Merantix Capital banked €103M for its latest AI fund to back approximately 40 early-stage startups across Europe. The vehicle, nearly three times the size of its previous €35M fund, secured commitments from a range of institutional investors including Union Investment and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, alongside strategic corporate partners such as Jungheinrich and KPMG Germany.
The Berlin-based firm identifies "AI-native" companies that embed machine learning into industrial and enterprise workflows. Specific sectors of interest include logistics, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, robotics, and physical AI. The fund is split between supporting founders emerging from the Merantix venture studio ecosystem and making direct pre-seed and seed-stage investments in the broader market.
Co-founders Adrian Locher and Rasmus Rothe established the firm in 2016 to bridge the gap between European academic research and industrial application. The firm operates the Merantix AI Campus in Berlin and a hub in London, providing portfolio companies with access to a dedicated talent pool and a transformation business, Merantix Momentum, that runs enterprise AI projects.
By involving David-and-Goliath partnerships with corporate LPs like Jungheinrich, the fund aims to provide startups with immediate technical validation and commercial traction. This focus on industrial application suggests a shift in European venture capital away from general foundation models toward sector-specific AI integration where the continent maintains a competitive manufacturing advantage.
Originally reported by Tech Funding News.