With an final goal of €1bn, Spain’s Mundi Ventures closed on €750m this week for its Kembara Fund for deep tech and local weather start-ups.
Deep tech targets the world’s largest issues, from local weather and vitality to defence and healthcare. Europe has the expertise and the start-ups, however has struggled on the capital aspect for scaling start-ups. That is what Mundi Ventures’ Kembara Fund goals to deal with with its deal with Sequence B and C funding of €15m-€40m, and past, for corporations based mostly in EU member states.
In line with the Kembara staff, Europe produces 28pc of worldwide deep tech innovation, however solely 3pc of European deep tech corporations efficiently elevate Sequence B or C rounds. It’s that very hole that the Kembara Fund is hoping to bridge utilizing “€1bn devoted to backing Europe’s deep tech champions on the actual second when expertise is confirmed and international scale turns into doable”.
In his personal phrases, Kembara accomplice Yann de Vries says the funding cliff is “deeply private” to him after his expertise with Lilium, which declared insolvency in 2025 having failed to boost sufficient funding. Its patents now belong to Archer Aviation.
“A decade in the past at Lilium – a number one electrical aviation firm – we went from a sci-fi thought in a hangar to a NASDAQ-listed firm in 5 years,” de Vries mentioned in a LinkedIn submit yesterday.
“I noticed first-hand how brutally onerous it’s for European deep tech groups to boost €50m-€100m rounds and scale globally. That journey is why we constructed Kembara.”
The European Funding Fund (EIF) is a lead backer of Kembara, saying in July final 12 months that it will make investments €350m in Kembara Fund 1. On the time, the EIC mentioned it was the expertise of the Kembara administration staff and its “differentiated technique” that had been key to receiving the help of the EIF.
“Corporations that obtain strategic autonomy in vital applied sciences – from AI and quantum computing to area techniques and clear vitality – have the potential to change into trillion-dollar international champions,” mentioned de Vries in his submit.
“Our ambition is obvious: repair Europe’s growth-stage funding hole, the place solely 3pc of deep tech corporations make it to Sequence B/C right this moment.”
Different Kembara companions embrace Javier Santiso, Robert Trezona, Pierre Festal and Siraj Khaliq, who de Vries says have a mixed expertise of 100 years in deep tech, in corporations like SpaceX, Palantir, PsiQuantum, OpenAI, Lilium, Ceres Energy, Anduril and The Exploration Firm.
“We’re entrepreneurs united by a shared mission: to construct Europe’s main deep tech platform – one which retains Europe aggressive within the international expertise race, tackles the world’s most urgent challenges and delivers outsized returns,” mentioned de Vries. “That is solely the start…”
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