When ambitious ideas meet brilliant founders, there are no limits. From our team’s entrepreneurial experience to our ever-growing international network, everything we do is to create an environment where founders can thrive.
Hedvig office, Sweden
We want to be your first call. To make an impression, all you need is an outstanding team and driven founders with a strong idea.
Good ideas know no borders — and neither do our investments. We’re a European fund with a genuine curiosity for new challenges and founders motivated to solve them.
It’s never too early for us to meet a founding team. We often invest before you have the product or revenue figured out. But we believe that the earlier we join, the farther we can take a company on its mission.
We are an early-stage fund with an interest in all industries and sectors across Europe. If your idea seeks to solve the more challenging issues or brings light to emerging ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Our initial investments range between €300k and €3m.
A startup’s success isn’t just defined during funding rounds. Once you’ve hit the ground running and it’s time to build a strong team, our specialists and network experts are by your side to help on the most crucial tech and executive hires, strategic decisions, communications questions, and more. Beyond investments, we make connections.
Where and at what stage do you invest?
We invest throughout Europe and in pre-seed and seed-stage startups.
When is the right time to approach you about investing?
As early as possible. In fact, we usually invest much earlier than other VC firms and are often a founder’s first institutional investor. We have invested in startups pre-product and pre-revenue.
How much money do you invest?
We typically invest between €300k and 3m. Unlike smaller seed funds, we are a long-term financial partner with the majority of our fund saved for follow-on financing. We do like slightly larger seed rounds and we strongly believe that is in a founder’s interest. We advise our founders to have at least 18 months of cash runway so as to avoid the constant rush of fundraising and to focus, first, on your team and business.
How many investments do you make?
We make around ten (10) seed investments per year. It is very important to us to remain focused and committed to have the bandwidth to work closely with the founders we partner with.
Do you have an industry or sector focus?
No. We invest across industries and sectors.
What are your investment criteria?
Our top three criteria are team, team, and team. We are looking for founders who are ambitious, resourceful, and resilient. Of course, we will also look at the market, the problem you are solving, and the opportunity you're after. The market is important because we want to make sure that if you succeed, you end up building a very large company. We examine the respective model or approach itself and usually develop our own thesis on the business model or industry.
What is your investment process and how long does it take?
We know how distracting a fundraising process can be at an early stage. That’s why we commit to being fast and decisive. What is truly important to us is building a relationship with the founding team. We start with an initial meeting or call. We pass on most companies after this point. But, if not, there is usually a second or third meeting or call with different members of our investment team. It is almost certain that you will have met or spoken with a large part of the investment team once we make the final investment decision. All investment partners meet the founding team along the process.
How are you different from other VCs?
We strive to be the most entrepreneur-focused venture firm in Europe. As a team, we are startup founders and specialists and our pre-VC experiences make it a sure thing we deliver on that promise during the investment phase and throughout a founder’s journey in our portfolio. In our limited partner-base, we have Europe’s top entrepreneurs who have successfully run companies across all stages or are experienced investors themselves. As a Cherry founder, you’ll have access to these experts — and more — in all industries and across all major parts of the value chain. So, whether it’s meeting with a customer service expert, seeking legal advice regarding your operations setup, or preparing your growth round in the US, we have your back.
How do you support companies?
Honestly, ask founders of our portfolio companies. We believe you, a founder, should be running the show. However, our entire team and network can help you when you need an extra lift or, more simply, a sounding board. We want to be as resourceful as possible and we make ourselves available to our founders whenever we can. Since building a team is probably the most important success factor for a startup, we have a HR experts on our team who bring a wealth of experience with direct search, tech, and executive hiring. Knowing many early-stage companies don’t have press teams in place, we also advise companies on media and branding strategies ranging from their funding announcements to larger rollouts and specific communication targets. We also team up with international companies to provide preferential treatment such as key account management or price advantages. A glimpse into our current partnerships include Amazon Web Services, Google, HubSpot, Notion, Stripe, and many more.
This website makes use of cookies to enhance browsing experience and provide additional functionality. Learn more 
