Spotlighting excellence while rebuilding Europe’s capital stack
2150 launches €210M Fund II to back tech companies that are redefining cities and the industries that sustain them
Hi friends 👋
This week is a mix of celebrating the people who move European venture forward and looking at the less glamorous infrastructure that actually makes the ecosystem work.
First up: A reminder that The EUVC Awards 2026 nominations are open. If there’s a manager, firm, or CVC that genuinely deserves a spotlight, send them in. The categories are built to reflect reality: different fund sizes, different roles, and a broader definition of what “excellent” really looks like in European venture today.
We’re delighted to publish a special conversation with Christian Hernandez, founding GP of 2150 and Jan Hofmann of the Viessmann Generations Group looking at how climate investing is moving from narrative to industrial reality, where cities, energy, materials, and manufacturing become venture-scale markets, and execution matters more than slogans. Huge congratulations to the 2150 team on the official launch of their $210M Fund II today!
We also go deep into the infrastructure layer that rarely gets airtime but shapes outcomes. We’re joined by finmid’s Max Schertel and Earlybird’s Tim Rehder to unpack embedded lending the rails quietly helping Europe’s SMEs access capital through the platforms they already use. It sounds niche until you realise how much of Europe’s economy depends on it.
Alongside that, we’ve got This Week in European Tech with Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed, and Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures, updates from the European Pension Capital Dialogues at GoWest (because unlocking long-term capital remains one of Europe’s biggest unfinished projects), and a set of community notes — from fund modelling work to compensation benchmarks.
And lastly, we’re hiring a Content Production Assistant in Lisbon. If you know someone who’s early in their career, loves storytelling, and wants to learn how great content get made, send them our way.
As always, thank you for being part of this community, reading, sharing, challenging, and contributing. It genuinely makes EUVC better.
Hope you enjoy,
with 💖 David & Andreas
EUVC Awards Spotlights: Recognising the Stewards of European Venture
The EUVC Awards recognise excellence in European venture in context, not noise — celebrating those whose impact compounds over time.
From the Hall of Fame, honouring individuals with 10+ years of sustained contribution who helped shape Europe’s venture ecosystem, to Firm of the Year, recognising firms that combine performance with responsibility, the awards reflect what long-term excellence truly looks like.
Firm of the Year nominations are now open and assessed holistically — across performance, innovation, ecosystem impact, diversity, transparency, and team culture — with categories split by fund size to ensure excellence is judged fairly and in context.
👉 Nominations are open for Firm of the Year and six other categories. Help define excellence in European venture.
[Masterclass] Fund Modelling in VC: Essential Building Blocks
Foundations of Fund Modelling in VC is a 2-hour masterclass that establishes a shared baseline on VC fund modelling, focusing on structure, terminology, and real-world use cases rather than complex scenario building.
Key Learning Points:
Portfolio construction: Explore different approaches, from average investment strategies to detailed per-round follow-on strategies.
Capital deployment modelling: Learn to craft a schedule for investments, fee calculations, and capital calls.
Return expectations: Understand methodologies for forecasting returns, including gross exit multiples.
Exit strategies: Gain insights into crucial exit strategies in venture capital.
Fund metrics: What to measure and when, from a GP and LP perspective.
Register using the code EUVC50OFF for €50 OFF.
Members of the EUVC community receive a 50% discount.
LP AMA with Isomer Capital’s Chris Wade
Chris Wade, Partner at Isomer Capital is joining the EUVC Academy for a small room on February 17th at 12:00 GMT. This is a 60-minute live, virtual session designed to be genuinely interactive, run under Chatham House Rules, and driven entirely by your questions.
Nothing is off-limits (as long as it’s respectful): fundraising, tough board moments, deal dynamics, head-turning term sheets, and the realities of growth-stage investing across Europe and the US.
Seats are limited to 20. EUVC Academy members get priority access. Non-members can register first-come, first-served while spots last.
Table of Contents
Podcasts of The Week
🎧 Podcasts of The Week
Jan Hofmann, Viessmann Generations Group and Christian Hernandez, 2150: From Climate Hype to Industrial Reality
In conversation with our very own Andreas Munk Holm, Christian Hernandez, founding GP of 2150 and Jan Hofmann of the Viessmann Generations Group, look at how climate investing is moving from narrative to industrial reality, where cities, energy, materials, and manufacturing become venture-scale markets, and execution matters more than slogans.
