European early-stage venture investor founded in 2016, principally pre-seed/seed including pre-product and pre-revenue. Official guidance EUR 500k–3m first tickets, Europe/MENA coverage and EUR 300m+ manager AUM (undated accessed 2026-10-06). Fourth fund launched2025; final close unverified, not inferred from AUM.
Founded 2016
Type Venture capital 4 VentureFriends Fund IV 2025 2025 — Official retrospective fund size/launch year; exact legal final-close dates unverified. Fund IV expected EUR80m–90m with final fundraising underway June2026, not verified closed size.
VentureFriends Fund III 2021 2021 €100M Official retrospective fund size/launch year; exact legal final-close dates unverified. No aggregate AUM conflation.
VentureFriends Fund II 2018 2018 €50M Official retrospective fund size/launch year; exact legal final-close dates unverified. Fund II contemporary2018 EUR45m first close/EUR50m target distinct from retrospective EUR50m.
VentureFriends Fund I 2016 2016 €20M Official retrospective fund size/launch year; exact legal final-close dates unverified. No aggregate AUM conflation.
SHOW MORE
$1M $330K – $2M Greece $1M $330K – $2M Greece $1M $330K – $2M Greece $1M $330K – $2M Greece $1M $330K – $2M Greece $1M $330K – $2M London $1M $330K – $2M Warsaw, Poland — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – —
SHOW MORE
$4M 2026-03-11 Sybilion VentureFriends , Apostolos Apostolakis €11M 2026-02-06 Capalo AI VentureFriends , George Dimopoulos $— 2025-07-30 Retab VentureFriends $5M 2025-04-10 Unosecur VentureFriends $5M 2025-04-10 Unosecur VentureFriends $— 2025-01-21 MoneyHash VentureFriends $— 2024-10-17 Edgee VentureFriends $8M 2024-10-04 Barte Force Over Mass Capital , VentureFriends $10M 2024-09-20 Simpler MMC Ventures , VentureFriends $— 2024-06-06 Cube AI VentureFriends $16M 2024-05-15 Harbor Lab Atomico , Notion Capital , Speedinvest , VentureFriends , Apostolos Apostolakis , Ben Blume $16M 2024-02-27 Embat Creandum , Kilian Thalhammer , Peter Specht , Samaipata , Deutsche Bank , VentureFriends , 4Founders Capital $20M 2024-01-16 Carmoola VentureFriends , Apostolos Apostolakis €2M 2023-09-01 Measur Oy VentureFriends $— 2023-08-23 Embla Founders Fund , SEEDS Capital , VentureFriends , Inovo.vc , Crowberry Capital €2M 2023-01-25 BibeCoffee VentureFriends €2M 2023 Measur Oy VentureFriends $— 2022-10-12 Almacena VentureFriends $37M 2022-06-20 Huspy Founders Fund , COTU Ventures , Chimera Capital , VentureFriends , Breyer Capital , VentureSouq $110M 2022-04-27 Spotawheel VentureFriends , George Dimopoulos $— 2022-04-20 Strike Sh VentureFriends $— 2022-02-17 Mediately VentureFriends $— 2022 Mediately VentureFriends $— 2021-11-30 Plum VentureFriends $— 2021-10-20 Proportunity VentureFriends $5M 2021-07-07 Agro.Club Speedinvest , VentureFriends , Apostolos Apostolakis $— 2021-06-01 Belvo VentureFriends $— 2021 Factory14 VentureFriends $— 2020-09-15 Spotawheel VentureFriends $— 2020-07-21 Plum VentureFriends $10M 2020-05-28 Belvo Founders Fund , Y Combinator , VentureFriends , MAYA Capital , Kaszek $— 2019-05-02 Plum VentureFriends $4M 2019-03-20 Welcome Pickups VentureFriends , Apostolos Apostolakis $— 2019-03-05 Blueground VentureFriends $— 2018-11-07 Home Made VentureFriends $— Unknown date Merx VentureFriends $— Unknown date Douleutaras VentureFriends $— Unknown date Valeria VentureFriends $— Unknown date Altan VentureFriends $— Unknown date FlexCar VentureFriends $— Unknown date MoneyHash VentureFriends $— Unknown date Edgee VentureFriends €3M Unknown date Capalo AI VentureFriends $— 2026-09-08 Unosecur GmbH VentureFriends $20M 2026-06-17 NeuralTrust VentureFriends $5M 2025-04-10 Unosecur GmbH VentureFriends €2M 2023-09-01 Measurlabs VentureFriends , Apostolos Apostolakis $2M 2021-10-21 Kitchenful VentureFriends , Apostolos Apostolakis $— 2018-01-09 CityStasher VentureFriends
SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 30 minutes ago
Investment-fund research reviewed 2026-10-06. Publicly identified funds, dates, amounts and fundraising status are below. Undisclosed commitments remain unknown; this is not a complete register of private SPVs or parallel entities.
