Matterwave Ventures, one of Europe’s leading VC investors in Industrial Deep Tech, has launched the new Matterwave Industrial Technologies II fund with a successful first closing. With this second-generation fund, the Matterwave team invests in early-stage companies across Europe with strong innovations and applications in all industrial sectors.

The fund’s investor structure includes major institutional investors such as the European Investment Fund (from the ERP-EIF Facility), LfA Bayern, NRW Bank, as well as industrial companies, foundations, and family offices. Well-known technology-oriented partners from the industry such as ZF Ventures, ZEISS Ventures and the Montan-Stiftung-Saar foundation also came on board. The team was able to build on its strong network and obtain additional capital commitments from experienced industrial managers and entrepreneurs. A large part of the capital commitments of more than €75 million comes from existing investors, with whom Matterwave has been working successfully for many years. The goal is to reach the targeted total fund volume of €130 million through further fundraising as soon as possible.

Christian Reitberger, one of Matterwave Ventures’ partners, comments: “Europe’s industrial base is facing existential challenges: energy dependency, raw material dependency, global supply chains out of sync, export restrictions for core technologies, subsidy races – and the incessant climate change. At the same time, however, Europe has most of the building blocks for solving these problems in its own hands: world-class research facilities, a large domestic market, regulatory tailwinds, and a growing number of entrepreneurs committed to solving these technological challenges. This presents interesting investment opportunities for Matterwave in technologies made in Europe.”

The Matterwave Ventures team has been an established financing partner for European industrial deep tech startups for many years. The focus is on automation, digitalization and improving the resource efficiency of the entire industrial value chain: from the automation of research, development, and design to logistics chain transparency, production optimization, and after-sales support of products in customer use – for all these topics there are fantastic examples of European innovations from automotive to semiconductors, from energy to mechanical engineering, from quantum technologies to space applications, from photonics to recycling, from additive manufacturing to robotics.

Robert Gallenberger, Partner at Matterwave Ventures says: “We are pleased about the strong trust of our long-term oriented investors and look forward to starting the investment phase. For the next step, we particularly address family offices, European corporates, and financial investors who are concerned about the future viability of the European industrial base.”

First investments in the first half of 2023 – strong focus on sustainability

The available capital is to be invested in 20 to 25 companies across Europe over the next few years. Matterwave Ventures will focus on the early stages of company development with initial investments of between €1-4 million – with up to €10 million in further investment rounds – per portfolio company and support these companies with strategic advice during their expansion and further development.

In doing so, Matterwave Ventures will once again invest more in the topics of sustainability, resource efficiency, and climate tech, thereby expanding the existing sustainability portfolio. For this purpose, the sustainability approach was further developed in 2022 and the corresponding management expertise was strengthened. Partner Ines Kolmsee says: “The Matterwave team has a long and successful experience with investments in climate technologies going back to 2004. Our goal is to live up to our own social responsibility and, above all, to incorporate the sustainability of industrial processes and products as an important criterion in our investment decisions. Thus, the strategic engagement of portfolio companies with their long-term impact on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has a very high priority.”

The Matterwave Industrial Technologies II Fund complies with the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) under Article 8, which requires companies in the financial services sector to transparently disclose how sustainable their products are.

Extensive track record in investing in industry-defining technologies.

Matterwave Ventures was formed in early 2022 as a rebranding from the btov Industrial Technologies team founded in 2016. The team has more than 50 years of cumulative venture capital expertise and has successfully invested in over 60 technology companies in the industrial sector. Benedikt Kronberger, the fourth Partner in the team, comments: “We focus on highly interdisciplinary topics and are very proud of the diverse team we have assembled over the years. With academic backgrounds in mechanical engineering, process and power engineering, electrical engineering, mechatronics, physics, and economics, we cover a broad spectrum. Our colleagues hail from five nations and have experience as entrepreneurs, senior executives, consultants, bankers, researchers, and developers. This deep technology foundation and global ambition help in analyzing and supporting companies.”

For more information on the Matterwave Industrial Technologies II Fund, please contact the company via the contact info here