Mundi Ventures Raises €750M for Deep Tech and Climate Fund

Spain-based venture capital firm Mundi Ventures has completed a €750 million first close for Kembara Fund I, marking the largest fund in the firm’s history and one of the most significant deep tech and climate-focused vehicles to emerge from Europe in recent years. The announcement signals growing institutional confidence in the continent’s ability to nurture and scale its most promising technology companies from early-stage promise to global competitiveness.

Founded in 2015 by economist and investor Javier Santiso, Mundi Ventures has steadily built a reputation as one of Spain’s leading venture capital firms. Santiso brought a wealth of experience to the firm, having previously served as Head of European Investments at Khazanah, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, and as Managing Director at Telefónica, where he helped establish the company’s venture capital initiatives. Over the past nine years, the firm has invested in 81 companies across sectors including enterprise applications, fintech, insurtech, and deep technology. The portfolio has produced notable successes, including investments in companies such as Jobandtalent and Wefox, with four companies reaching unicorn status. The firm operates from offices in Madrid, London, Barcelona, and Paris, giving it a pan-European reach that has become essential for sourcing and supporting the continent’s best founders.

Kembara Fund I represents Mundi Ventures’ fifth fund and a significant evolution in its investment strategy. While the firm’s earlier funds focused primarily on Series A investments, Kembara targets growth-stage companies at Series B and C rounds. The fund plans to write initial checks ranging from €15 million to €40 million into approximately 20 companies, with the capacity to provide follow-on investments of up to €100 million per company as they scale. The fund’s name carries significance beyond mere branding. Kembara is a Malaysian word meaning “to wander,” though the team also embraces an older interpretation: “the humble path to excellence.” The investment thesis centers on companies with strong intellectual property that combine scientific and engineering breakthroughs with complex hardware and capital-intensive business models. Target sectors include artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, space technology, advanced materials, and next-generation energy systems. Notably, the fund’s mandate also encompasses dual-use and defense technology to protect European sovereignty.

The foundation for Kembara’s successful raise was laid in July 2024 when the European Investment Fund committed €350 million to the fund under the European Tech Champions Initiative. This commitment marked the first ETCI investment in a Spain-based fund and represented a pivotal moment in Europe’s deep tech funding landscape. The EIF’s role as anchor investor proved catalytic, helping Mundi Ventures attract additional institutional backers and reach the €750 million first close. ETCI was established to address a critical gap in the European startup ecosystem: the shortage of growth capital that forces promising companies to seek funding abroad or relocate entirely. Since launching in 2023, the initiative has mobilized €10 billion in public and private resources for investment in high-growth technology companies. Spanish regulatory filings indicate that the fund could ultimately reach a final close of €1.25 billion, though reaching the current milestone required considerable effort. According to Kembara co-founder and general partner Yann de Vries, achieving €750 million in two years as a new fund in the current environment “was not easy.”

The Kembara fund benefits from a leadership team whose combined experiences encapsulate both the promise and perils of European deep tech investing. Alongside Santiso, the general partner roster includes de Vries, climate technology investor Robert Trezona, and deep tech specialist Pierre Festal. Former Atomico partner Siraj Khaliq serves as senior strategic advisor. De Vries brings a particularly instructive background to the role. After founding Redpoint eVentures Brazil and later becoming a partner at Atomico, he joined German electric aircraft startup Lilium as the company attempted to bring its innovative air taxi to market. Lilium ultimately ceased operations in late 2024 after raising more than $1 billion and going public through a SPAC transaction. In de Vries’s assessment, the company collapsed because it could not secure the growth capital it needed. This experience directly shaped Kembara’s approach to portfolio support. The fund plans to productize non-dilutive financing options for its deep tech founders, helping them optimize capital structures while minimizing equity dilution. Limited partners in the fund will also have opportunities to co-invest directly in the most promising portfolio companies.

The timing of Kembara’s launch reflects a growing recognition that Europe faces not an innovation deficit but a scaling problem. The continent’s universities and research institutions continue to produce groundbreaking science, and early-stage funding remains relatively abundant. The challenge emerges at Series B and beyond, where capital-intensive deep tech companies require substantial resources to build manufacturing capacity, establish supply chains, and expand globally. De Vries articulated this diagnosis plainly: “Europe doesn’t have an innovation problem. It doesn’t have a startup problem. The problem it has is a scale-up problem.” The consequence of this gap has been that too many European companies either fail at the growth stage or sell to foreign acquirers before realizing their full potential. De Vries pointed to DeepMind as an illustrative example of a company that was missing growth capital and sold too early when Google acquired the British AI company for more than $500 million in 2014. DeepMind is now estimated to be worth billions.

Mundi Ventures and its Kembara fund represent part of a broader mobilization of European growth capital. Deep tech firm Elaia and asset manager Lazard have formed Lazard Elaia Capital with initial investment capacity of €20 million to €60 million per company, while operator-led fund Plural is reportedly raising a new vehicle of up to €1 billion. As Kembara moves toward its second close, the fund’s leadership plans to broaden its investor base beyond European institutions, seeking commitments from global investors who can provide not only capital but also market access and supply chain connections. For Mundi Ventures, the successful Kembara raise represents validation of a decade of patient institution-building. From its founding in Madrid in 2015 to the current €750 million milestone, the firm has demonstrated that world-class venture capital can emerge from beyond the traditional hubs of London, Berlin, and Paris. As European deep tech companies confront the challenge of scaling to global relevance, they will increasingly have access to the growth capital and operational expertise that funds like Kembara aim to provide.