Today, 2150 officially launched its €210M second fund, bringing total assets under management to €500M and reinforcing its position as one of Europe’s leading investors backing the technologies shaping future cities and industrial systems.
Fund II reflects growing institutional conviction in 2150’s thesis: that cities generate around 80% of global prosperity, and that the next wave of venture-scale outcomes will come from making urbanisation and industrial activity sustainable at planetary scale. The fund attracted a diversified LP base across Europe, Asia, and North America, including Viessmann Generations Group, Novo Holdings, EIFO, Chr. Augustinus Fabrikker, Carbon Equity, and Church Pension Group.
Momentum is already underway. 2150 Fund II has already invested into seven companies, including AtmosZero, GetMobil, Metycle, Mission Zero Technologies and three further unannounced deals. Across both funds, 2150’s 27 portfolio companies generate more than $1B in annual revenue, employ 4,500+ people globally, and deliver megatonne-scale climate impact.
Key takeaways:
Urban and industrial systems are now venture-scale markets.
Energy, cooling, industrial heat, mobility, materials, and circular economy solutions are no longer niche climate bets — they are core infrastructure categories with global demand.Impact and returns are converging.
2150’s portfolio demonstrates that companies tackling planetary-scale problems can also generate outlier financial outcomes, measured in real revenues, jobs, and deployment at scale.Institutional capital is leaning into climate infrastructure.
The breadth of Fund II’s LP base signals a shift: long-term institutions are increasingly backing strategies that combine sustainability with durable, industrial cash flows.Execution matters more than narratives.
2150’s analytical, problem-first approach targeting the hardest bottlenecks in cities and industry is translating into faster scaling and earlier commercial traction across the portfolio.Europe can build global category leaders.
With platforms spanning energy, materials, and urban systems, 2150’s portfolio shows that European-founded companies can scale globally without compromising ambition.
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or queue it for later with chapter markers ready to go.
Max Schertel, finmid & Tim Rehder, Earlybird: Powering European SMBs with the cash they need
Andreas Munk Holm is joined by Max Schertel, co-founder & CEO of finmid, and Tim Rehder, GP at Earlybird, to unpack how embedded lending infrastructure is reshaping access to capital for Europe’s SMEs.
finmid enables B2B platforms from food delivery and PSPs to ride-hailing and fleet management to offer financing directly to their merchants with a single integration, now live across 30+ European markets.
Under the hood, finmid handles regulation, underwriting, operations, and capital orchestration, letting platforms behave like banks without owning a balance sheet.
Key takeaways:
Embedded lending creates new credit, not just better UX.
By underwriting directly on live platform transaction data (augmented with PSD2 and external signals), finmid reaches SMEs that banks systematically underserve — small tickets, thin files, short durations, but real economic activity.The real moat is infrastructure, not capital.
finmid owns the hard parts: regulation, data engines, risk models, ops, and pan-European payments. Capital is commoditised and sourced from institutions chasing yield. Scaling regulated infra across fragmented Europe is “ugly work” — and that’s exactly why it compounds defensibility.AI turns lending from static rules into a learning system.
From agentic workflows in operations to continuous risk-model iteration across millions of data points, AI enables faster underwriting, better risk control, and expansion into segments traditional banks can’t economically serve.
🎧 Listen on Apple or Spotify, or queue it for later with chapters ready to go.
This Week in European Tech with Dan, Mads & Lomax
Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen and Lomax Ward are back for another Upside episode to break down the power shifts reshaping European tech, capital, and geopolitics. From stalled UK infrastructure and Davos-level warnings to AI, defence, and the long-awaited push for a truly unified European startup regime.
The discussion moves fast from a billion-pound UK data centre blocked by planning errors to Mark Carney’s blunt Davos message that nostalgia is not a strategy in a fractured global order. Against that backdrop, the group examines whether Europe can still act at scale — on energy, AI, capital markets, and defence — or whether 27 vetoes will continue to slow execution as the US and China move decisively.
Key takeaways:
Infrastructure is Europe’s real bottleneck, not ambition.
Data centres, energy grids, and defence production are all politically “approved” in theory, but local planning, regulation, and fragmentation still block execution at scale.The 28th Regime (EU Inc) finally has momentum — but politics still loom.
Simplified incorporation and ESOP reform could be transformative, yet labour law, tax sovereignty, and national vetoes remain the biggest risks to delivery.AI leadership depends on energy, not models.
