Industrial Transformation

Backed 3 is the third and largest fund raised by Backed VC, a London-based seed and pre-seed investment firm focused on European deeptech founders building companies with global ambitions. The fund closed at its EUR 86 million (USD 100 million) hard cap on November 13, 2025, coinciding with Backed VC's 100th portfolio investment milestone across its three-fund history. Backed 3 represents the firm's most ambitious vehicle to date, expanding investment capacity and broadening its US presence alongside a deepened European portfolio strategy. The fund concentrates on three frontier technology themes: AI therapeutics and computational biology, blockchain and banking infrastructure, and manufacturing automation, areas where Backed has identified compounding technological advantage and durable market opportunity. Backed leads pre-seed and seed rounds with check sizes of USD 500,000 to USD 5 million, taking conviction-weighted positions in early teams before commercial traction is established. Portfolio construction is designed to generate a small number of category-defining winners across a European and global portfolio, with Backed 3 scaling the firm's already proven model from its first two vehicles. Backed 3 attracted close to 50% of commitments from ten institutional funds of funds, including new investors Isomer Capital and Wunderland Capital, with the remainder sourced from over 50 family offices and experienced technology entrepreneurs including founders from Backed's existing portfolio. Backed's first fund achieved top-decile performance, returning 35% of capital to investors in October 2025, providing a strong track record validation ahead of Backed 3's deployment. The fund is based in London and invests primarily across Europe with expanding activity in the United States.

Blackhorn Ventures Industrial Impact Fund II, LP (IIF II) is a $150 million venture capital impact fund managed by Blackhorn Ventures, an investment firm founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs, operators, and investors. The fund achieved its final close on June 27, 2024, with a 2022 vintage year reflecting the initial deployment period. IIF II attracted a distinguished group of limited partners including Mitsubishi Electric, Mercuria Energy, Goldbeck GmbH, Simpson Strong-Tie, Jonathan Rose Companies, the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, and Caprock, alongside other institutional investors who share a conviction that the industrial energy transition represents one of the defining investment opportunities of this decade. IIF II deploys capital at the Seed and Series A stages into capital-efficient software solutions, vertical SaaS platforms, and AI-enabled applications addressing resource efficiency and decarbonization across hard-to-abate industrial sectors. Blackhorn's 'bits and atoms' investment thesis targets the intersection of digital intelligence and physical-world processes across four interconnected verticals: energy, construction and the built environment, supply chain and logistics, and transportation. The fund prioritizes founders at the forefront of industrial AI — particularly those commercializing scalable solutions to critical labor shortages, operational inefficiency, and the carbon intensity of industries that together represent trillions in U.S. and global GDP. Investment geography is primarily the United States, with selective exposure to European opportunities meeting the same industrial thesis criteria. IIF II has deployed into over 20 portfolio companies, including Formic (industrial robotics software), Circuit Mind (electronics manufacturing automation), ThinkLabs, Specifix, EcoWorks, Optera, and Electric Era. As documented in Blackhorn's 2024 Annual Impact Report, portfolio companies deliver measurable outcomes across greenhouse gas reduction, labor productivity gains, and operational cost savings. The fund's impact mandate is structurally enforced: carried interest is linked to demonstrated environmental and social outcomes, aligning GP incentives with the fund's stated mission of industrial decarbonization. Managed from the United States and structured as a Delaware limited partnership, Blackhorn Ventures Industrial Impact Fund II is the second in the firm's flagship fund series and represents the fullest expression of the firm's Industry 4.0 investment philosophy combining digitization and decarbonization.

Compass Group Fund III has closed at a hard cap of $408 million, representing the firm’s second fundraising effort in the past two years. The fund focuses on thematic research and investment in the lower middle market, specifically targeting subsectors within niche manufacturing & distribution and business & consumer services industries. The geographical focus of the fund is the Mid-America “Between the Mountain Ranges,” with a strategic emphasis on the Midwestern region. The fund seeks to invest in historically successful entrepreneur and family-owned companies that exhibit characteristics such as EBITDA between $2 million and $15 million, enterprise values of $20 million to $200 million, and strong margin and cash flow generation. Compass Group aims to provide long-term capital and strategic support to small-to-medium sized private companies with revenues between $20-$100 million, typically investing $10-$30 million in control positions. The firm prioritizes partnering with businesses that have reached an inflection point for growth and are seeking continued participation and partnership, especially those without prior institutional capital. Additionally, Compass Group looks for niche markets with $100M+ potential that are highly fragmented with no clear leader or category disruption, further demonstrating the fund’s strategic focus on specific sectors and types of businesses.

FORWARD.one Fund III is a €200 million industrial technology venture fund aiming to back Europe’s next generation of breakthrough hardware and deeptech companies. With a hard cap set at €250 million, the fund will deploy initial tickets in the range of €1–3 million, reserving additional capital for follow‑on financing. The fund intends to build a concentrated portfolio of 25–30 early‑stage companies, focusing on domains such as semiconductors, robotics, sensors, advanced automation, climate tech, and industrial innovation. Its geographic focus includes the Benelux, Germany/Austria/Switzerland (DACH), the Nordics, and other European innovation hubs. FORWARD.one brings a hands‑on, commercialization‑oriented investment style. Its value proposition is rooted in bridging the “deeptech gap” by combining technical domain expertise, rapid execution, and industry networks to help founders transform advanced research into scalable products for real markets. The fund also builds on FORWARD.one’s performance track record: Fund I (launched ~2018) delivered a net IRR of ~41 % and 2× DPI, with exits such as Sensorfact (acquired by ABB) and Mayht (acquired by Sonos). Fund II (launched ~2021, ~€145 million) is mid‑deployment, targeting similar sectors. With Fund III, the firm aims to scale its backing of Europe’s industrial tech champions and deliver strong returns for LPs.

Matter Venture Partners has raised a $300 million first fund with a focus on ""hard tech"" investments. The fund aims to invest in companies that contribute to foundational technologies and trends that are built on hard tech. With backing from Kleiner Perkins and Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC, Matter Venture Partners invests at the large seed rounds, Series A and Series B. This venture capital fund focuses on six sectors: semiconductors, robotization, generative AI, manufacturing on-shoring and friend-shoring, energy building blocks, and life science automation. Within these sectors, the fund aims to invest in companies that provide the ""picks and shovels"" for these trends, as well as contribute to new innovations and technologies. Matter Venture Partners is looking to invest in between 15 and 20 companies with the new fund, with a goal to support portfolio companies across several rounds. The firm believes that the oversubscription of the fund is due to the increased realization of the importance of foundational hard tech technologies in today's society. The fund also prides itself on having operating partners, including Mel Tang, who provides expertise in operations, supply chain management, and manufacturing unit economics to support hard tech startups.