The fund, which will invest into early-stage ventures led by diverse founding teams, was backed by a range of public and private institutional investors and family offices.
Unconventional Ventures (UV), the Danish impact investor, has announced the first close of its second fund with €50m in commitments from a range of investors.
The fund, which has reached almost 65% of its €80m fundraising target, follows in the footsteps of fund I in backing European impact-driven startups led by diverse founders, including women, people of colour, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented entrepreneurs.
Investors include the European Investment Fund (EIF), the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO), foundation-owned investment company Chr. Augustinus Fabrikker, Copenhagen-based foundation Nordea-fonden, investment management firm TryghedsGruppen, and a number of mission-aligned family offices.
Fund I closed at just under €22m and is now fully invested into 19 companies with reserved capacity to make follow-on investments, according to the firm.
Nora Bavey, general partner at UV, told Impact Investor that fundraising for fund II has been a markedly different journey to fund I.
“The fundraising environment has shifted significantly. LPs are more cautious, diligence processes are deeper, and allocation cycles have stretched. But, in some ways, this moment has also worked in our favour,” she said, explaining that fundraising for fund I involved a lot of explaining about who and what the fund wanted to invest in and why.
“With fund II, we’re able to show exactly that: a portfolio of companies that are scaling, raising follow-on rounds, and delivering both impact and commercial performance. Our first close reflects not only conviction in our thesis, but trust in our ability to execute in markets where others often overlook exceptional founders and opportunities. And that’s what keeps us going,” she added.
Investment focus
UV says it was founded to challenge the structural biases in venture capital that leave the majority of global founders overlooked and underfunded. This is backed by data, which shows that only 1–2% of venture capital in Europe goes to all-women founding teams, and less than 0.5% to founders of colour.
Fund II will focus on pre-seed and seed-stage investments in key areas such as climate and sustainability, health and education. To be eligible for investment, portfolio companies must have at least one underrepresented founder in the core team, and demonstrate both scalable business potential and a commitment to measurable social or environmental impact.
“The core thesis remains the same. Backing underrepresented founders building transformative solutions within climate, health and education. What changes with fund II is our ability to deepen that focus,” said Bavey, highlighting several things the UV team will do differently with fund II, including investing with bigger initial tickets and stronger reserves for follow-on.
“We want to support our founders more meaningfully through their early scaling,” said Bavey, adding that fund II would have an even sharper sector lens within its core verticals. For example, in the climate space, Bavey said the firm is seeing momentum in energy transition, circular systems, and adaptation tech.
She said UV would also offer more structured platform support around talent, commercial growth and international capital access.
Lessons learnt
Bavey said the team had also learnt several lessons over the years, including that speed matters.
“Founders are often ‘over-diligenced’ and underfunded. We know where we can move faster without compromising quality,” she said, adding that UV would also connect founders with later-stage investors early as experience has taught them this results in strong follow-on outcomes.
“We have [also] become better at quantifying the value creation and risk reduction that comes from backing diverse teams,” she noted.
Alongside the first close, UV also announced the appointment of Alexis Horowitz-Burdick as its third general partner. Horowitz-Burdick was previously the managing director of LEGO Ventures, the LEGO Brand Group’s corporate venture capital arm.
