Merantix Capital has closed a €103 million early-stage AI fund, strengthening its role in Europe’s push to build globally competitive artificial intelligence companies. The Berlin- and London-based investor plans to back about 40 AI-native startups across the continent, targeting founders from the pre-idea phase through pre-seed and seed rounds. The announcement marks a broader shift for the firm, which is expanding beyond its original venture studio model to include direct investments in newly formed AI companies.
A Larger Fund for Industrial AI
The new vehicle is designed around a core thesis: Europe’s traditional industrial strengths can become a foundation for the next generation of AI businesses. Merantix Capital is focusing on sectors where specialist knowledge and access to real-world customers matter, including logistics, manufacturing, energy, finance, healthcare, life sciences, robotics, enterprise software, and physical AI. Rather than pursuing AI as a general-purpose trend, the fund is positioning itself around companies that apply machine learning to concrete operational challenges.
The fund is significantly larger than Merantix Capital’s first vehicle, which Handelsblatt reported was around €30 million and focused on companies developed inside the firm’s own ecosystem. With the new fund, the firm is splitting capital evenly between two investment routes: venture studio creation and direct backing of external startups. That structure gives Merantix Capital the flexibility to work with founders before an idea is fully formed while also competing for deals in Europe’s wider pre-seed and seed market.
Backing From Strategic Investors
The fund’s limited partners include Union Investment, Jungheinrich, KPMG Germany, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, along with family offices and institutional investors. Their participation signals that the fund is not only a financial bet on AI startups, but also part of a broader institutional search for practical AI transformation. Merantix Capital has framed these relationships as strategic partnerships that may give portfolio companies access to industry expertise, pilot opportunities, and commercial routes.
That strategic angle is central to the firm’s pitch in a European market where startups often face slower adoption cycles and complex enterprise sales processes. By connecting early-stage companies with corporate partners, domain experts, and technical resources, Merantix Capital aims to reduce the gap between promising AI research and industrial deployment. The model could be especially relevant in regulated or operationally complex sectors where founders need more than capital to reach early traction.
Portfolio and Platform
Merantix Capital said it has already begun deploying the fund into companies such as Droidrun, which is building mobile-native AI agent infrastructure, Arqh, which focuses on AI-driven logistics optimization, and Outpost Bio, which applies AI to human microbiology. The firm has also backed stealth ventures across logistics, manufacturing, recruiting, ERP, energy, and fashion technology. These early investments show the breadth of the fund’s mandate and its preference for AI companies tied to specific workflows rather than purely horizontal tools.
The fund sits inside the wider Merantix platform, which includes the Merantix AI Campus in Berlin, the London AI Hub, AI House Davos, and Merantix Momentum, an AI solutions provider working with enterprises. According to the company, the Berlin AI Campus hosts more than 80 resident companies and runs around 300 events per year, while Merantix Momentum has more than 70 AI engineers and has delivered over 100 enterprise projects annually. This infrastructure is intended to give founders access to talent, customers, technical insight, and a community focused on AI commercialization.
The close of the €103 million fund comes as European investors and policymakers continue to debate how the region can convert research depth and industrial expertise into scalable technology companies. For Merantix Capital, the answer lies in combining company creation, early-stage investing, and access to established industries that are under pressure to adopt AI. If the model succeeds, the fund could help more European AI startups move from technical promise to commercial relevance in sectors where the continent already has global influence.