Fund size, vintage and status
| Vehicle / metric | Amount and status | Dated evidence and limitations |
| --- | --- | --- |
| VF1, 2016 | €20m, established fund | Official history gives year and size; does not provide a legal final-close date. [History](https://www.venturefriends.vc/about ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. |
| VF2, 2018 | €50m in retrospective official history | [History](https://www.venturefriends.vc/about ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. Contemporary reporting: €45m first close; €50m target. [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/19/venturefriends-ii/ ), 2018-03-19. |
| VF3, 2021 | €100m, launched fund | Official history assigns launch to 2021. [History](https://www.venturefriends.vc/about ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. An HDBI-hosted ecosystem report independently lists VentureFriends III at €100m: [Startups in Greece 2022–2023](https://www.hdbi.gr/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Foundation-Startups-in-Greece-report-2022-2023.pdf ), report edition 2022–2023, URL dated January 2023; accessed 2026-10-06. Exact final-close date not established. |
| VF4, 2025 launch | €80m–€90m expected fund size, **not verified final close** | [CNN Greece](https://www.cnn.gr/oikonomia/epixeiriseis/story/540642/oi-epomenes-kiniseis-oi-nees-ependyseis-kai-oi-eperxomenoi-eksodoi-gia-to-venturefriends ), 2026-06-26, reports final fundraising underway, seven investments already made, and an expected €80m–€90m. Official history confirms 2025 launch but omits size. Searches for subsequent closure did not establish a newer final-close amount/date. |
| Firm AUM | €300m+ | [Homepage](https://www.venturefriends.vc/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. This is firm-reported AUM, not a fund commitment or total of the table above; its calculation is undisclosed. |
Fund IV is the latest-known vehicle identified in this pass. The site's wording “four funds raised / latest fund raised 2025” should not be used to backdate a fully verified final close, given the June 2026 fundraising report.
Funds recorded in Adex after this review:
| Fund | Disclosed amount | Announcement / filing date |
| --- | --- | --- |
| VentureFriends Fund I | EUR 20000000 | 2016 |
| VentureFriends Fund II | EUR 50000000 | 2018 |
| VentureFriends Fund III | EUR 100000000 | 2021 |
| VentureFriends Fund IV | Undisclosed / unverified | 2025 | SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 1 hour ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / VentureFriends / sha256:b7e6975a0746e893792795dfd014d43a5e8165bf8fdd72bd487e894a3aa5d4b3 / part 2 of 2
Imported completed research. Baseline Adex/Signal statements describe prior state, not independent verification. Retain cited attribution, date, currency and classification caveats.
| **NeuralTrust** | AI-agent/application security against attacks, hallucinations and leakage. AI/cybersecurity infrastructure, potentially relevant to technical software coverage, but no independent proof of science-based deep-tech defensibility in this pass. **Not neurotechnology** despite its name. | Company names VentureFriends as participant in **US$20m seed**, led by Alstin Capital: [company release](https://neuraltrust.ai/news/neuraltrust-raises-20m ), **2026-06-17**. Also included on the [official VentureFriends portfolio profile](https://www.venturefriends.vc/portfolio-companies/neuraltrust ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. |
| **Unosecur** | AI-assisted security of human/non-human cloud identities, threat detection and automated remediation. Verified technically specialized cybersecurity investment; AI usage alone does not establish deep tech. | Company names VentureFriends and DFF Ventures as **co-leads of US$5m seed**, **2025-04-10**, with another US$3m in oversubscribed commitments separately described. [Company release](https://www.unosecur.com/news-announcements/unosecur-secures-5-million-in-seed-funding-to-fortify-identity-security-in-the-age-of-ai ). Do not combine commitments into an US$8m closed round. |
| **Edgee** | Open-source edge computing/data collection platform. Systems software infrastructure, not verified hardware or science deep tech. | Firm directly describes its investment in [Why We Invested in Edgee](https://www.venturefriends.vc/blog-posts/why-we-invested-in-edgee ), **2024-12-08**. Blog supplies attribution and technology rationale but does not disclose check, round amount or precise transaction date; snapshot's October 2024 financing remains a separate lead. |
Ordinary fintech, proptech, marketplaces and AI-enabled workflow tools in the baseline were not relabeled as deep tech. This pass provides examples with attribution rather than a complete historical portfolio audit.
