Robin Capital — the Germany-based venture capital fund led by Solo GP by former entrepreneur Robin Haak — has reached the final close of “Robin Fund One” at €13 million. Combined with its additional growth-focused investment vehicle of €2 million, the fund now has a total of €15 million to play with. In the realm of European solo GPs, which generally raise much less than their American equivalents, this is a decent figure.
Launched in 2023Robin Capital targets mid-sized European B2B enterprise SaaS startups, focusing on the DACH region, at pre-seed and seed stages. It is deployed in industries such as HR, AI, Fintech, Climate, DevOps, Robotics, and Industrial Technology.
Some 28 companies are now in the portfolio and half of the fund has already been deployed in companies like Developer Kombo (Germany) and Phacet Laboratories (France).
Robin was founded in December 2022 by Haak, former co-founder of Jobspotting (acquired by San Francisco-based SmartRecruiters Inc. in 2017), who deposited the first check into German neo-bank N26.
Haak's fund has 70 limited partners and includes GPs from private equity and venture capital firms, as well as founders and operators.
He also managed to recruit some venture capital partners, including Renaud Visage, former CTO of Eventbrite and current founder of Slate.VC; Jérôme Ternynck, founder of SmartRecruiters and Rypples VC; and Lea Vajnorsky, co-founder of Wo\men Inc.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Haak said the environment in which to raise money has been quite challenging.
“This year and a half has probably been the most difficult period in the history of the venture capital industry, due to the macroeconomic situation. I don’t have any institutions in the fund, I don’t even have the EIF.”
However, he believes that the advantage has been being able to rely on a large network: “The LP base that I have today has 70 people, and all of them are professionals… What is good now is that it's an incredible value-added community.
Robin Capital joins the bandwagon of other Solo GPs in Europe, many of whom have already held roles as a fund partner, entrepreneur, startup operator or content creator (read: podcaster).
Although solo GPs can sometimes make faster decisions than full-fledged multi-partner funds, they generally operate more like angels on steroids. But it can also mean faster access to their network, expertise and audience, particularly in the case of creators who have developed a personal brand.
Hypernova, a $25 million fund of funds softly launched in 2022 invest in Solo GPs in Europe.
TechCrunch has identified 28 “Solo” GP VCs launched in Europe over the past two years, although one or two (like 20VC and Unruly Capital) are now large enough to have brought in other partners and are slowly exiting the “Solo” phase. :
14Pics Capital
GP: Edoardo Ermotti
20VC
General practitioner: Harry Stebbings
Aerial Street Capital
GP: Nathan Benaich
Amino Collective
General practitioner: Manuel Grossman
Anamcara
General practitioner: Annelie Ajami
BackFutur Companies
GP: Alex Théuma
Boom
General practitioner: Félix Plapperer
Chalfen Ventures
GP: Mike Chalfen
Cocoa
General practitioner: Carmen Alfonso Rico
Common magic:
General practitioner: Sarah Drinkwater
First day companies
General practitioner: Masha Bucher
Entropy
General practitioner: Sam Cash
drop of fire
GP: Pietro Invernizzi
Foreword
General practitioner: Declan Kelly
Hello world
GP: Rodrigo Martínez
Inflection
GP: Alexandre Lange
Lemonade stand
General practitioner: Siim Teller
Capital of Monte Carlo
General practitioner: Ian Sosso
Nomadic capital
GP: Marc McCabe
No label company
GP: Ramzi Rafih
NP-Hard Ventures
General practitioner:Anke Huiskes
Nebular
General practitioner: Finn Murphy
OpenseedVC
General practitioner: Maria Rotilu
Puzzle Companies
General practitioner: Gloria Baeuerlein
System.One
General practitioner: Max Claussen
The Nordic Web
General practitioner: Neil Murray
Highlight businesses
GP: Bogdan Iordache
Unruly capital
GP: Stefano Bernardi
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