range of functions, including legal, fundraising, marketing and product.
In June 2023, Plural partner Ian Hogarth was appointed to a part-time role chairing the UK government’s £100M taskforce to invest in state capacity around AI safety. This builds on his long-standing focus as an investor on ensuring that powerful AI systems are developed safely, and the Plural team’s developed philosophy about impact beyond money in the ecosystem.
A direct output of the taskforce was the world’s first major AI Safety Summit, which saw Prime Minister Rishi Sunak host officials from 28 countries and leading AI executives and researchers for meaningful discussions and progress on the global AI policy landscape, and the establishment of the now permanent AI Safety Institute (AISI). Ian will continue as Chair of the AI Safety Institute.
Carina Namih, Partner at Plural, said:
“When we launched Plural 18 months ago, we knew that European founders were being underserved by a lack of operators turned investors but even we couldn’t have predicted so much appetite for a different approach.
We’re galvanised by the trust founders have placed in us to support them on their journeys tackling serious problems from developing clean energy that will save the planet to making the internet safer.
With Fund II, we want to take this new model of investing even deeper into the European ecosystem, where startup creation continues to outpace the US, providing a huge opportunity that we have a responsibility to maximise.”
Taavet Hinrikus, Partner at Plural, said:
“We know that significant technology is being built across Europe - more than 40 percent of European tech investment in the past year has gone into frontier and deep tech.
Founders tackling major world problems through technology are exactly the types of companies we are backing at Plural. By supporting the most ambitious founders with our hard-won experience, we’re determined to build enduring global companies that will have a GDP-level impact and be transformative for economies and society.”
In June 2023, Plural partner Ian Hogarth was appointed to a part-time role chairing the UK government’s £100M taskforce to invest in state capacity around AI safety.
This builds on his long-standing focus as an investor on ensuring that powerful AI systems are developed safely, and the Plural team’s developed philosophy about impact beyond money in the ecosystem.
A direct output of the taskforce was the world’s first major AI Safety Summit, which saw Prime Minister Rishi Sunak host officials from 28 countries and leading AI executives and researchers for meaningful discussions and progress on the global AI policy landscape, and the establishment of the now permanent AI Safety Institute (AISI). Ian will continue as Chair of the AI Safety Institute.
Lead image: Plural. Photo: uncredited.
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments