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Today we launch BACKED 3 - $100M seed fund to back generational frontier tech founders - right alongside our 100th investment.
Read the full announcement here: sifted.eu/articles/backed-vc…
We are all dreamers in pushing the frontiers of imagination. All year we build things people thought were impossible. Together we define a new reality.
In the words Willy Wonka (riffing off Arthur O’Shaughnessy): “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
And so, at this year’s @SlushHQ, on 18th November, the doors of the BACKED chocolate factory swing open. What’s inside? We couldn’t possibly say. Only that everything has been tested thoroughly and there will be more than a few marvellous creations.
Today, we’re releasing the first Golden Tickets to a small number of inboxes. To the lucky finders: consider your hand warmly shaken.
This year’s fellow chocolatiers are @awscloud, @erevenasearch, @Goodwinlaw, @stripe and @Snowflake. Thank you for keeping the river flowing.
BACKED 🏴 retweeted
We’ve raised $10m to build the first world models for extreme physics and accelerate the technologies that will define the 21st century. Our backers include @BackedVC , @lunar_vc , @seraphim_space , @MMC_Ventures and @SOSV , as well as other funds, founders and hyperscaler directors.
Alongside AI, this century will be shaped by rockets, fusion reactors and fabs. Building the next generation means understanding and controlling increasingly complex physics. Today’s tools cannot keep pace: when a single simulation or experiment takes days, even the best engineering teams can explore only a fraction of the possibilities.
At Zenithon, we’re building models to explore a million design points in the time it takes to simulate one, and to learn directly from real-world experiments. Engineers can search beyond familiar designs, discover new levels of performance and keep improving how their machines operate.
The team, co-founded by @alexhigg_ and , brings together researchers behind foundational breakthroughs in machine learning for physics and a wider team from leading labs globally. We’re proud to be building this together.
Our ambition is to keep human innovation on an exponential path, even as the technologies we build become more complex.
Linkedin linkedin.com/company/zenitho…
Vision in. Actions out. $220M into the frontier lab for acting in space and time. @gen_intuition has raised again at a $6.2B valuation, and the models are becoming available.
We first backed @PimDeWitte 10 years ago, when he was 22. A BACKED founder twice over since.
Congratulations Pim and the team 🏴
Last night, we hosted a proper scrap.
Fintech Fight Night brought together some serious contenders to debate the big questions in fintech and financial infrastructure.
@PaulTaylorCEO and @rorystirling traded blows on whether prediction markets are good or evil. @danonanthony and @willorde battled it out over whether banks as we know them will actually exist in the next 20 years. Alex Edwards and @vyayasan squared up on whether LLMs are a platform shift in fintech or just noise.
Each debate landed some clear hits - three emerged victorious… Congratulations to our winners Paul, Anthony and Alex 🏆
A huge thank you to all speakers showing up ready for a fight. To the crowd for getting involved in the theme and bringing the energy! And to our co-hosts @twifintech, and our true cheerleaders @goodwinlaw and @Google.
🥊Think you could stand a chance in the ring? Hit us up for Round 2.
The best conversations happen at the fringes. The real alpha in tech investing is at the frontier. That's why we call this annual event The Edge.
Berlin is the spot for it. No city in Europe does it better.
You arrive with a schedule. The energy swallows you whole - and spits you out the other side frazzled, inspired, and wondering where the last three days went.
On Tuesday night. Almost 400 people. And a dance floor that had absolutely no interest in stopping at 2am when we finally pulled the plugs.
There is something genuinely special about this crowd. Investors and founders who grind hard all year - coming together for one night to disconnect, so they can connect. On a human level.
Thank you for dancing with us. And a deep thanks to our co-hosts @cartainc and FOMO, and partners Bound, @mercury, and season 5 who made the night what it was:
We're on for next year. See you there. 🏴
A SUPER morning dedicated to Europe's comms experts. The topic at hand: navigating narratives in the age of volatility.
A huge thank you to our co-hosts @ElishevaMarcus Markus at @EarlybirdVC for bringing the room together.
Here are 3 of the punchiest takeaways:
1 - Press is its own channel, not a checkbox.
