Switzerland-headquartered Lakestar closed its latest funds, Lakestar Early IV and Lakestar Growth for around $600 million. These new funds will inject new capital into the next generation of European startups. With this, Lakestar’s assets under management account for €2 billion.
Funds utilisation
Both new funds will focus their investments across geographies, with a focus on Europe in sectors such as AI, digitalisation, deep tech, healthcare, and fintech. With the closing of the two funds, Lakestar will deploy new capital backed by a mix of limited partners (LPs), including sovereign wealth funds, family offices, fund of fund investors, and other institutional and individual players, including founders.
These new funds are complemented by the company’s partnership with some of the leading European Tech Universities, such as ETH Zurich, Technische Universität München (UnternehmerTUM), Aachen, and Oxford.
Notable investments
Founded by Klaus Hommels, Lakestar is supported by a diverse team of 40, spanning 15 nationalities across London, Berlin, and Zurich. It takes an active role in supporting its portfolio companies such as Revolut, Isar Aerospace, sennder, AccurX, and Builder.ai.
These new funds have already led investments in tech companies such as UK-based energy supplier platform Fuse Energy, French embedded finance solution Swan, German healthtech company Nelly, Sweden’s NEKO Health, the preventative health care technology company co-founded by Daniel Ek, and AI text-to-video technology platform Colossyan.
Ninja Struye, Partner, Chief Communication Officer and Head of Investor Relations at Lakestar said: “Despite the challenging market conditions, we welcome aboard insurance companies, pension funds and other institutional investors, signaling a new direction for the European tech ecosystem and demonstrating the growing recognition that Europe is home to some of the brightest and best entrepreneurs. Over half of our investment capital comes from Europe, followed by Asia and MENA.”
Klaus Hommels, Founder and Chairman of Lakestar, said: “With world-class universities and leading research facilities, Europe is home to some of the world’s best centres of innovation, which are at the forefront of sectors critical for Europe’s sovereignty, such as AI, digitalisation, healthcare, deep tech, and fintech. I am a firm believer that nurturing technology is fundamental to our prosperity. In an era where Europe’s sovereignty is more crucial than ever, Europe is only as strong as its innovation ecosystem. We take pride in attracting new and existing investors to our new funds, which are built on our proven strategy.”
