Europe invested billions into early-stage climate startups, only to watch many fail at Series B, according to a final report. But new funds are being raised to fill this gap, and the latest fund from Mundi Ventures from Spain, Dana Kembara I, is one of them.
After securing a €350 million commitment from the European Investment Fund European Tech Champions Initiative in 2024, Mundii Ventures just completed the first €750 million closing for Travelthe fifth and largest fund to date.
Regulatory filing from Spain said that the fund – focused on deep technology – may end up closing up to €1.25 billion. But according to Kembara founder and general partner Yann de Vries, getting €750 million in two years as the first fund in this environment “isn’t easy.”
Kembara is managed by a team of specialists at Mundi Ventures, with offices in Madrid, London, Barcelona and Paris. The founder of Mundi Ventures Javier Santiso is now also the co-founder and GP of the Kembara fund, which has now announced the full list of senior partners.
In addition to de Vries and Santiso, climate technology VC Robert Trezona and deep technology VC Pierre Festal have also joined as general partners, and former Atomico partner Siraj Khaliq is a senior strategic advisor.
His individual track record has helped him raise funds from institutional backers in need of transformative European growth capital. many university spinouts become a big business with industry synergies. But it also gives a front-row seat to European climate conditions and deep tech startups – especially for de Vries.
A seasoned venture capitalist who founded Redpoint eVentures Brazil and later became a partner at Atomico, de Vries has moved to the other side of the table to teamed up with German electric aircraft startup Lilium – only for companies cease operation in 2024 after raising more than $1 billion and going public through a SPAC.
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In de Vries’ view, Lilium went bankrupt because it couldn’t find the growth capital it needed, but this “traumatic experience” also has a silver lining. “I see a lot of amazing teams in Europe going through the same journey,” he said. “(Europe) doesn’t have an innovation problem. It doesn’t have a start-up problem. The problem it has is a scale problem.
Kembara’s sweet spot will be series B and C, with plans to write initial checks of €15 million to €40 million to some 20 companies. But the size of the fund gives room for follow-up to help the start-up portfolio to scale manufacturing and expand globally, and the total investment can be up to €100 million per company.
That’s more than the full size of many European funds, although this could change: deep-tech VC firm Elaia and asset manager Lazard joined forces to form LEC (Lazard Elaia Capital), whose initial investment will be between €20 million and €60 million per company, while the operator-led fund plural the news raising new funds of up to €1 billion.
Still, the capital-intensive nature of most companies in climate and deeptech growth stages means that even big VC checks can only go so far. One lesson that Vries learned from Lilium is that raising only equity is very difficult, and even puts the company in a difficult spot later. This inspired Kembara to take a different approach to funding.
“Some of us have experienced this, and what we want to do now is to generate non-dilutive financing for the founders of these deep technologies in order to reduce the risk of future financing and optimize the capital structure to minimize liquidity. And we bring (limited partners) who (…) not only want to invest in the fund, but also want to invest in the fund,” said the winners.
For these LPs, geopolitics also played a role in providing growth capital and venture debt for the start of the European growth phase. “There will be a lot of support from sovereign wealth funds in Europe, from governments, from companies, to push and drive to build these European champions in deep technology from Europe,” predicted de Vries.
This geopolitical undertone is also reflected in the focus of the Kembara sector, which includes dual use and defense technology to “protect European sovereignty,” according to a press release. However, de Vries refutes the idea that Kembara only replaces capital that can be bought abroad.
“There are a lot of under-the-radar gems in Europe, who could become global champions, and don’t realize their potential.” He said Deepmind is a related example, “where they lost this growth capital and sold it too early.” (Google acquired the company for more than $500 million in 2014but now it’s worth billions.)
Creating European companies in Europe has gained urgency in many verticals that overlap with the Kembara thesis, such as quantum computing, semiconductors and spacetech. But the goal is to grow global champions that transcend borders. Coincidentally, Kembara means “to wander” in Malaysia (although the team has “the humble path to excellence” as an older meaning.)
Beyond the name, Kembara has a Malaysian connection. Santiso is also the former CEO for European sovereign wealth fund Khazanah; and the door can open as many countries examine the exposure to the US “In the second close, we’re going to be looking for global investors, because we want to have global access to the market, but also global access to the supply chain,” de Vries said.