Swiss VC redalpine closes oversubscribed $250 million fund for seed and Series A
The Zurich-founded firm, which turns 20 this year, will write first cheques of $1 million to $15 million in software and science companies across Europe. Aviva Investors, Flexstone Partners and KfW are among the backers.
redalpine, a venture capital firm founded in Zurich in 2006, has closed its eighth early-stage fund, redalpine capital VIII (RAC VIII), at $250 million (about EUR 222.5 million), the firm announced on Tuesday 10 November. The fund was oversubscribed, meaning investors wanted to commit more than the firm accepted.
The new fund is about 25% larger than its predecessor, RAC VII, which closed at $200 million in August 2024, Tech Funding News reports. redalpine now manages more than $1.4 billion in assets.
What the fund will invest in
RAC VIII will back around 20 early-stage companies across Europe, mainly by leading seed and Series A rounds. First cheques will range from $1 million to $15 million. The firm says it selects these companies from more than 5,000 it looks at each year.
redalpine's focus is on companies where software and science meet. Half of its investment team are trained scientists, including biologists, physicists and engineers, and the firm has invested in areas such as fusion energy, AI, robotics and biotechnology. Its portfolio includes Mistral AI, Proxima Fusion, N26, Basecamp Research and Microagi, along with more than 100 other companies.
The fund has already made its first investments. They include Enact Intelligence, which develops force intelligence technology for robots, Helical, which builds a virtual AI lab for reproducible drug discovery, and Arlequin AI, which is developing a new AI architecture to protect critical systems. We covered Enact Intelligence's pre-seed round in October.
Who put money in
The fund attracted returning and new limited partners. The firm named Aviva Investors, the asset manager of the British insurer, Flexstone Partners and KfW, Germany's state development bank, as investors. According to EU-Startups, all three are new to redalpine. Entrepreneurs, executives with domain expertise and business owners also invested.
Cynthia Chen, head of fintech at Aviva Investors, said in the announcement that global venture markets are competing more intensely than ever for investor capital, and that the partnership would give Aviva access to innovative start-ups across the UK and Europe for the benefit of its pension investors. Rafael Hubatschek, partner and head of investor relations at redalpine, said European institutional investors are now putting real conviction behind European technology.
Track record and platform
redalpine started as a single early-stage fund. It has since become a multi-stage platform, including a later-stage Summit Fund launched in 2020, so it can keep supporting companies as they grow. The firm has offices in Zug, Berlin and London and a presence in Silicon Valley.
In its announcement, the firm says companies backed by RAC VII have raised more than $1.1 billion in total since that fund closed, and that 11 portfolio companies have exited since 2023, at a time when exits across the tech sector were scarce. Tech Funding News names two of the public exits: the Swiss biotech Araris, sold to Taiho, and the AI security start-up Lakera, sold to Check Point.
Proxima Fusion's co-founder and chief executive Francesco Sciortino said redalpine had led the Munich company's seed round and understood its potential early. Proxima has since become what Handelsblatt describes as Europe's first fusion energy unicorn.
A mid-sized fund in a market of megafunds
The close comes as European venture fundraising is increasingly concentrated in very large funds. Tech Funding News, citing KPMG and PitchBook data, reports that European VC funds raised $14.9 billion across 111 funds in the third quarter of 2026, driven by megafund closes such as the EUR 5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund managed by EQT. The broader market remains constrained, according to the same data.
Specialist early-stage deep tech funds are still closing, though. In recent weeks we have reported on Creandum's $750 million Fund VIII and Entourage's EUR 100 million Fund II.
What it means for European founders and investors
For founders in deep tech, AI and life sciences, RAC VIII adds a lead investor for seed and Series A rounds that is willing to write cheques of up to $15 million and has scientists on its team. That matters for companies whose technology is hard to assess for generalist investors. With roughly 20 investments planned, though, the bar will be high.
For investors, the line-up of limited partners is the more telling part. Aviva Investors and KfW backing a Swiss early-stage fund fits a wider push to get more European pension and institutional money into European venture capital, a goal the firm itself highlights. A larger fund also lets redalpine keep more of its stake as portfolio companies raise bigger rounds, an important question when companies such as Proxima Fusion and Microagi are raising hundreds of millions.
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