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Not a day goes by without some check that deep tech is on the procession in Europe — and public and private capital investor are here for it .
previous slip in point , OTB Ventures , which closed a $ 185 million store to vest in deep technical school in Europe that it will mostly deploy at the Series A stage . However , up to 10 % could be allocated to come financial backing , and more than 50 % to postdate - on investments .
OTB ’s early - growing fund — its 2nd and tumid to particular date — is once again endorse by the European Investment Fund ( EIF ) , with support from the European Union under the InvestEU Fund . The venture firm welcome this reinforcement , as well as EIF ’s evolve investment thesis , OTB co - founder and managing collaborator Adam Niewiński told TechCrunch .
“ We see EIF focalize more and more on real groundbreaking technologies — we can call it deep tech , we can call it real technical school , but we are basically talking about real disruptive technology coming out of Europe , and being able to vie globally , or not only compete globally but lead global tech innovation . ”
Another deep tech supporter made its entry on OTB ’s cap mesa : NATO Innovation Fund ( NIF ) , which is starting to deploy the € 1 billion it will clothe in funds and in startups from its backing members .
NATO announces $ 1B fund to back startup supporting ‘ base hit , exemption and human authorisation ’
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“ Our first 1 billion flagship fund invests at the intersection of inscrutable tech , defence , security measures and resilience , with themes including get-up-and-go , quantum computing , autonomy , clime , industrials , space and biotech . OTB full aligns with our mission , ” NIF managing partner Andrea Traversone said in a statement .
OTB ’s take on deep technical school focus on four upright that do vocalize fairly NATO - compatible : infinite tech , endeavor automation and AI , cybersecurity and fintech substructure . That would be where fintech goes a bit more technically innovative ; this could be AI - enabled anti - money laundering like Fund 1 ’s portfolio companySilent Eight , for instance .
Since OTB already start pull in investing out of this store following itsfirst closein November 2022 , we already have a sense of where it will go . For instance , its nine investment so far include German startupsKYP.ai , a productivity platform , andSemron , which is developing forward-looking fries .
Semron need to replace chip transistors with ‘ memcapacitors ’
On the bill question of double - habit technology , fellow OTB carbon monoxide - laminitis and managing married person Marcin Hejka was keen to break up misconceptions . From quad and IoT AI to 3D printing , “ it ’s perfectly natural that the defense sector is applying more and more engineering science with civilian roots . It should n’t be confused with investment in weapon , it ’s whole not that . ”
We wished we had necessitate that same question to NIF , but this will have to wait , as it worsen to be question for this article .
This imply we ca n’t confirm either whether the funding that went to OTB could also have go to , say , a French or Austrian deep tech monetary fund . Like NIF , OTB is headquartered in Amsterdam , and its other office is in Warsaw , where NIF late opened its CEE function . Perhaps more significantly , both the Netherlands and Poland are contributor to NIF .
Per NIF ’s rules , it will only “ make unmediated investments into offset - ups located in any of the 23 participate Allied nations ” — a inclination of angel that does n’t in full overlap with NATO or EU members , and notablydoesn’t let in France . However , NIF ’s geographical scope is less clear when it comes to the collateral investments , since it only refer to “ deep technical school funds with a trans - Atlantic impact . ”
Either path , OTB ’s roots have benefits . The firm boasts “ an unfair advantage in accessing Central and Eastern European dealflow , ” and this is also play off on its cap table . Its newfangled fund is backed by CEE entrepreneurs , and not only ones it previously backed : Its LPs includeSnowflakeco - founder Marcin Zukowski , who was already far along in its journey when OTB was establish in 2017 .
OTB may have missed out on back Snowflake , but it has other success story under its whang with Fund 1 , includingBabbleLabs ’ acquisitionby Cisco in 2020 andMinit ’s sale to Microsoftin March 2022 .
It will likely take a few more years for Fund II to head to M&As , but Niewiński has broader hopes . “ Our Modern fund empowers us to further our mission of suffer disruptive thick technical school startups that are leverage Europe ’s outstanding tech talent pool — the enceinte natural resource that our continent can offer . ”
