UK-based Creator Fund Raises €48.8 Million To Back Early-Stage European Scientific Founders

The final close was anchored by KfW Capital, which joined as the fund’s largest investor. The second-largest backer is EIFO (Export and Investment Fund of Denmark). Other participants include Equation Capital, Basecamp (Phoenix Court), JIMCO, and Allocator One.

In total, 71 limited partners across 21 countries committed capital to the fund.

Founded in 2019 by Jamie Macfarlane, Creator Fund partners with scientific founders at the earliest stages, providing hands-on support to help them scale and raise subsequent funding rounds.

The firm invests across a broad range of sectors, with a strong emphasis on AI, DeepTech, and BioTech. It typically writes first cheques of up to €1 million into European startups, most often backing teams led by PhD candidates, students, professors, or recent graduates.

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Backed by prominent venture capital investors across Europe and the United States, the firm argues that Europe’s greatest startup advantage lies in its scientific talent. It takes a distinctive approach by placing scientists at the centre of company-building, rather than around it.

To source founders early, Creator Fund has built a student network spanning 30 universities across 10 countries, positioning itself as one of the first investors many PhD students encounter. It also runs a 20-part Scientific Founder programme that has guided more than 250 students through the process of starting a company.

The firm describes itself as one of the largest student-focused funds globally and a pioneer in scaling a continent-wide student sourcing model. In Europe, its primary focus remains DeepTech, and its new fund has already made 11 investments across the Netherlands, Hungary, Denmark, Germany, and the UK.

“We are glad to join Creator’s newest fund generation, which targets future-focused sectors such as artificial intelligence, BioTech, computer infrastructure, AI-enabled robotics, and advanced materials. By leveraging Creator’s European academic network to access future founders at leading universities, the team addresses a key element of the innovation ecosystem: translating academic progress into high-growth startups,” said Christian Röhle, co-Head of Investment Management at KfW Capital.

Jamie Macfarlane, founder and CEO of Creator Fund, said, “The world’s biggest problems are being solved in European university labs. The scientists working on them are extraordinary but for too long, they’ve been overlooked by venture capital, pushed towards academia rather than building companies. That’s the gap we exist to fill. This fund means we can back more of them, across Europe, than ever before – and make sure the next generation of world-changing companies is built by the people who have invented the science.”

About Creator Fund

Creator Fund is a leading European venture capital firm investing in pre-seed and seed deep tech startups emerging from universities. It supports PhD and academic founders building frontier technologies in AI, biotech, and robotics, operating across 28 campuses and helping companies scale, innovate, and raise follow-on funding globally.