Spain's Mundi Ventures Closes €750M Deeptech Fund

The new Kembara Fund I is managed by a specialist team within Mundi Ventures, led by founder Javier Santiso, a former executive at the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, and co-founder Yann de Vries, a former Atomico partner. The general partner lineup also includes climate and deeptech veterans Robert Trezona and Pierre Festal, with former Atomico partner Siraj Khaliq serving as a senior strategic advisor. The fund's anchor investor is the European Investment Fund (EIF), which committed €350 million. Kembara is explicitly designed to address Europe's critical "scale-up problem" in deeptech. While Europe produces 28% of global deeptech innovations, only 3% of these companies successfully raise Series B or C rounds. This Series B funding gap for European climate tech alone is estimated at $13.5 billion compared to the US. The fund will write initial checks of €15-€40 million, with the capacity for follow-on investments up to €100 million per company, targeting a portfolio of around 20 companies. This focus on later-stage funding is crucial as geopolitical instability reshapes the world order, increasing the strategic importance of European sovereignty in quantum computing, advanced semiconductors, and defense tech. The urgency is informed by past failures; co-founder Yann de Vries cites his "traumatizing experience" at German electric aviation startup Lilium, which ceased operations in 2024 after raising over $1 billion, as a primary motivation. He argues Lilium failed not from a lack of innovation, but from a shortage of European growth capital. In Turkey, the venture landscape shows resilience despite macroeconomic headwinds, with the number of deals increasing to 331 in 2024 from 297 in 2023. In the first nine months of 2025, Turkish startups secured $475 million, with fintech and gaming attracting the most capital. AI-focused startups are a growing segment, accounting for nearly 18% of all transactions over the past five years. However, a persistent structural weakness is the bottleneck in startups graduating from seed to Series A and B stages. For international Limited Partners, evaluating a regional fund in Turkey involves scrutinizing the local manager's ability to attract domestic capital. Foreign LPs often ask if local institutional investors, like pension funds, are committed, which has historically been a challenge in the Turkish market. This dynamic puts pressure on the government and local GPs to create incentive structures that encourage domestic institutional investment in venture capital. For Turkish technical founders, the path from lab to market is fraught with challenges beyond technology development. Deeptech innovations often require a decade or more of percolation in academic labs before their commercial value is recognized. This "time-money uncertainty challenge" is compounded by the fact that many scientist-founders lack the specific entrepreneurial capabilities needed to navigate pre-commercialization complexities. Successful deeptech founders emphasize the importance of leveraging non-dilutive funding, like grants, to de-risk technology and attract the right talent early on. Navigating the fundraising process requires technical founders to understand the psychology of venture capital negotiations. Investors are often driven by a fear of missing out (FOMO) and a fear of looking stupid (FOLS), making a compelling narrative just as crucial as the underlying data. Founders who can build trust and communicate a clear, ambitious vision are better positioned, as investors often admit that the human psychology behind a deal matters more than the spreadsheets. Early-stage hiring for deeptech startups demands a unique strategy. Founders must run the recruiting process themselves, as they will have a higher engagement rate with potential candidates. It's critical to screen for adaptive soft skills like resilience and collaboration, as these are often more important than technical skills alone in a rapidly changing startup environment. To compete with larger companies, startups should craft benefits that money can't always buy, such as significant equity, greater responsibility, and a direct impact on the company's mission.