Arāya Sie Fund banked €8.8M (£7.5m) in a first close to back women-led startups in the UK and Europe. The vehicle is a joint venture between London-based Arāya Ventures and female-founder accelerator Sie Ventures. Notable backers for this first close include the British Business Bank, Fruitiere VC, and corporate LPs such as Google, Salesforce, Visa, and JPMorgan.
The fund targets up to 40 pre-seed and seed-stage startups, specifically those with at least one woman on the founding team. Investment focus areas include healthcare, fintech, AI, and consumer tech, with ticket sizes reaching up to €300k. The strategy allocates 60% of capital to the UK market and 40% to the rest of Europe, aiming for a final fund size of €35M (£30m).
By operating as a joint venture, the fund combines Arāya’s investment infrastructure with Sie’s existing ecosystem, which has supported over 100 founders since 2021. The partnership addresses a persistent gap in the European venture landscape, where women-only teams reportedly secured only 3% of total funding in recent years. More than 70% of the fund’s LPs are women, which founders Shilpa Bhaskar Duggal and Triin Linamagi view as a critical step in rebalancing the investor base.
The launch reflects a broader push for capital diversity in European tech as emerging managers attempt to institutionalise what has traditionally been a fragmented angel investment space for underrepresented founders.
Originally reported by Sifted.