## Neurotech findings
**No verified neurotech investment found in the sources checked.** Sources checked include the complete baseline company-name list, directly read Signal firm page, official strategy/portfolio and the company releases above, plus targeted searches combining VentureFriends with neurotech, neuroscience and brain investments. No firm-attributed brain–computer interface, neural recording, neuromodulation or neural diagnostic investment was established. This is a bounded research result, not a claim that the firm has never invested in neurotech.
NeuralTrust concerns artificial-intelligence cybersecurity, not biological neural systems. Measurlabs enables laboratory testing broadly and does not establish a neurotech investment. Snapshot entries for Embla (weight-management care) and Mediately (medical information) should not be classified as direct neurotech from those descriptions. Signal digital/consumer health tags likewise do not establish neural technology exposure.
## Conflicts, missing information and later Adex review
1. **Fund IV close:** obtain a dated final-close announcement or legal vehicle documentation. Keep €80m–€90m as expected/target, €300m+ as AUM and €500k–€3m as current first-ticket guidance in separate fields. The AUM basis is unknown; do not derive missing fund size by subtraction.
2. **Unosecur duplicates/date/amount:** snapshot has 2025 entries and an apparent 2026-09-08 US$5m seed entry based on an aggregator, while the company clearly dates the US$5m co-led seed to 2025-04-10. Check whether the 2026 entry is a genuine later round or a republished duplicate. Baseline participation amounts that equal the entire company round should not be treated as VentureFriends checks. Preserve closed money versus additional commitments.
3. **Capalo dates:** October 23, 2025 is a retrospective investment blog, not the seed transaction date. The February 2026 primary announcement distinguishes its page date and release dateline. Prefer its €11m Series A amount over unqualified dollar conversions in the snapshot.
4. **Entity resolution:** Measurlabs and Measur Oy refer to the same company based on its own footer. Review duplicate participations before any later consolidation. Unosecur/Unosecur GmbH also needs entity/round review.
5. **Mandate/reporting conflict:** CNN Greece (2026-06-26) quotes limited sector preferences and says no developer-tools/medtech investments; the firm has an official Edgee thesis and portfolio healthtech tags. Treat the quotation as interview context requiring clarification, not evidence to delete historical investments. Seed/Series A Signal tags are investor-profile labels, not proof of every tagged sector investment.
6. **Attribution and classification:** retain firm attribution from official releases. Partner angel investments before the fund's 2016 founding, including Beat in official history, cannot be automatically attributed to VentureFriends. Keep Capalo as energy/AI, BibeCoffee as hardware/IoT, Measurlabs as an R&D services enabler, and NeuralTrust as AI security with explicit neurotech exclusion. Scientific defensibility and fund-specific investing vehicles remain unverified.
7. **Access/evidence limits:** the guessed official BibeCoffee portfolio URL could not be read, so financing support uses dated trade/reputable reporting. Current portfolio page extraction is incomplete/dynamic. All linked sources were accessed 2026-10-06; undated official/Signal pages have no reliable publication date. No exhaustive legal filing review or private portfolio access was performed. SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 1 hour ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / VentureFriends / sha256:b7e6975a0746e893792795dfd014d43a5e8165bf8fdd72bd487e894a3aa5d4b3 / part 1 of 2
Imported completed research. Baseline Adex/Signal statements describe prior state, not independent verification. Retain cited attribution, date, currency and classification caveats.
