- Entourage has closed its second fund at €100m, with investment from founders, family offices, and private investors.
- Fund II targets €1 million to €5 million investments in around 25 pre-seed and seed companies.
- Bouten says Entourage almost never takes board seats, even when it leads a round.
Pieterjan Bouten, founder and CEO of Showpad for over 10 years, observed that investors often hamstring founders with the wrong kind of advice. His venture firm, Entourage, promises founders it will be in the boardroom as little as possible.
The Ghent-based early-stage firm closed its second fund at €100 million, surpassing its initial €75 million target in just two weeks and receiving over €100 million in commitments before ultimately closing at €100 million.
Entourage says entrepreneurs, family offices, and private investors, including the founders of Aikido, TechWolf, and Collibr, fully underwrote the fund. Fund II will invest in around 25 pre-seed and seed companies across Europe and beyond, with initial investments of €1 million to €5 million and the potential for follow-on funding.
“When we launched Entourage two years ago, we had a simple ambition: to back the next generation of legendary founders. We wrote the first cheques into companies like Aikido, Conveo and Lexroom. What these founders have achieved in such a short time has only strengthened our conviction in our generalist, founder-first approach. With Fund II, we’re doubling down,” said Bouten, founder and general partner of Entourage.
From Showpad founder to investor
Bouten co-founded In The Pocket with Jeroen Lemaire and Louis Jonckheere in 2010 and Showpad in 2011. According to Entourage, he took Showpad from a startup to a global software company with over $100 million in annual recurring revenue. In October 2025, Vector Capital acquired Showpad and merged it with Bigtinca.
Entourage launched in March 2024 as a venture studio and early-stage fund and has raised over $30 million, according to our previous coverage. That initial funding came from several founders, including Stijn Christiaens of Collibra and Jason Lemkin of SaaSt.
Fund II has a similar investor base, including family offices, private investors, and founders. The initial funding covered both the studio and the fund, so it’s not directly comparable to Fund II’s €100 million.
Entourage’s book is its real USP. Aikido, a developer security company based in Ghent, hit a $1 billion valuation in January 2026 after a $60 million Series B led by DST Global, roughly three years after it was founded. Entourage had already invested in Aikido by March 2024, before its $ 17 m Series A in May 2024.
Elsewhere, Conveo, an AI consumer research startup founded by Dieter De Mesmaeker and Hendrik Van Hove, raised a $50 million Series A in September 2026 from DST Global and Balderton Capital. Lexroom, a Milan-based legal AI company founded in 2023 by Paolo Fois, Martina Domenicali and Andrea Lonza, raised $50 million in a Series B in May 2026, led by Left Lane Capital, with Entourage also joining.
Entourage claims to have been one of the first investors in all three companies, before major international VCs got involved.
A fund that promises to stay out of the boardroom
Bouten’s sharpest criticism is directed at his own industry: “Most VCs destroy value in early-stage boardrooms. Too few have built a company at scale. After more than a decade as a founder and CEO, and investments in over 60 companies, I’ve seen investors slow founders down with misplaced advice and operational interference. Great founders don’t need babysitting. They need trust, challenge when it counts and perspective at pivotal moments. That’s why we rarely take board seats, even when we lead a round.”
This is a fairly significant position for a firm investing up to €5 million at pre-seed and seed stage, where board seats are often the primary formal mechanism of investment. Entourage says it leads or co-leads most rounds but rarely takes a board seat.
The investor mix is designed to facilitate that approach. “Many of our investors have built companies themselves. They know what it takes. That creates a powerful alignment between the people funding Entourage and the founders we back,” Bouten added.
Entourage is not the only fund whose founders are involved as investors. Begin Capital named the founders of Runware, Codesphere and Dwelly as venture partners in its $100 million Fund II and also stated that several other founders had invested as limited partners.
Fund II moves beyond software into robotics and deep tech
The first fund was very much software focused. Fund II is broader, with investments in AI, enterprise software, robotics, physical AI and deep tech.
“The next decade will produce some of the most iconic technology companies in history, and it’s time for Europe to rise to the occasion. AI is reinventing software and taking intelligence into the physical world. Entire industries will be rebuilt. We want to back the founders bold enough to lead that transformation,” said Bouten.
The founder-to-investor dynamic is also evident in the smaller Belgian rounds. Entourage Capital co-led Dytto’s €1.5 million pre-seed round in February 2026 with Fortino Ventures and with participation from the founders of Aikido Security.
Fund II’s first investments in robotics and deep tech will show whether the model works beyond software, where companies usually face longer timelines, need more capital, and have less room for mistakes.