China is deploying AI aggressively into the real economy, while Europe risks being squeezed between US frontier innovation and Chinese industrial application.Capital cycles are shifting fast.
Defence IPOs are ripping as ESG taboos quietly fall, SaaS faces a reset toward cash flow and AI-native reinvention, and Europe’s biggest structural handicap remains under-allocated pension capital.Europe still produces winners.
Signals like Plural’s new fund, ElevenLabs’ continued scale, and renewed robotics investment show the ecosystem’s strength, if policy and capital can finally align.🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or queue it for later with chapter markers ready to go.
The European Pension Capital Dialogues at GoWest
We are delighted to bring The European Pension Capital Dialogues—a series of pan-European dialogues to unlock pension capital for growth and tech sovereignty—to GoWest, where Europe’s leading deep tech investors convene for keynote insights, fireside conversations, and high-impact networking around the forces shaping the future of European investment.
This year’s program spotlights the Green Transition, Defense & Security, and Frontier Innovation at the intersection of science and industry—sectors critical to Europe’s next wave of competitiveness.
As Nordic pension funds increase their activity across clean tech, defense, and early-stage innovation, GoWest becomes a natural launchpad, connecting long-term capital, insight, and vision in a region leading on impact and pension reform.
Speakers include: Philippe Tibi (The Tibi Initiative, French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Recovery, and Professor at École Polytechnique Paris), Michiel Scheffer (EIC), Christina Brinck (Volvo Group VC), Daniel Keiper-Knorr (Speedinvest), and Joe Schorge (Isomer).
What do VCs actually get paid? 💰
The VC Compensation Benchmark is back—and if you work in venture, we need your input.
Last year, 400+ VCs and CVCs across 24 countries contributed. This year, we’re raising the bar to deliver the most useful, trusted snapshot of VC compensation in the industry.
Take part and help shape the benchmark.
✅ 100% anonymous
🚫 No emails, no personal data—ever
Add your data. Strengthen the signal.
Thank you. We’ll share the full results with you soon!
Final call: Female LP survey (closing soon)
The Female LP survey report will be published at an in-person event in London on March 26 - save the date.
The survey is now in its final phase and is open to:
Women who are already LPs
Active investors (including angel investors)
Women considering becoming LPs
Responses are anonymous, and the goal is to improve data and visibility on women’s LP pathways across Europe.
A small step toward better fund models (for all of us)
We’ve been digging deep into fund modelling through masterclasses, podcasts, and countless GP/LP conversations. One thing is clear: everyone’s wrestling with similar challenges, but almost nobody talks about them openly.
So we’re pulling together a shared snapshot for the whole community. Not an ask, just something we’re building together so we can all get a clearer picture of where the real friction points are in fund modelling today.
You can read about it here, but more importantly, please add your voice 👇.
We’ll gather the themes and share them with everyone. No fluff, just continuously striving to raise the bar and giving Europe’s venture ecosystem the signal it’s been missing.
Grateful to be building this with you all.
Save the Date: EUVC Summit 2026
📅 Date: 22/04/2026
📍 London
Europe’s builders take the stage.
The EUVC Summit returns with founders, operators, VCs, and LPs focused on one question: how Europe wins.
From what it really takes to build category-defining companies in Europe, to how capital, conviction, and long-term alignment must evolve to compete globally — this is a working room, not a trends conference.
More details coming soon.
Join our team in Lisbon!
We’re looking for a Content Production Assistant to help bring EUVC’s podcasts, newsletters, and content to life. You’ll work closely with our Content Lead and founders in a hands-on, early-career role that’s perfect for someone curious, organized, and excited to learn how great content gets made. If you love storytelling and want to grow inside Europe’s venture platform, we’d love to hear from you. Lisbon-based.
🤗 Join the EUVC Community
Looking for niche, high-quality experiences that prioritize depth over breadth? Consider joining our community focused on delivering content tailored to the experienced VC. Here’s what you can look forward to as a member:
Exclusive Access & Discounts: Priority access to masterclasses with leading GPs & LPs, available on a first-come, first-served basis.
On-Demand Content: A platform with sessions you can access anytime, anywhere, complete with presentations, templates, and other resources.
Interactive AMAs: Engage directly with top GPs and LPs in exclusive small group sessions — entirely free for community members.
The insight into embedded lending as the quiet but crucial infrastructure layer truly underscores how fundamental, often overlooked, mechanisms are shaping Europe's economic future, a perspective I find deeply thought-provoking.