Spotlight
Pitchdrive closes oversubscribed €60M Fund IV to back Europe's AI-native founders
Written by
Boris Bogaert
Published on
June 9, 2026
Written by
Published on
Today, we announce the closing of our fourth fund at €60 million, strengthening our commitment to the Co-founder Capital model. Fund IV is fully privately backed, with no government or institutional money, unusual for a European fund of this size.
Within weeks, investors offered far more than the €50M target. We held the fund at €60M and declined extra commitments from existing backers. This was a deliberate choice to keep our portfolio small and our support hands-on.
"We could've raised more. Plenty of LPs were ready. But a bigger fund would've pulled us in the wrong direction. The whole point of Co-founder Capital is staying close to the founders we back and rolling up our sleeves with them. You can't do that across fifty companies. So we keep the number small and go all in on each one"
- Wim Derkinderen, Managing Partner, Pitchdrive
Pitchdrive's €60M fund size reflects the changing dynamics at pre-seed. Round sizes are growing and AI-native companies scale on compute rather than headcount, so they grow faster while needing capital differently at the earliest stage.
Since its inception in 2020, Pitchdrive has quietly become one of the most active pre-seed investors on the continent. It has invested in 70 startups across Europe, with Funds I, II and III placing the firm in the top 10% of venture funds globally.
The firm has backed companies including Henchman (acquired by LexisNexis), Introw, Heltia, Happl, Axe, Ravical, Conveo, Foodamigos and Gro. Its active scout network feeds the firm more than 500 pitch decks per month - of which only a small fraction are backed by design.
The Co-founder Capital model is now winning beyond Europe. Last week, Pitchdrive announced the investment in New York–based compliance AI startup Zerodrift in a $10M pre-seed round. The company was founded by serial entrepreneur Kumesh Aroomoogan, and the round was highly competitive, with participation from some of the largest US venture funds.
"Kumesh is a repeat founder with a strong track record, so he had access to the biggest names in US venture. Needless to say, this round was highly competitive. That he deliberately wanted a European fund around the table says a lot about where Zerodrift is heading. In AI compliance, a deeply networked European VC on board is a real strategic advantage."
- Boris Bogaert, Managing Partner, Pitchdrive
Fund IV will invest in 25–30 early-stage startups in Europe and beyond. The thesis runs through a single filter: does this company have a reason to exist in the AI era, and does it operate like an AI-native company? The product itself doesn't have to be AI, but the business has to be a product of this moment, either because AI enables a category that couldn't exist before or because it fundamentally changes the economics of an existing one. Operating AI-native means small teams scaling faster, infrastructure replacing headcount as the main growth driver, and founders who default to building with AI rather than bolting it on later.
In practice, that spans three areas: AI-native products (vertical AI, developer infrastructure, agent platforms), AI-enabled categories (consumer, commerce, content and marketplaces where AI unlocks new unit economics), and software-defined physical companies (hardware, robotics and mobility where AI sits in the design or the operations). Pitchdrive will pass on pure model labs, "AI for X" wrappers without a defensible data or operator angle, and businesses whose AI story is bolted on for fundraising rather than core.
That is exactly what the Co-founder Capital model is built for: a new generation of founders building companies differently from day one needs a different kind of investor at day one.
Pitchdrive was founded by a group of experienced entrepreneurs: Boris Bogaert, Wim Derkinderen and Koen Christiaens (ex-Rydoo), and is chaired by serial entrepreneur Jonas Dhaenens, founder of European unicorn team.blue. The founding partners are joined by operators Bart Swanson (ex-Zoom & Horizon Ventures), Luc Verelst (DROIA Invest), Lorenz Bogaert and Toon Coppens (Netlog/Twoo, StarApps). That philosophy became a category. Co-founder Capital describes how Pitchdrive works in practice: hands-on, embedded, available 24/7 and drawing on operating experience from Europe's leading tech companies like team.blue, Rydoo and Netlog.
At its core sits a mentor network of more than 20 European entrepreneurs and operators who actively back portfolio companies, including founders and senior leaders from European unicorns team.blue, Deliverect and Lighthouse, alongside Loop Earplugs, one of Europe's fastest-growing consumer tech brands.
The wider bench spans a deliberately broad cross-section of European tech: Jan Hollez (Deliverect), Matthias Geeroms (Lighthouse), Hendrik Isebaert (Showpad), Jeroen De Wit (Teamleader), Joris Van Der Gucht (Silverfin/Ravical), Jorn Vanysacker and Gilles Mattelin (Henchman), Dimitri O (Loop Earplugs), Koen Desmedt (Mobile Vikings), Stéphane Ronse (Foodbag), Nathan Coox (Smooved), Nicolas Van Eenaeme (StarApps), and Jonas De Cooman (Spott).
The result is practical guidance, strategic input and access across the continent's founder ecosystem.
"When we built team.blue, the kind of investor I wished I'd had on day one didn't exist in Europe. That's what Pitchdrive is: a firm run by people who've already been in the founder's seat. Fund IV doubles down on the model: stay small, stay close, stay disciplined."
- Jonas Dhaenens, Chairman, Pitchdrive
We're always looking for new partners and investment possibilities:
🌱 Pre-seed and seed stage (ticket size €250k-2M)
🏎 Highly product and scale driven
🇪🇺 European focussed
🕸 Industry agnostic
