Deep Tech Fund Kembara Closes €750M to Fix Europe's Scale-Up Gap
Europe's deep tech and climate startups now have a powerful new ally. Mundi Ventures has secured a €750 million first close for Kembara Fund I—the continent's largest dedicated deep tech and climate fund—to bridge the notorious Series B funding gap crippling promising European innovators. The Madrid-based firm aims to write €15–40 million checks into 20 companies, with room to scale investments toward a potential €1.25 billion final close.
Credit: Kembara
Why Europe's Climate Startups Keep Stalling at Series B
European universities and research labs consistently produce world-class deep tech breakthroughs. Yet a troubling pattern repeats: startups secure early funding, validate their technology, then hit a wall when attempting to scale manufacturing, navigate regulatory hurdles, or compete globally. Recent analysis confirms billions flow into seed and Series A climate ventures annually—only for too many to collapse before reaching meaningful commercial traction.
The gap isn't about ideas or talent. It's about capital continuity. While U.S. investors routinely deploy $50–100 million growth rounds, European funds historically capped at €10–20 million, forcing founders to stitch together fragmented syndicates or relocate headquarters overseas. This fragmentation strangles momentum precisely when startups need concentrated support to industrialize prototypes and secure enterprise contracts.
Kembara enters this void with surgical precision. By targeting Series B and C specifically, the fund addresses the exact phase where European climate tech bleeds talent and intellectual property to better-capitalized markets. Its structure acknowledges a hard truth: breakthrough science means little without the financial runway to become bankable industry.
Two Years, €750 Million, and One Hard-Won First Close
Reaching this milestone wasn't inevitable. Co-founder Yann de Vries openly admits that closing €750 million for a debut fund amid global market volatility "was not easy." The journey began with a pivotal €350 million anchor commitment from the European Investment Fund in 2024 under the European Tech Champions Initiative—a signal that institutional capital recognized the scale-up crisis demanded structural solutions.
Regulatory filings from Spain confirm Kembara operates as a specialist vehicle within Mundi Ventures' broader ecosystem, with dedicated teams across Madrid, London, Barcelona, and Paris. This pan-European footprint matters. Deep tech scaling requires navigating divergent regulatory landscapes, supply chain ecosystems, and industrial partnership opportunities unique to each market. A single-city fund simply couldn't provide the operational depth these companies require.
The fund's architecture also reflects hard lessons from past cycles. Rather than chasing deal volume, Kembara plans concentrated ownership in fewer companies—approximately 20 portfolio targets—with explicit reserves for follow-on capital. This "land and expand" approach ensures startups won't face funding cliffs mid-manufacturing ramp or during critical regulatory approval processes.
The Operators Turned Investors Leading the Charge
Kembara's credibility stems from its partners' scars as much as their successes. Alongside Mundi Ventures founder Javier Santiso, the fund assembled a team that has lived the scale-up struggle firsthand. General partners include Robert Trezona, a seasoned climate tech investor; Pierre Festal, a deep tech specialist; and Yann de Vries, whose journey embodies Kembara's mission.
De Vries previously co-founded Redpoint eVentures Brazil and served as a partner at Atomico before making a bold pivot: joining German electric aircraft startup Lilium as an operator. He witnessed the company's dramatic collapse in 2024 after raising over $1 billion and going public via SPAC—a "traumatizing experience" that revealed systemic flaws in European growth financing.
"Lilium didn't fail because of bad technology or weak teams," de Vries reflects. "It failed because Europe lacks the patient, substantial growth capital required to industrialize complex hardware." That painful lesson now fuels Kembara's thesis. The fund isn't just writing checks—it's building an operational support system with industrial partners, regulatory navigators, and scaling experts embedded from day one.
Former Atomico partner Siraj Khaliq rounds out the leadership as senior strategic advisor, bringing agricultural technology expertise and a track record of guiding deep tech ventures through commercialization inflection points. This operator-investor hybrid model signals Kembara's commitment to hands-on value creation beyond boardroom oversight.
Check Sizes Designed for Real-World Scaling
Kembara's investment strategy rejects symbolic gestures. Initial checks ranging from €15 million to €40 million reflect the actual capital intensity of scaling deep tech: building pilot production lines, securing raw material supply chains, running multi-year clinical or safety trials, and establishing global distribution partnerships.
Consider a European startup developing solid-state batteries. At Series A, it might prove lab-scale viability with €8 million. But transitioning to automotive-grade manufacturing requires €30–50 million minimum—precisely Kembara's entry point. The fund's structure allows it to lead rounds while reserving 2–3x initial investment for follow-ons, ensuring portfolio companies never face the "valley of death" between prototype and production.
This approach also attracts co-investors who previously hesitated to lead European growth rounds. By providing anchor capital with scaling expertise, Kembara de-risks participation for corporate venture arms, sovereign wealth funds, and family offices seeking exposure to climate tech without navigating fragmented deal flow alone.
Why Institutional Capital Finally Woke Up
The fund's successful close signals a maturation in European institutional thinking. Pension funds, insurers, and development banks increasingly recognize that climate transition isn't just an ESG checkbox—it's an industrial imperative requiring patient capital deployment over 10–15 year horizons.
Kembara's thesis resonates because it aligns financial returns with tangible impact metrics: gigatons of CO2 avoided, megawatts of clean energy deployed, or circular supply chains established. Unlike earlier climate funds that struggled to demonstrate both profitability and planetary benefit, Kembara's deep tech focus targets technologies with defensible IP moats and clear paths to enterprise adoption.
This dual mandate—financial rigor paired with measurable climate impact—proved decisive for limited partners. In an era of heightened scrutiny on greenwashing, Kembara's emphasis on hard science and industrial scalability provides the transparency institutional allocators demand. The fund doesn't bet on carbon credit schemes or voluntary offset markets; it backs hardware, materials science, and energy systems with auditable decarbonization potential.
From Fund Close to Portfolio Impact
With capital secured, Kembara now enters its most critical phase: deploying capital with discipline amid rising competition for quality deals. The European deep tech landscape has matured significantly since 2020, with stronger founder teams, clearer regulatory pathways for clean tech, and growing corporate appetite for innovation partnerships.
Yet challenges persist. Geopolitical tensions complicate cross-border manufacturing. Energy price volatility impacts industrial scaling economics. And talent wars intensify as U.S. and Asian firms aggressively recruit European engineering PhDs. Kembara's value will be proven not by its fund size, but by how effectively it helps portfolio companies navigate these headwinds.
Early indications suggest a focused approach. The team is prioritizing sectors where Europe holds structural advantages: industrial decarbonization, sustainable materials, precision fermentation, and grid-edge energy technologies. Rather than chasing AI wrappers or software-only climate solutions, Kembara targets capital-intensive innovations where European engineering excellence and regulatory frameworks provide competitive moats.
For founders who've watched peers relocate to Silicon Valley for growth capital, Kembara represents more than funding—it's validation that Europe can nurture its own industrial champions. The fund's success could catalyze a virtuous cycle: proving deep tech scale-ups can thrive on European soil may attract even larger pools of patient capital, finally closing the transatlantic growth gap that has haunted the continent's innovation ecosystem for decades.
The €750 million first close isn't an endpoint. It's the foundation for what Kembara's team hopes will become Europe's definitive scale-up engine—a fund that doesn't just write checks, but builds bridges between laboratory breakthroughs and industrial reality. In a climate emergency demanding rapid technological deployment, that mission has never been more urgent.