Journalists don't fit neatly into your campaign timeline - and they never will. A heads-up weeks out is worth more than polished materials the Friday before launch. Respect journalists. Give them time to prepare.
2 - Curation > headcount
Whether its an intimate 15 person breakfast or a 400+ party, we know its all about who you meet, and how you follow up.
3 - The best argument for podcasts isn't reach. It's indexability.
Founders are time-poor. But transcripts are increasingly picked up by LLMs, which means visibility that compounds well beyond the original audience. When founders push back, make that case.
See you next year SuperComms 👋
Film makers, investors, founders and artists sipped chai over conversations ranging from how to create a cap table, to making your first angel bet. For the 7th edition of the Female Angel Investors Power Breakfast hosted alongside @Lumus_invest . This time partnered with Anouska d'Abo and the @sxswlndn team to bring together an extraordinary mix of perspectives from across industries.
The conversation went far beyond the mechanics of angel investing. Around the table were voices from the arts and media, biotech, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and community building - all exploring how we can unlock more capital, more opportunities, and better outcomes for female founders.
What made this breakfast special was the collision of worlds.
Venture investors exchanged ideas with operators, creators, and strategists. Different industries, different experiences, but a shared belief that diverse founders deserve more backing.
Most importantly, these breakfasts continue to be about more than conversation. They're about building a community that takes action - one that actively puts more money, expertise, and support behind women building the future. We encouraged the guests to take away a challenge.
NB: For this SXSW edition we opened our doors to male allies.
For the September edition, we'll be dialling up the focus for experienced angels so if that's you, or you'd like to recommend a wise investor, DM us for a seat at our Power Breakfast table.
We partner with LUMUS Investment Collective who are Europe's largest community of female angel investors. They aim to bring more women onto the cap tables of startups via education, community and syndication, and have a lot of fun doing it. This is why they are a perfect partner for us, with our mission to back Europe’s frontier founders.
June only means one thing.
SuperReturn Venture is back. And so is the The Edge afterparty.
This year, we're co-hosting our annual Berlinesque party with @cartainc and FOMO Berlin, for an evening built for the people who back the bold and build the future.
Europe's top capital allocators. Visionary GPs. Founders building what's next.
Neon-lit corners. Live artists. Berlin's best soundtracks. And the kind of conversations that don't happen in conference rooms.
We're partnering with our friends at Bound, @mercury and season5 who are building the infra stack for Europe's exceptional startups.
This year we’re opening our doors a little wider than usual to ensure there’s space for more founders and builders - if this is you, please apply and we’ll do our best to get you in!
BACKED x @twifintech present: Fintech Fight Night 🥊
Tuesday 23rd June. London.
We are replacing the traditional corporate snooze-fest with a glorious anti-panel. We are putting three highly contested topics on the table and throwing six industry fighters into the mix who absolutely refuse to play it safe.
Stepping into the ring:
@PaulTaylorCEO — Founder & CEO, @thoughtmachine EdwardBarrow — Founder & CEO, Cloud Capital
@kmgrose — Senior Country Director, @coinbase
More fighters to be announced.
🛎️Ding ding. The bell's rung. Register your interest here: gatsby.events/backed-vc/rsvp…
BACKED and @Lumus_invest are back. And this time, @sxswlndn are joining the table.
Thursday 4th June, Dishoom Shoreditch, 8:30–10:30am.
A curated morning for women actively investing at early stage. Peer conversation, Chatham House Rules, no performance.
Seats are limited. Request to join here: dub.sh/iHscwbI
We back founders building the future of healthcare. 🧬
Companies working at the frontier: fixing brain disease, engineering cell-based mRNA, discovering new medicines through AI and fungi. Real breakthroughs. Near-term impact.
The people building these companies are hiring. Here's who's looking 👇
Aerska
Using RNA medicines to treat, delay, and prevent brain disorders.
talent.backed.vc/companies/a…
@CoMind_
Building non-invasive brain-computer interfaces that connect the neocortex with AI — no surgery required.
talent.backed.vc/companies/c…
@Molecule_sci
The infrastructure layer for Decentralised Science - making biotech research community-owned and open.
molecule.to/careers?ashby_ji…
@OchreBio
Developing genomic medicines to rejuvenate donor livers before transplant. Based in Oxford, 15+ years in liver genomics.
talent.backed.vc/companies/o…
See all open roles → talent.backed.vc/jobs
#HiringMonday #FutureOfHealthcare
We invest in the Future of Finance - and right now, it's hiring. 🏦
You may have seen one of our recent investments (shoutout Round Treasury 👀).
