Creator Fund raises $56 million to back Europe’s next wave of scientific founders

UK-based venture capital firm Creator Fund has closed a new $56 million European fund dedicated to backing scientific founders at the very earliest stages of company building. The vehicle is designed to turn academic research into commercial deep tech startups, with a particular focus on researchers and PhD students across leading European universities.

By using a network of student investors and a structured founder programme, Creator Fund aims to spot high-potential companies long before they appear on the traditional venture capital radar and to scale this model across the continent.

New $56 million fund targets deep tech spinouts

The newly closed European fund totals $56 million and is positioned at pre-seed stage, backing companies built by scientists in areas such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, robotics, advanced materials and computing infrastructure. The fund continues Creator Fund’s strategy of investing when companies are often little more than a research project and a founding team.

The capital will be deployed into spinouts and startups emerging from laboratories and research groups, with the goal of turning scientific breakthroughs into venture-scale businesses. Creator Fund’s model focuses on founders who are still embedded in academic environments and have not yet engaged with mainstream venture capital.

Institutional backing from European investors

The final close of the fund brings together 71 limited partners from 21 countries, reflecting broad interest in Europe’s deep tech and academic innovation ecosystem. The largest investor in the fund is KfW Capital, the investment arm of Germany’s state-owned promotional bank KfW.

Other major institutional backers include the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO), alongside Equation Capital, Basecamp (Phoenix Court), JIMCO and Allocator One. The mix of public and private capital is intended to support a long-term strategy of building globally competitive technology companies out of European research.

Student-led sourcing across Europe

Creator Fund was founded on the premise that scientific talent is one of Europe’s strongest, yet underused, advantages in company creation. Rather than waiting for scientists to seek out venture funding, the firm builds relationships with them while they are still in university labs.

To systematically find these opportunities, Creator Fund has assembled a network of student investors across 30 universities in 10 countries. These students help identify promising researchers and emerging technologies on campus, providing Creator Fund with early access to founders who might otherwise remain focused on purely academic careers.

With the new fund, the firm plans to expand this student-led model further across Europe, positioning itself as the first venture platform of its kind to operate at a continental scale.

Scientific Founder programme at the core of the strategy

A key component of Creator Fund’s approach is its Scientific Founder programme. Each year, the firm selects venture fellows from universities across Europe and trains them to spot academic research with commercial potential, support scientific founders and help them navigate the earliest steps of building a startup.

The programme is designed to bridge the gap between academia and entrepreneurship, offering guidance on company formation, early funding and the transition from lab work to market-facing development. According to the firm, three of the first investments made from the new $56 million fund are companies founded by former fellows of this programme, underlining its role as a pipeline for new ventures.

Portfolio traction and track record

Creator Fund has already begun investing out of the new fund, backing 11 companies to date. These portfolio companies operate in fields including reproductive health, robotics, advanced materials and next-generation data storage. The investments build on the firm’s existing portfolio and demonstrate the breadth of deep tech areas it targets.

Since its launch in 2019, Creator Fund has invested in 62 companies. The firm reports that it achieved its first full fund return following the acquisition of portfolio company Loci by gaming and technology company Epic Games. In addition, Creator Fund states that two of its portfolio companies have raised more than $100 million in cumulative funding over the past six months, indicating growing investor interest in the businesses emerging from its network.

Addressing the gap between labs and venture capital

Creator Fund’s founder and CEO, Jamie Macfarlane, established the firm in response to what he viewed as a persistent gap in the European venture ecosystem: scientists and researchers were often encouraged to remain in academia rather than to start companies, and many never engaged with venture capital at all.

The firm’s thesis is that many of the solutions to major global challenges are being developed in European university laboratories, but need dedicated support to become scalable businesses. By partnering closely with universities and researchers, Creator Fund seeks to convert more of this scientific work into high-growth startups.

KfW Capital has highlighted this approach as a way to gain exposure to emerging founders at top European universities while helping to bridge the divide between academic research and commercial technology development. For institutional investors, the fund offers a structured route into early-stage deep tech opportunities that might otherwise be difficult to access.

Scaling a European deep tech platform

With its first European fund now closed, Creator Fund is positioning itself as a specialist investor in scientific founders across the continent. The combination of a student-led sourcing network, a structured founder programme and new institutional capital is intended to create a repeatable model for turning academic research into financeable startups.

As more universities and research institutions look to commercialise intellectual property and encourage entrepreneurship among researchers, funds like Creator Fund aim to provide the targeted capital and support needed at the pre-seed stage, before larger venture funds typically step in.