Partner Content: Ventures.eu – How to access the most innovative European startups

As VC investments hinge on access to the most promising innovative startups, what could be more advantageous than tapping into the groundbreaking innovations emerging from the European Commission’s €100bn innovation programme—the largest of its kind globally?

This is effectively what Thijs Povel has been able to create with Dealflow.eu (‘Dealflow’), a matchmaking platform that integrates internal EU data to increase the visibility of innovations, connecting EU-funded startups with corporates and private investors. What makes this especially unique is that Dealflow, supported by a team of 20, has also launched its own venture capital fund, Ventures.eu, to invest in the most promising founders emerging from this ecosystem.

The fund’s primary focus is to be the first investor in deeptech innovations that gain strong customer validation. The benefit of EU-backed startups is not only that they have already received significant non-dilutive funding but also that they have been carefully selected for their breakthrough innovations. With its access to 21,000-plus start-ups on the Dealflow platform that it connects with corporates, the Ventures.eu team is at the right place at the right time.

It enables the team to invest in startups when they have mostly been derisked thanks to already having developed their technology and found initial customers while their valuations are still low due to not having achieved significant revenue. It is also a time when the startups need the funding the most as the new customer orders require it to scale up. 

Discovery of the EU opportunity

Thijs has been investing in startups since 2010. After studying physics, he went straight into venture capital and started his career at a Belgium-based family office that invested in healthcare, fintech, and communications before becoming an investment manager at Holtzbrinck Digital, a prominent German VC firm with a focus on startups coming from academia. 

“I struggled to source deals for Holtzbrinck from the typical sources such as accelerators and conferences where I had to compete over a small number of non-deeptech startups with all the other VCs. That’s when I came across the European Commission’s €100 billion Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, an amazing discovery of one of the largest pipelines of highly innovative startups which benefitted from non-dilutive grants that helped them cross the most risky part of their journey, the valley of death.

“There was one problem with this pipeline, though; although many thousands of startups were benefitting from this EU funding, there was no database to search and filter through,” says Thijs. 

That’s when the idea for Dealflow was born. It was 2016. 

“The European Commission asked me to become an advisor to help make their startups and innovations more visible. With the problem still unresolved, three years later, they came back with a new proposal—not just to advise on a solution, but to implement it myself. They offered: ‘Here’s €1 million, could you set up a platform to give investors access to all these start-ups?’ I agreed on the condition that I could also invest in the founders I believed in.

“This was fully supported, as the EU actively encourages private investors to fund the scale-up phase of the startups they back with R&D grants. Since their focus is solely on research and development—not sales and marketing—the involvement of private capital is essential to bring these innovations to market.”

Dealflow was set up in 2019 to pull together this extensive library of data on European start-ups, detailing every start-up and piece of information on EU innovation projects with the support of the commission’s Innovation Radar. 

Corporate matchmaking

Since its inception, Dealflow has helped over 600 startups secure private funding and gain corporate clients through its network and monthly corporate events. 

A crucial factor for scaling up these startups is obtaining customer traction from European corporations eager to adopt innovative solutions. Many startups emerging from EU-backed research programs do receive millions in R&D grants but can’t use this funding to commercialize. Dealflow bridges this gap by, on the one hand, connecting these startups with corporates that can validate their products and, on the other, by taking the opportunity to provide the necessary funding for the most promising ones through its investment arm, Ventures.eu. Making Ventures.eu is often the first private backer of de-risked early-stage companies ready to scale up.

Some practical examples

Say a corporate is looking for a way to recycle its ageing solar panels without violating European regulations. The Dealflow team can identify multiple start-ups offering such a solution, invite and work with them to pitch at one of its events, and then see who is chosen to partner on a pilot project. 

Examples such as this happen each month, with the opportunity for Ventures.eu to cherry-pick the best founders and support them to win customers and finance their growth. This places Ventures.eu at the top of the pyramid. It’s a competitive position and one that Thijs hopes will lead to increased interest among global family offices wishing to invest in the most promising, disruptive European start-ups. 

“We are in talks with several family offices and fund-of-funds who share our passion for supporting European Innovation. We are still early in our fundraising journey and hope to see more traction from Family Offices. One difference that keeps Europe back compared to the US is that you have a lot more risk capital in the US. Pension funds there are investing about 10% of their capital into VC while in Europe it’s about 0.02%,” explains Thijs.    

Previous success stories of the Ventures team include Bitsight, a cyber risk management platform that is valued at $2.4+ billion, Makersite, a data platform that helps manufacturers assess and reduce their CO2 footprint (20x multiple) and Outsystems, a low code software development platform (15X multiple). 

An example of a recent investment opportunity that came through the pipeline is Orbem, a German deep-tech company ranked by Sifted as the 5th fastest-growing deep tech startup in Europe. In October 2023, it raised EUR30 million in Series A funding to unleash AI-powered imaging for everything and everyone. 

Golden Visa investment opportunity

The Dealflow & Ventures team operates out of Lisbon, Portugal, where many European start-ups are choosing to base their development teams. Compared to the UK tax system – and others in Europe – Portugal is particularly attractive, with income tax set at 20% for expats. Portugal also offers a Golden Visa option to investors, a residency-by-investment scheme aimed at non-EU nationals. The Ventures fund is one of the compliant Golden Visa funds, which enables its investors to obtain a Golden Visa.  

Supporting European Innovations

As highlighted by the Draghi report, the EU set to double down on investment in future technologies.The Dealflow platform and the Ventures.eu fund will be instrumental in enabling private funding to support the most promising European startups across AI, quantum computing, life sciences, biotech, climate tech, new materials, transport.     

Dealflow and Ventures.eu are unlocking a new era of investment for family offices, providing exclusive access to Europe’s most groundbreaking startups. With their first close set for Q2 2025 and initial investments planned for Q3, they offer a rare opportunity to back high-potential, de-risked innovations—shaping the future of European industry while delivering outsized returns for visionary investors. Reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions for Thijs and his team.