London-based deeptech VC Silicon Roundabout Ventures is announcing the first close of a pre-seed and seed fund run by one of the founders of UK tech meetup community Silicon Roundabout, engineer Francesco Perticarari. The fund hasn’t disclosed how much it has raised so far but says it’s targeting £10m. 

Silicon Roundabout Ventures is looking to address the lack of specialist deeptech VCs with a technical background in Europe — 96% of investors in the UK have never worked in a technical role — which Perticarari says means that potentially groundbreaking tech is often missed.

Founders and investors in Europe say there still isn’t enough money for early-stage companies — let alone technical deeptech companies — in Europe.

So can Silicon Roundabout Ventures help to remedy the situation?

Where will the money be spent?

Silicon Roundabout Ventures will invest between £100k-300k in about 25 deeptech companies. 

Perticarari — who is part of a growing cohort of solo GPs in Europe — tells Sifted he’s particularly interested in engineer-led startups working on tech in segments like:

• Future of computing and data processing
• Climate tech and healthtech-focused deeptech
• Security

So far it’s backed two startups, including Anaphite — contributing £250k to its £4.1m seed round last August.

Where’s the money coming from?

The fund is backed by London-based VC firm Molten Ventures, alongside a number of angel investors.

The early-stage deeptech market

While late stage deeptech funding has been on the rise in Europe over the past few years, the money hasn’t trickled down to pre-seed and seed-stage deeptech startups — which saw a third of the number of deals in 2022 than they did four years earlier, according to Dealroom.

But there are signs more investors are looking to take advantage of the gap in the market. In 2022, eight new first-time deeptech-focused funds were raised in Europe, according to Sifted’s count, with the majority of them exclusively backing early-stage startups.

Kai Nicol-Schwarz is a reporter at Sifted. He tweets from @NicolSchwarzK.