Speedinvest

Manual, inconsistent interviews are still the norm in a $500B global recruiting market. That’s about to change with lizzyAI - AI interviews. Made human. The NYC-based team is building an AI-native platform that transforms interviews into dynamic, structured conversations designed to replicate the intelligence, nuance, and fairness of a great human interviewer. Our Partner, Jeroen Arts, says: “Hiring is the backbone of every great company, yet the interview remains one of the most flawed steps in the process. LizzyAI brings structure, intelligence, and scale to interviews in a long-overdue way.” We’re proud to back Yannis Niebelschuetz again in this $5M Seed round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), as LizzyAI transforms how interviews are run, bringing clarity, consistency, and depth to one of the most decisive moments in the hiring journey.

After 15 years of backing Europe’s boldest founders, Speedinvest is stepping into a new chapter – one defined not by how we look, but by what we deliver. Today, we're more than an early-stage investor. We’re a globally active platform with six offices across EMEA, six dedicated sector-focused teams, and the conviction to back the most ambitious ideas from pre-Seed to Growth, across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and beyond. Our evolution is rooted in a simple belief: Big ideas don’t scale in isolation. It takes more. More expertise. More connections. More reach. More momentum. This isn't just a vision. It’s an investment model with the conviction to lead 85% of our initial investments, the commitment to provide proven performers with long-term capital to scale, and the joy of helping more than 70 companies successfully raise a Series A in the last four years alone. We call it The Power of More. A platform designed to help founders move faster, scale smarter, and go further. Oliver Holle, our CEO & Managing Partner, says: "When we started Speedinvest in 2011, we had a clear vision: to prove that tier-one quality and scale can co-exist in European VC, not just in the US. What we’ve built over the past 15 years is that vision brought to life. A platform built on deep sector expertise, a global footprint and network of industry leaders, and a genuine, unwavering commitment to providing our founders, LPs, and partners with more. This new chapter isn’t about changing who we are. It’s about owning our scale, strength, and impact proudly, as we commit to doing even more together for many years to come.” Speedinvest. The Power of More.

QphoX has been selected for €10 million in equity funding from the EIC - European Innovation Council’s STEP Scale-Up scheme, reinforcing Europe’s push to lead in quantum technologies. Based in the Netherlands, QphoX is building quantum modems — core hardware that connects quantum computers across networks and a critical enabler for scalable quantum data centers. The EIC investment supports QphoX in scaling one of Europe’s most foundational quantum technologies. We’re proud to continue supporting Simon Groeblacher and his exceptional team as they help build a quantum-ready Europe.

Born in Bulgaria, built to power resilient drone logistics across Europe. Founded by brothers Konstantin and Svilen Rangelov in Sofia, Dronamics set out to build a long-range cargo drone, transforming 50,000 underused airfields in Europe in the process. But building the world's first cargo drone airline with a European license to operate took over a decade of endurance. Today, their Black Swan aircraft is not only flying and redefining European logistics, it's also fit for cargo, civilian, and defense use cases. In our latest Scaling at Speed story, Svilen shares how Dronamics turned deeptech constraints into a competitive edge. Read the full story on our blog and subscribe via the link in the comments.

Donnerstag.ai is creating a new category in fintech: automated, AI-powered receivables management for suppliers. Founded by fintech veterans Barbaros Ozbugutu and Volkan Özkan, Donnerstag.ai is on a mission to give Europe’s suppliers the clarity and control they need. By connecting delivery, billing, and banking data, their platform detects discrepancies in real time and reconciles thousands of transactions automatically. The result: full transparency, reduced risk, and control over liquidity. Stefan Klestil with our Fintech & Emerging Markets investment teams: “At a time when artificial intelligence is redefining ERP and financial systems, Donnerstag.ai is creating an entirely new category that has never been technologically addressed before. Barbaros and Volkan combine product expertise, strategic vision, and executional strength in a unique way. We’re proud to lead this €4.3M Seed round and work with Donnerstag.ai to shape the future of European financial technology.”

We’re backing onepot alongside Khosla Ventures, Fifty Years with participation from Wojciech Zaremba (OpenAI co-founder) and Jeff Dean (Google’s Chief Scientist). San Francisco-based onepot is on a mission to reimagine chemistry. The company integrates ultra-high-throughput lab automation with AI to deliver true end-to-end chemical synthesis at the scale of billions of molecules. By giving scientists instant, automated access to molecules, onepot aims to break pharma’s reliance on CROs and slow, error-prone synthesis processes. Estelle Botbol from our Health & Bio team says: “Geopolitical tensions are straining chemical supply chains, and chemical synthesis is bottlenecked by chemist shortages and limited capacity. That’s why we’re thrilled to co-lead this $13M Seed round for Andrei and Daniil, whose AI-native, fully automated synthesis platform brings the process closer, faster, and with unprecedented technical reliability.” Link to the TechCrunch article in the comments.

Backing Deblock: Fully licensed on-chain banking, built for Europe. Deblock just launched last year – and is already live with over 300,000 users. Now with its expansion into Germany, Europe’s largest consumer market, the journey is only getting started. Today, we’re proud to announce that we’re leading their €30M Series A to help bring this next-generation banking experience to more users across Europe. On our blog, Varun and Tom share why the team, timing, and product make Deblock one of the most compelling fintech bets we’ve made. Link in the comments.

GetVocal AI secures $26M in Series A funding led by Creandum, less than a year after we led their pre-Seed round. The Paris-based conversational AI agent platform is building scalable, trustworthy agents for enterprises across multiple industries, with heavyweight clients such as Vodafone, Glovo, and Movistar already onboard. With the new backing from Creandum and continued support from Speedinvest and Elaia, GetVocal will continue rolling out its measurable and trustworthy AI agents across Europe, ensuring high-quality customer interactions at scale. Frederik Hagenauer, Partner with our B2B SaaS team, says: “Since backing Roy and Antonin in their pre-Seed, we’ve watched them turn a bold idea into a deployed, high-impact product – trusted by major enterprises across Europe. We’re thrilled to double down in this round and support GetVocal’s team as they scale transparent, enterprise-ready AI even further.” Read more on GetVocal’s blog (link in the comments).

With IPO windows limited and traditional exits slow, we need to create new avenues for returns. That’s why we’ve launched two continuation vehicles this year – to create liquidity for early investors while keeping our strongest companies on their long-term growth path. Next week at Slush, our Managing Partner Oliver Holle will join Geoffrey Love (Wellcome Trust) and Leyla Holterud (Vintage Investment Partners) on stage, with Kia Kokalitcheva from PitchBook moderating. The panel, Liquidity Lifelines: Exits in a Dried-Up Market, will dive into how GPs and LPs are adapting to the current exit environment and the emerging tools helping them do it. Hope to see you in Helsinki.

We’re proud to see four of our portfolio companies included in this year’s Accel Globalscape list: Shapr3D, Primer, Ona (formerly Gitpod), and autone. The report, titled “Race for Compute”, highlights 100 breakout companies from across Europe and Israel, each with over $1M in revenue and still valued below $1B. Our portfolio company Tide is also featured, celebrated in the report as one of this year’s newest unicorns. The others may not be far behind, with strong growth across industrial design, retail tech, automation, and AI infrastructure. Thanks to our friends at Accel for continuing to map Europe’s most promising software and AI companies, and congratulations to the teams at Shapr3D, Primer, Ona (formerly Gitpod), autone, and Tide for the well-deserved recognition. Link to the full report in the comments.