# VentureFriends
- Exact Adex ID: `VentureFriends`
- Canonical Adex URL: https://adex.page/firms/VentureFriends
- Official website: https://www.venturefriends.vc/
- Research date: 2026-10-06
- Status: Complete research pass; unresolved facts are identified below. Research only; no Adex/database changes.
## Summary and identity
VentureFriends (also styled Venture Friends) is a European early-stage VC founded in 2016. Its current mandate emphasizes pre-seed and seed, with €500k–€3m first tickets and Europe/MENA coverage. It reports four funds, the fourth launched in 2025, and €300m+ AUM. These are distinct metrics: the AUM figure is not the size of Fund IV. The strongest verified technically differentiated investment here is Capalo AI; BibeCoffee is a hardware/IoT example, while Measurlabs is a laboratory services enabler rather than a verified proprietary science company. No verified neurotech investment found in the sources checked. [Official homepage](https://www.venturefriends.vc/ ) and [official history/FAQ](https://www.venturefriends.vc/about ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06.
## Starting evidence: Adex and NFX Signal
Read the saved exact-ID snapshot `data/research/_sources/VentureFriends.adex.json`, retrieved 2026-10-06 at 19:29:38 UTC. It identifies Athens, a 2016 founding narrative, pre-seed/seed, and European/Middle Eastern/Latin American activity. The numeric founded field is null, and check-size fields are null. Its 49 investment participation entries include Capalo AI, Measurlabs/Measur Oy, BibeCoffee, Edgee, Unosecur, NeuralTrust, Sybilion, and ordinary fintech/marketplace companies. These are baseline claims, not independent verification. Some round metadata combines personal Signal history and firm-specific reporting; personal records alone do not establish fund attribution. Several apparent duplicates and amount/date issues are noted below.
[NFX Signal firm page](https://signal.nfx.com/firms/venturefriends ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, was directly readable. It lists London/Greece and Apostolos Apostolakis (managing partner), George Dimopoulos and Pavlos Pavlakis (partners), and several principals. Profiles show $1m sweet spots and $330k–$2.8m ranges. Sector tags span seed and Series A; Dimopoulos and Tsoukatos have EnergyTech tags. These are profile claims, not independently verified check commitments or a fund-level current mandate. Introduction paths require Gmail login; no private paths were accessed. The current official euro-denominated ticket range takes precedence over converting or treating the Signal dollars as a contradiction. No partner's previous or personal angel investment is counted as a VentureFriends investment without firm-specific support.
## Fund size, vintage and status
| Vehicle / metric | Amount and status | Dated evidence and limitations |
| --- | --- | --- |
| VF1, 2016 | €20m, established fund | Official history gives year and size; does not provide a legal final-close date. [History](https://www.venturefriends.vc/about ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. |
| VF2, 2018 | €50m in retrospective official history | [History](https://www.venturefriends.vc/about ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. Contemporary reporting: €45m first close; €50m target. [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/19/venturefriends-ii/ ), 2018-03-19. |
| VF3, 2021 | €100m, launched fund | Official history assigns launch to 2021. [History](https://www.venturefriends.vc/about ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. An HDBI-hosted ecosystem report independently lists VentureFriends III at €100m: [Startups in Greece 2022–2023](https://www.hdbi.gr/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Foundation-Startups-in-Greece-report-2022-2023.pdf ), report edition 2022–2023, URL dated January 2023; accessed 2026-10-06. Exact final-close date not established. |
| VF4, 2025 launch | €80m–€90m expected fund size, **not verified final close** | [CNN Greece](https://www.cnn.gr/oikonomia/epixeiriseis/story/540642/oi-epomenes-kiniseis-oi-nees-ependyseis-kai-oi-eperxomenoi-eksodoi-gia-to-venturefriends ), 2026-06-26, reports final fundraising underway, seven investments already made, and an expected €80m–€90m. Official history confirms 2025 launch but omits size. Searches for subsequent closure did not establish a newer final-close amount/date. |
| Firm AUM | €300m+ | [Homepage](https://www.venturefriends.vc/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. This is firm-reported AUM, not a fund commitment or total of the table above; its calculation is undisclosed. |
Fund IV is the latest-known vehicle identified in this pass. The site's wording “four funds raised / latest fund raised 2025” should not be used to backdate a fully verified final close, given the June 2026 fundraising report.
