Hi friends,
Seedcamp just raised $320 million. On the surface, that's a major fundraise from one of venture's best-known seed firms. What caught our attention, though, was the thinking behind it.
The raise combines a $220 million Core fund with a $100 million Select fund to back portfolio companies for longer. Just as importantly, Seedcamp is doubling down on what it calls a transatlantic bridge, helping founders access customers, talent and capital across Europe and the US as they grow.
We're not neutral observers here. EUVC is a small LP in Seedcamp. Still, we think the thesis behind this raise is worth paying attention to.
A lot of our conversations this week came back to the same idea: what does it take to build companies that scale meaningfully?
When we spoke with Seedcamp Principal Will Bennett, we talked about a new generation of founders building for global markets from day one and what they need as they grow. Money matters, but so do networks, talent, customers and access to the right markets.
Joe Schorge from Isomer Capital approached the same issue from a different direction. The biggest outcomes are often hard to spot early, which means investors should spend less time trying to predict winners and more time staying close to great founders, new technologies and strong ecosystems.
Jaap Vriesendorp from Marktlink Capital focused on where the capital comes from. His view was that more founders and operators should be backing the next generation of company builders.
Different conversations. Different angles. The same argument: scale isn't a phase. It's a capability, a strategy and an ecosystem outcome.
Read on for Seedcamp’s latest raise, the conversations and events worth your attention this week, and Part 1 of our VC Compensation in Europe: 2026 Benchmark with Learning VC.
with 💖
David & Andreas
This week's highlight
Event spotlight
Podcasts
Resources
Events
This week's highlight
Europe's best founders are no longer building for Europe first and the US later. They're building global companies from day one.
That's the view behind Seedcamp's new $320 million fund, split between a $220 million Core fund and a $100 million Select fund.
To support this shift, Seedcamp is expanding its US presence and building what it calls a transatlantic bridge, helping founders access customers, talent and capital earlier.
The raise also reflects the firm's continued belief in backing exceptional founders before the company or category is obvious, while increasingly supporting startups at the intersection of AI, science and the physical world.
For more on Seedcamp's new fund and vision, listen to our conversation with Seedcamp Principal Will Bennett.
Event spotlight
Photo credit: Love Tomorrow
Love Tomorrow Summit's theme this year is: The Future of Intelligence. Not just AI, but intelligence as a broader human capacity: natural, collective, inner and artificial. What acceleration asks of leaders, organisations and the people allocating capital.
It's an unusual question for a VC audience. It's also the right one.
EUVC is curating the investment stage on July 23 at Tomorrowland, Boom, Belgium. 80+ speakers and artists. A day that doesn't feel like any other conference.
Podcasts
Europe doesn't have an innovation problem. It has a capital allocation problem. In this conversation, Jaap Vriesendorp, Managing Partner at Marktlink Capital, shares how one of Europe's most active VC LPs approaches manager selection, portfolio construction and the future of European venture.
Key topics
Why European entrepreneurs should invest in European founders
How top LPs build resilient portfolios through manager selection and diversification
Why access, scale and long-term capital matter in venture
What if the biggest venture opportunities are no longer in SaaS, but in science? In this episode, we speak with Ramzi Rizk, General Partner at WIP Capital, about:
Why the next generation of great founders may come from science and engineering
How AI is transforming scientific discovery and making the natural world increasingly computable
Why Europe has a unique opportunity to lead in bio, neuro and foundational AI
Europe's next trillion-dollar company probably already exists. The challenge is that future winners rarely look obvious when they're still small.
In the latest episode of This Week in European Tech, Dan Bowyer and Mads Jensen of SuperSeed speak with Joe Schorge, Founder and Managing Partner at Isomer Capital, about why the best investors focus less on predicting winners and more on building exposure to exceptional founders, technologies and ecosystems.
Key highlights
Why the biggest winners rarely look like winners early on
The LP case for backing ecosystems instead of chasing predictions
Why tech sovereignty depends on building world-class products
Whether Europe can compete with the US and China in frontier technology
Resources
How much do VC professionals actually earn in Europe? Together with Learning VC, we analysed 233 responses across 24 countries to benchmark salaries, bonuses and carry across the venture industry.
The findings show that fund size is the biggest driver of compensation, carry becomes increasingly important with seniority and the industry remains both young and male-dominated.
Read Part 1 here, and if you work in VC or CVC, help us unlock country-level insights in Part 2 by contributing anonymously to the survey.
Events
Presented by Renovata Events in partnership with Encord, this gathering brings together senior product, engineering, data and design leaders, founders and hiring executives from VC and PE-backed companies.
The discussion focuses on how AI is reshaping team structures, leadership, hiring and cross-functional ways of working.
