Concept Ventures has closed on $88 million for its second dedicated pre-seed fund, which was oversubscribed, having completed a first close in just three weeks.
Pre-seed Fund II, reportedly the largest dedicated pre-seed fund in Europe, will invest in 50 start-ups in the UK and Europe. With an average check size of $1 million, Concept aims to lead over 90 percent of the rounds in which it participates.
Founded in 2017 by founding partner Reece Chowdhry, Concept Ventures is based in London. Jeff Chowdhry and Oliver Kicks are also partners at the firm. With no sector preference, the investment team is looking for exceptional founders with global ambitions.
The fund’s limited partners include a few fund of funds: Aldea Ventures in Barcelona; Top Tier Capital Partners in San Francisco; and Marktlink Capital in Amsterdam. Other LPs are Dominus, a UK-based real estate investor, and Granite Capital Management, a multiple-family office in New York. Eighty percent of the fund’s institutional investors are based in the US, including one of the world’s largest US investment banks and a leading charitable trust, whose names the firm did not disclose. In addition, more than 70 percent of Concept Ventures’ portfolio founders are LPs in Fund II, including ElevenLabs CEO and co-founder Mati Staniszewski.
In 2022, Ahluwalia Family Office, founded by serial entrepreneur Sukhpal Ahluwalia, made an anchor investment in Concept.
“As outsiders to [venture capital], we’ve always believed pre-seed investing requires true specialists – partners who can spot and support founders before the wider market sees their potential. Raising an oversubscribed $88 million fund from a majority-US investor base (as well as making first close in just three weeks) is a huge vote of confidence in this thesis and in the European market at large,” Reece Chowdhry said in a statement.
“To have 70 percent of our portfolio founders now backing us as LPs is a further validation of the people-centric approach we’ve worked so hard to develop and deploy,” he added. “This close cements our position as Europe’s largest dedicated pre-seed fund and gives us the firepower to keep saying ‘yes’ at the very beginning of a founder’s journey.”
In 2022, Concept raised $65 million for its first pre-seed fund, which invested in more than 44 companies at the pre-seed stage. Its portfolio includes voice artificial intelligence giant ElevenLabs, which reached unicorn status less than two years after Concept backed it and is now valued at $6.6 billion.
Among its other positions are Vsim, the developer of a physics simulation platform; Treefera, a decarbonization data platform; Anam, an AI avatar generator; and Arondite, a defense software firm. Earlier funds closed in 2021 for $6.7 million and in 2018 for an undisclosed amount.
Among the firm’s exits are Myles, which was acquired in February by Santé Group, a UK-based employee benefits consultancy, and Quantive which was acquired in May by WorkBoardAI, a strategy execution system using agentic AI. Both deals were for undisclosed amounts.
Concept manages $200 million in assets, with Fund I ranked as a top 1 percent performing fund for its vintage globally. All of the companies in the first fund that have gone to market to fundraise have successfully closed their next round. Collectively, all the start-ups in Fund I have raised more than $450 million.
Concept believes that the non-VC backgrounds of all of its team members help them spot unconventional talent and emerging market sectors earlier than other funds. Their origination is supported by proprietary sourcing tools. For 90 percent of the founders in the portfolio, their first venture conversation was with Concept.
The firm aims to fill a market gap for pre-seed specialists across the UK and Europe, providing hands-on, tailored support for founders at the very initial stages of their journey. The focus on the pre-seed stage reduces signaling risk for founders as they look to graduate to subsequent rounds and avoids alignment issues that can arise with multi-stage funds.
Fund II pledges 1 percent of the total carry pool to charities chosen by a founder. This has already enabled school facilities to be built in India and has committed to funding youth mental health provision across the UK, as well as LGBTQ+ communities affected by HIV and AIDS.