## Investment stages and strategy
The official FAQ explicitly supports predominantly **pre-seed and seed**, including pre-product/pre-revenue companies. It identifies fintech, B2B SaaS, B2C, cybersecurity, proptech and climate tech as recurring themes, and UK/Europe/MENA/CEE geography. [FAQ](https://www.venturefriends.vc/about ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06.
Current first tickets are €500k–€3m; the firm states a 1:2 initial-to-follow-on investment ratio. [Homepage](https://www.venturefriends.vc/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. Historical Series A participation is independently verified for Capalo AI below; this documents follow-on behavior rather than overriding the initial-stage mandate. Signal Series A tags are consistent with that distinction. The snapshot's Latin American history should remain historical coverage rather than an unsupported current geographic mandate.
## Named previous deep-tech and adjacent investments
The classifications below are research judgments, separate from confirmed investment attribution. Round totals are company financing, not the amount invested by VentureFriends; individual firm checks and investing legal vehicles were not disclosed in the sources reviewed.
| Company | Technology rationale and classification | Firm attribution, round and dated sources |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Capalo AI** | AI forecasting, optimization and real-time trading for battery storage and renewables connected into a virtual power plant. Strong energy/industrial computational technology example; the evidence does not establish that it manufactures batteries or develops novel chemistry. | VentureFriends says it led a **€3.8m seed** several months before its [investment thesis](https://www.venturefriends.vc/blog-posts/why-we-invested-in-capalo-ai ), published **2025-10-23**. That blog date is not the seed announcement date. Company confirms VentureFriends re-participated in **€11m Series A**, led by Heartcore: [company announcement](https://capaloai.com/news/capalo-ai-raises-11m-to-become-leading-optimizer/ ), page label **2026-02-05**, press-release dateline **2026-02-06**. |
| **BibeCoffee** | Retrofittable telemetry connecting professional coffee equipment to the cloud; hardware/IoT systems investment. Proprietary scientific breakthrough or unusually defensible research IP is not established, so retain a hardware/industrial-IoT classification with a deep-tech caveat. | Existing investor Venture Friends participated in the financing reported **2023-01-25**, led by Eleven Ventures. [Daily Coffee News](https://dailycoffeenews.com/2023/01/25/espresso-machine-iot-startup-bibecoffee-lands-2-2-million-round/ ) reports US$2.2m; [Forbes Bulgaria](https://forbesbulgaria.com/2023/01/25/eleven-ventures-investment-bibecoffee/ ) supports existing-investor participation. The snapshot's €2.1m figure should be retained in original currency only after checking the corresponding euro announcement. Specific ticket and precise stage label not established by these sources. |
| **Measurlabs / Measur Oy** | Provides laboratory testing and analysis through a network of 900+ laboratories and a logistics/purchasing platform. Supports R&D and deep-tech materials testing but is primarily a testing services/marketplace enabler; do not classify it automatically as proprietary instrumentation or materials deep tech. | Company confirms VentureFriends **led €2.5m seed**, with Lifeline Ventures, Tesi and Curus: [company release](https://measurlabs.com/blog/measurlabs-seed-round/ ), **2023-09-01**. Page footer identifies Measurlabs as Measur Oy, supporting entity reconciliation. | SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 22 days ago
MATCH 
Sybilion$4M · 2026-03-11
Harbor Lab$16M · 2024-05-15
Carmoola$20M · 2024-01-16
Agro.Club$5M · 2021-07-07
Welcome Pickups$4M · 2019-03-20
Capalo AI€11M · 2026-02-06
Spotawheel$110M · 2022-04-27
Speedinvest
Embat$16M · 2024-02-27
Atomico
Ben Blume
Huspy$37M · 2022-06-20
Embla$— · 2023-08-23
Force Over Mass Capital
Barte$8M · 2024-10-04
Kilian Thalhammer
Belvo$10M · 2020-05-28
MMC Ventures
Simpler$10M · 2024-09-20
Notion Capital
Peter Specht
Y Combinator
