European Seed VCs in 2026: Who to Email and How to Get a Fast Answer

Picture a hypothetical founder in Lisbon. Call her Marta. She sends her deck to a well-known London fund through a warm intro, and then she waits. Six weeks. She does not email anyone else in that time, because she is "waiting to hear back". The answer, when it comes, is a polite no.

Marta is made up. The six weeks are a pattern we hear about constantly, and they are the most expensive part of a European seed raise. Not the no. The waiting.

This guide does two things. It lists European seed investors worth knowing, grouped by how they invest. And it shows how to check that a European fund is actually writing checks, because the main signal we use for US funds does not work well here.

The signal that does not cross the Atlantic

For US funds, we use SEC Form D filings to see who raised new money. 1,377 investor records in our database were matched to a new-fund Form D filed in the last 12 months. It is one of the best free signals of who has money to invest right now.

It mostly does not work for Europe. Form D is a US filing. Some European funds with US investors do file one, but most do not, so a European fund missing from those filings tells you nothing. You need a different set of checks.

Three or four checks, put the fund in your first batch. Two, it is a maybe.

• A recent fund close. European funds usually announce a new fund on their site, on LinkedIn or in the trade press. Note the date.
• A new deal at your stage in the last six months. Portfolio pages and funding announcements show this.
• The right partner is still there. The person who led your closest comparable deal should still be on the team page. Partners move.
• A public register entry. In the UK, fund vehicles often show up on Companies House. Most countries have an equivalent register.

European seed investors worth knowing

This is not a ranking. We do not have measured reply times for individual funds, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It is a starting map of well-known investors, described by how they present themselves at the time of writing. Funds change focus, so run the four checks above before you email any of them.

Pre-seed and seed specialists

• Seedcamp (London). Pre-seed and seed, across Europe.
• LocalGlobe (London). Seed, often very early.
• Backed VC (London). Pre-seed and seed.
• Point Nine (Berlin). Pre-seed and seed, with a long focus on B2B software and marketplaces.
• Fly Ventures (Berlin). Pre-seed and seed for technical founders, from deep tech to developer tools.
• Cherry Ventures (Berlin). Seed across Europe.
• Kima Ventures (Paris). Writes many small early checks.
• Speedinvest (Vienna). Pre-seed to Series A, with sector teams.

Multi-stage funds that also do seed

These funds invest at seed but also much later, so seed competes with their other priorities. Being clearly on-thesis matters more here.

• Balderton Capital (London). Early stage, Series A focus, some seed.
• Index Ventures (London and elsewhere). Seed to growth.
• Creandum (Stockholm). Seed to growth.
• Northzone (London, Stockholm and elsewhere). Seed to growth.
• EQT Ventures (Stockholm). Seed to growth.
• Earlybird (Berlin). Seed to growth, several funds by theme.
• Headline (Berlin, Paris and elsewhere). Seed to growth.
• HV Capital (Munich). Seed to growth.
• Partech (Paris). Seed to growth, with a dedicated seed fund.

Thesis-specific

• Notion Capital (London). B2B software and cloud.

There are many more good funds than fit in one guide, including strong regional seed funds in every major European country. VC Boom tracks investors across 58 countries, and the stage, sector and check filters do the narrowing.

How to get a faster answer

You cannot make a fund faster. You can make it easier for them to answer quickly.

1. Make fit obvious in the subject line. "Seed, B2B logistics software, €40K MRR, Berlin" can be routed in seconds. "Exciting opportunity" cannot.

2. Email the partner, not the general inbox. The partner who led your closest comparable deal. Our guide on reaching the right partner covers how to find and verify the address. In our outreach data, verified addresses got 2.7% replies and catch-all addresses 1.7%.

3. Send in parallel. Never pause your process for one fund. Across 1,962 investor emails sent through VC Boom, 2.5% got a reply. Silence is normal. If you wait on each fund in turn, a slow no costs you weeks.

4. Keep batches small and well chosen. Founders who sent 25 emails or fewer in total got replies to 9.3% of them, against 1.2% for founders who sent more than 100. That is an association, not proof, but it argues for 25 good fits over 200 names. Our guide on building your first investor list walks through it.

5. Ask for a fast no. In your follow-up, it is fine to say: "If this is not a fit, a quick no is genuinely helpful." Some investors will take you up on it.

A first email to a European fund

Here is what Marta could have sent instead of waiting. The company and numbers are made up; the shape is what matters.

Subject: Seed, freight billing software, €38K MRR, Lisbon

Hi [partner first name],

I am Marta, founder of Portbill. We replace the spreadsheets small freight forwarders use to bill shipping lines.

€38K MRR from 22 forwarders in Portugal and Spain, growing about 12% a month since January, no churn yet.

We are raising a €1.5M seed to open France and Italy. You backed [comparable company] at seed, so I thought this might fit. If it is not a fit, a quick no is genuinely helpful. Worth 20 minutes?

Marta

Fit in the subject line. Proof an investor can check. The round in one sentence. A reason why this partner. And permission to say no quickly, which is the whole point.

Send the same week to 24 others. If the London fund answers in six weeks, it lands in a process that kept moving.

Do not forget family offices

Family offices are worth a place on a European seed list. They behave differently from funds, and they are harder to find, because many keep a very low public profile.

We publish free lists of family offices by region: Europe, the UK, DACH, the Nordics and the Riviera, with more at /lists. Our family office guide covers how to approach them.

What to do this week

1. Pick 25 European investors that fit your stage, sector and check size.
2. Run the four activity checks on each. Drop anything that passes fewer than two.
3. Find the right partner at each fund and verify the address.
4. Write a subject line that states fit in under ten words.
5. Send all 25 in the same week. Follow up after five business days.
6. Add five family offices from the regional list closest to you.

Find the European investors who fit

VC Boom ranks investors who fit your stage, sector and check size from the 47,874 we track across 58 countries, and drafts the first email for each. We check filings and firm portfolio pages, and show the date we checked.

Get your free shortlist of the 25 who fit.