3 portfolio companies are hiring right now. All building in and around financial infrastructure:
🧠 @thoughtmachine
Cloud-native core banking tech designed to replace the legacy systems quietly breaking everyone's experience. Their platform, Vault, lets banks actually move at pace.
→ talent.backed.vc/companies/t…
💳 @BCBcrypto
Banking and payments infrastructure built for the crypto industry. Accounts, FX, transaction processing - the institutional plumbing that makes digital assets work at scale.
→ talent.backed.vc/companies/b…
🪙 @GetOnramper
Fiat-to-crypto, simplified. They aggregate payment methods, currencies, and providers so users can actually get in without the friction. → talent.backed.vc/companies/o…
Finance not your thing? The rest of the board is worth a scroll. → talent.backed.vc/jobs
Creatives, this is your sign ✨
We’ve got some seriously fun creative roles live across the BACKED portfolio right now. Whether you’re a storyteller, brand builder, or even vibe specialist, there’s something here for you 👇
🪐 Head of Marketing – Supernal at @_InfinityConst
Infinity builds and scales a portfolio of AI-native companies designed to redefine entire industries - Supernal is one of its newest ventures, built for ambitious growth from day one.
talent.backed.vc/companies/i…
💡 Founding Product Marketer at @tryhighlight
Highlight is rethinking how teams understand and act on user feedback - turning real customer insight into better products, faster.
talent.backed.vc/companies/h…
⚙️ Technical Writer at @thoughtmachine
Thought Machine is building cutting-edge AI systems that help enterprises deploy and scale intelligent solutions across complex workflows.
talent.backed.vc/companies/t…
🏝️ Senior Product Marketing Manager at @amenitiz
Amenitiz provides all-in-one software that helps hotels and rentals manage operations, grow bookings, and deliver better guest experiences.
talent.backed.vc/companies/a…
✈️ Content Marketer at Borderless
Borderless makes global hiring seamless - helping companies find, hire, and manage talent anywhere in the world without the usual friction.
talent.backed.vc/companies/b…
🕹️ Vibe & Experience Specialist at @Immutable
Immutable is building the infrastructure for web3 gaming - powering the next generation of digital ownership and player-driven economies.
talent.backed.vc/companies/i…
So stop doodling.
(Unless it’s in Figma, then carry on.)
👉 Apply here: talent.backed.vc/jobs
COMPANY FINANCE FUNCTIONS ARE OPERATIONALLY HEAVY. ROUND TREASURY RAISED $6M TO AUTOMATE THEM.
Congratulations to @POS_js and @hayyaan, founders of Round Treasury, on raising $6M in a seed round. We’re excited to be a part of the journey.
Round is building an automated finance function for high-growth companies - starting with treasury, and moving toward fully-automating payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, expenses and FX. Round manages payment approvals, funds payment runs and payroll, and reconciles books to invoices - removing 75% of the manual work that absorbs finance teams’ time.
In less than a year, Round has already processed over $500m in transactions!
Pac brings incredible execution speed and commercial leadership; Hayyaan, previously a senior engineer at Amazon, brings the experience to build autonomous systems and scale an engineering platform.
The ambition is simple: finance functions should run themselves (their operations should be automated), so the humans can focus on making decisions rather than moving the money around.
Round, we are going to help you scale and get you in front of CFOs. We have got your back 🏴
Our first LONDON BIO in the Bay Area brought together 70+ founders, scientists, operators, and investors building at the frontier of therapeutics - and the energy in the room said it all.
It wasn’t just optimism. There was a real sense that how we build in biology is shifting - with new computational approaches, evolving drug modalities, and AI starting to change how discovery actually happens.
Huge thank you to our speakers @nanli, @SGRodriques, and @LakshAithani - and to our partners @SiliconVlyBank, @CooleyLLP, and @awscloud.
Take a glimpse of the evening 👇
See you back in London soon 🇬🇧