ZOHO.VC raises €7M to tackle Northern Bavaria’s deep tech funding gap
ZOHO.VC, a venture capital fund founded at Nuremberg’s ZOLLHOF Tech Incubator, has secured €7 million toward a planned €10 million-plus vehicle aimed at backing early-stage deep tech startups in Northern Bavaria. The fund is positioning itself as a dedicated bridge between university research and commercial scale-up—an area where founders and university teams in Germany frequently cite a shortage of patient, local capital.
Germany is widely regarded as a research powerhouse, but converting lab breakthroughs into scalable businesses remains a persistent challenge. Early-stage teams often struggle to move from prototype to industrial production, and some relocate abroad—particularly to the US—when they cannot find investors willing to fund complex, capital-intensive technologies locally. ZOHO.VC says it intends to address that gap by investing directly in technologies emerging from university labs and the ZOLLHOF startup pipeline.
Fund strategy: pre-seed and seed, from lab to Series A
The fund plans to deploy roughly €10 million in total and is targeting pre-seed and seed-stage opportunities across software, hardware, and adjacent technologies. According to the firm, the investment thesis centers on long-term partnerships with founders focused on innovation and sustainable growth, rather than quick exits.
ZOHO.VC is being led by general partners Dennis Kirpensteijn and Benjamin Bauer, with Nicolas Sievers serving as Principal. The team has deep operational ties to ZOLLHOF, having helped build its incubation program—an experience the fund argues provides an advantage in evaluating technical feasibility and early market fit.
A key element of the operating model is hands-on support. Each investment is intended to benefit from the operational expertise of Dr Judit Klein, ZOLLHOF’s Head of Startups, who is expected to contribute to diligence and portfolio support as companies mature.
Two sourcing channels
ZOHO.VC says it will source deals through two primary routes:
- ZOLLHOF spin-outs emerging from the incubator’s pipeline
- Co-investments alongside industry leaders, particularly where corporate expertise can accelerate commercialization
The fund describes its diligence approach as rigorous, focusing on both the underlying technology and the realism of the go-to-market plan—an important consideration for deep tech startups that often face long sales cycles and higher capital needs.
Regional focus sets it apart from national peers
While Germany has established venture and innovation finance institutions such as High-Tech Gründerfonds and NRW.BANK operating at a national level, ZOHO.VC is concentrating exclusively on Northern Bavaria, a region with significant industrial depth but fewer locally anchored early-stage deep tech investors.
The fund also emphasizes its access to ZOLLHOF’s proprietary pipeline, describing itself as the region’s first VC vehicle with full integration into that deal flow. The stated ambition is to support startups from the lab stage through Series A, with the goal of keeping intellectual property, jobs, and future scale-ups rooted in Germany.
Early portfolio includes Merge Labs and sector diversity
ZOHO.VC has already made five investments. Among them is Merge Labs, which recently completed a funding round co-led by ZOHO.VC and the OpenAI Startup Fund. The fund’s backers highlight the deal as evidence that a regionally focused vehicle can still attract and syndicate with globally recognized investors.
Beyond Merge Labs, the portfolio spans areas including renewable energy, medtech, and advanced materials—sectors typically associated with longer development timelines but potentially durable competitive advantages when successful.
Diversity commitments: “as diverse as possible”
Asked about diversity, Dennis Kirpensteijn said the fund intends to support diverse founders alongside its regional mandate. “We have a clear idea of funding diverse founders as well as regional ones,” he said, adding that the associated incubation program currently sees around 40–50% diverse teams. He noted that Dr Judit Klein is expected to help safeguard this mission within the fund’s investment decision-making process.
What comes next: final close targeted above €10M
The €7 million raised so far comes roughly ten months ahead of the fund’s final close, according to the firm. The capital has been secured from entrepreneurial families and founders, a common LP base for smaller, regionally anchored European funds.
Looking ahead, ZOHO.VC aims to reach a final close of more than €10 million by 2026. Over the longer term, the fund’s stated goal is to become the first institutional check for leading deep tech teams in Northern Bavaria—providing the early financing and operational support needed to keep high-value innovation local and help research-driven startups scale into globally competitive companies.
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