European sovereign capital

Backing European founders in sovereign AI, defense, health and energy.

Founders Capital is a founder-led early-stage fund built on two decades of operating across European fintech — and now focused on the sovereign-AI, defense, health and energy platforms that Europe needs to build at home.

A founder-led European fund
Portfolio capital deployed across €2.5B+ lent · 100k+ investors
Thesis

Four sectors Europe has to own.

The sovereign-AI moment is not a UK phenomenon — it is a European one. Founders Capital backs the founders building the compute, the models, the operational software and the infrastructure that Europe cannot buy in.

◆01

Sovereign AI platforms

Capital and operator support for founders building European alternatives in AI compute, foundation models, agent runtimes and data infrastructure.

◆02

Defense & dual-use

Sensors, autonomy, situation pictures, secure comms, and the dual-use software that European forces and critical-infrastructure operators will procure this decade.

◆03

Health & life sciences

Clinician-safe AI across real-world evidence, hospital operations, diagnostics and mental wellness — privacy-preserving by construction.

◆04

Energy & resilience

Grid intelligence, industrial decarbonisation, and resilience software for a continent reshaping its energy mix under geopolitical pressure.

Case studies

Founder precedents.

Three European FinTech marketplaces we co-founded — the track record that anchors how we operate with founders today.

🇪🇺Estonia / pan-EU·FinTech · Consumer creditNamed precedent

Bondora — from €10k seed to Europe's largest consumer-credit marketplace

Bondora · consumer lending · EU

Problem

In 2007 European consumer credit was dominated by domestic retail banks with limited cross-border portfolios and an expensive distribution stack. A retail-investor marketplace for short-term consumer loans — liquid, transparent, yield-bearing — did not yet exist at the scale it demanded.

Approach

Co-founder and first-round investor. Helped shape the earliest product and go-to-market thesis, then stayed close through seed, bridge and Series A rounds raised from Valinor Capital and Global Founders Capital / Rocket Internet — contributing on governance, strategy and the European market introductions that unlocked the next phase.

🇪🇺Estonia / pan-EU·FinTech · Property financeNamed precedent

EstateGuru — short-term property finance across eight European markets

EstateGuru · property-bridge lending · EU

Problem

Small and mid-sized property developers across Central and Northern Europe were underserved by traditional bank real-estate finance — particularly for short-duration bridge financing — while retail investors had no clean way to access the asset class at ticket level.

Approach

Ground-floor investor and co-founder. Worked alongside the operating team on pricing, capital-markets strategy and the cross-border build-out, and supported the business through its seed, bridge and Series A rounds with Speedinvest and Seedrs — including board-level counsel and access to the European property-finance network.

🇪🇺Estonia / United Kingdom·FinTech · SME financeNamed precedent

Investly — open-banking-native invoice finance for European SMEs

Investly · SME finance · UK / EE

Problem

European SMEs — particularly in the UK and Nordics — were underserved by bank receivables finance: slow to underwrite, expensive to service and structurally priced for large enterprise counterparties rather than small businesses.

Approach

First-round investor and co-founder. Helped design the open-banking-native underwriting stack and the UK/EE cross-border operating model, and remained an active backer through seed, bridge and pre-Series A rounds with Speedinvest and Seedrs — leaning in on governance and the buyer introductions that shortened the go-to-market.

Signal

We read the market our portfolio operates in.

A live view of European venture: capital deployed by country, sector allocation, defense-tech funding, cleantech breakdown and global AI investment — the canvases the fund thesis runs against.

Open Signal→
Engage

Building something European worth backing?

Founders Capital backs founders operating in the European public interest — sovereign AI, defense, health, energy. Pre-seed to Series A. Tell us what you're building.