Aldea Ventures, a pan-European fund of funds focused on specialist, early-stage VC managers in frontier technology, has announced a €50M first close of its second fund, Aldea II, which is targeting a total raise of €125M. With this new vehicle, Aldea continues its mission to support pre-seed and seed-stage investors operating at the cutting edge of deep tech, while deepening its footprint in Europe and selectively expanding into North America.
The firm, which launched its first fund in 2020, is doubling down on its strategy of identifying emerging managers with niche technical expertise in high-impact sectors such as AI, next-gen computing, climate tech, health and bio, and robotics.
Aldea has invested in 28 funds managed by 23 different VCs, participating in over 1,000 startup investments. With Aldea II, the firm plans to build a more concentrated portfolio focused on sub-€100M Micro-VCs and sub-€25M Nano-VCs, as well as a limited number of co-investment and secondary opportunities.
Initial Fund II commitments have already been made to early-stage managers including as Moonfire II (data-driven VC), Amino II (health and bio frontier tech), and Unruly Capital (climate and deeptech). Aldea II also welcomes Concept Ventures and First Commit into its portfolio, while continuing relationships with funds like Possible Ventures and 201 Ventures.
“We view venture capital as a dynamic, distributed intelligence network that propels innovation forward,” said Alfonso Bassols, Managing Partner at Aldea Ventures.
“At Aldea, we’ve consistently found that very early stage specialist managers—fueled by their unique insights and local expertise—are crucial to detecting the subtle signals that shape tomorrow’s breakthroughs. With our second fund, we’re doubling down on our dedication to this network by making more concentrated investments in the most promising managers, empowering these visionary allocators who operate at the leading edge of innovation."
Aldea’s strategy comes at a time when investor attention is increasingly shifting to high-impact, frontier technologies. According to ARK Invest’s Big Ideas 2024 report, frontier tech sectors are projected to grow at an average annual rate of 42 percent, far outpacing traditional tech’s projected 3 percent growth.
As these sectors become more technically complex and capital-intensive, Aldea believes the best outcomes will come from backing managers with domain-specific knowledge and patient capital.
“Aldea has been more than an investor - they’ve been a true partner,” said Mick Halsband, General Partner at Lunar Ventures.
“Over the years, they’ve shown real alignment with our mission to back deeptech founders in Europe. They understand the long timelines and complexity this space demands, and they’ve supported us with patience, trust, and a shared belief in building for the long term. They’re one of the few FoFs truly helping lay the groundwork for deep tech innovation coming out of Europe.”
Aldea has also announced key team changes to support its growth. Daniela Cavagliano, who joined the firm as COO in 2023 following a decade at UBS, has been promoted to Partner. Gabrielle Cummins, previously with Barcelona-based climate tech firm Mitiga Solutions, joins as Principal.
“In recent years, we've witnessed a significant influx of innovative technologies—many with the potential to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” said Cavagliano. “In my view, these technologies should be a core component of any investor’s portfolio. Among the available instruments, Aldea offers a particularly unique proposition: a well-diversified portfolio of highly specialised early-stage managers, providing a compelling combination of high-value creation and low-risk exposure. I have absolute confidence in the success of the strategy we started in 2020 and on which Fund II continues building."
While Aldea continues to prioritise Europe - where 71 percent of portfolio companies from Fund I are based - it is also eyeing increased exposure to the U.S. market, particularly through European funds with cross-Atlantic ambitions and the infrastructure to support global expansion for EU founders.
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments