What a year.

As 2025 comes to a close, we’re ending it on a serious high: Robin Capital Fund II is officially live — and we completed our first close this month.

This is a huge milestone for Robin Capital. And it wouldn’t have happened without the belief, support, and trust of so many of you. 

Today, we wanted to share what we’ve been building this year and look at how far we’ve come.

Robin Capital Fund II

Fund II is live!

€15M to back courageous founders building real, enduring businesses. Everything stays the same as in Fund One – same approach, same values. We started to fundraise on October 1st.

In just 4 weeks, we reached our first close at 60%, backed by 30+ founders and GPs from across the world. Many of them are unicorn founders—many of the GPs are founding partners of multi-billion dollar growth equity and venture firms. 

A year of backing builders

In 2025, we had the privilege of backing exceptional founders—and doubling down on many of the companies already in our portfolio.

2025 in numbers:

• 16 total deals

• 7 new investments

• 9 follow-on rounds

• 80 guests at our Retreat in Baden-Baden

• 130 people in our WhatsApp community 

• 400 packages of merch shipped 

• 26 interviews for our blog and newsletter

We welcomed these companies to the Robin Capital family:
Freestyle Chess, Uvionix, Simsalasim, Dotbase, Paypercut, Rotomate, Goodfit

These companies raised follow-on funding this year:
Pactos, NaroIQ, Deltia, TomorrowThings, Volta Software, Penzilla, ARX Robotics (3x) 

There is also a confidential Series A round that we hope to share with you soon. 

A year of big milestones for our founders

ARX Robotics

We supported ARX Robotics with the successful completion of their €31 million Series A funding round, led by HV Capital with participation from Omnes Capital and significant support from existing investors NATO Innovation Fund and Project A. They then secured an additional €11M in a Series A extension, led by Speedinvest – bringing their total funding to €42 million. 

Volta

Volta Software raised €11M to bring AI into B2B commerce. From the very beginning, Paul Guillemin and Mario Parteli have built with heart, clarity, and purpose — bringing B2B closer to the simplicity and speed of B2C.

Kombo

Kombo acquired the Midlane (acquired by Kombo) team to fuel their next stage of growth. Kombo has grown beyond $6M ARR in the last 2.5 years and more than doubled revenue already in the last seven months.

Naro

Big congratulations to Chris Puellen and Nils Krauthausen on securing both the BaFin licence and ESMA registration for NaroIQ. This marked the end of an 18 month journey.

Synthera

In just one year, the Synthera team, led by Mariana and Lukas have validated with 100+ quants and hedge funds and raised €1.7M to move the industry forward.

Pactos

Congratulations to Philipp Eckert, Antonio Zill, and the whole Pactos team on raising €2.7M Pre-Seed to put AI in charge of external workforces.

Penzilla

Christoph Leser and Catherine Leser raised €3.2M Seed for Penzilla. From the first moment, I loved it. A smart solution for a real pain — automated B2B SaaS for “betriebliche Altersvorsorge” — finally done right. 

SpareIt

We led the first close and Crédit Mutuel Equity led the $4M second close for Spare-it this year. It’s been inspiring to watch the team grow — combining purpose with execution, and turning waste into something visible, measurable, and solvable.

Baden-Baden for Retreat II

One of the absolute highlights of the year was our second Robin Capital retreat in Baden-Baden. Hosted by our LP Alex Urseanu founder of the Gekko Group, at the beautiful Roomers hotel, the Retreat delivered everything: a mountain hut escape, a private tour of Museum Frieder Burda, dinner and wine tasting at a vineyard, vodka shots, a night at the famous casino, and long, late-night conversations at the bar.

Getting everyone together in one place was a powerful reminder of why this community matters — and why we love doing what we do.

Here are all of the photos from this year’s Retreat in case you want to relive it. And you can read all about it, here. 

Next up, Robin Escape III (our AGM) will take place in Tuscany in July 2026. We already can’t wait. 

Robin merch has entered the chat

November brought something new: Robin Capital merch.

After plenty of requests, we finally made it happen. Sending out the first drop alongside the AI billboard campaign was a real highlight — and spotting Robin hoodies and tees popping up around the world has been even better.

If you didn’t get your merch yet, there are new t-shirts available here.

(Keep the photos coming, we love to see them)

A package with a Robin Capital t-shirt ready for shipping.

Jonathan Tah rocking one of our Robin Capital t-shirts.

Conversations we loved

This year, we published more of our much-loved interviews (and changed the format to make them easier to read in one sitting). 

These honest, thoughtful and interesting conversations with founders, operators, and friends of Robin Capital continue to be a big hit. The response has also been incredible, especially on LinkedIn and we’re excited to share even more of these stories in 2026.

In case you missed any of the interviews, you can find them all here. 

Big names in the industry, big friends of Robin Capital

When Matt Garratt talks about venture capital, he focuses less on numbers and more on journeys. From guiding rafting trips to leading Salesforce Ventures at its billion-dollar peak, he sees investing as supporting founders without taking the helm. Now a GP at USVP, he still looks for adventure, curiosity, and partnership across AI and beyond. 

You don’t often meet someone who went from LA acting school to co-founding a remote-first tech due diligence firm—but Dan Bender is an exception. As co-founder of Code & Co., he translates complex tech into investor insights while scaling an AI-first advisory business. We spoke about cutting through AI hype, reinventing consulting, and leadership lessons from parenting. 

Before LinkedIn went global, there was XING—and Lars Hinrichs behind it. A founder and investor, he is currently building Europe’s largest digital art museum – UBS Digital Art Museum – in Hamburg. In this conversation, he reflects on taking XING public, backing engineers over MBAs, and connecting people through tech, capital, and art. 

Johannis Hatt believes in radical candor—kind, but never vague. As returning CEO of Productsup and founder of JVH Ventures, he’s built teams around honesty and speed. For Johannis, clarity isn’t harsh—it’s respectful. 

Hiring is changing fast, and traditional recruitment can’t keep up. Christoph Zöller, CEO and Founder of Instaffo, has been building a platform focused on transparency, speed, and candidate experience since 2014. He shares what modern hiring really requires today. 

We spoke to Prachi Gore when she was CMO of Checkr, about how Checkr is reshaping how companies think about hiring. With 1 in 3 Americans having a criminal record, Checkr’s approach to screening is driving fairer, safer hiring decisions at scale. Since our interview, she has moved to Asana as CMO.

Rainer Märkle has spent over 20 years in venture capital and knows that great companies take time. As a GP at HV Capital, he’s backed iconic European startups from seed to IPO. He shares why investing is a long game—and why endurance matters most. 

Tough pivots, big bets, and real talk on AI. We sat down with Heiko Hubertz, CEO of Himala AI (formerly Oxolo), to discuss changing direction after a Series A, launching new AI products, and what Europe needs to stay competitive. One of our most candid conversations yet. 

Philipp Westermeyer rarely gives interviews, which made this conversation special. Founder of OMR, he’s one of Europe’s most thoughtful builders. Having known him for nearly 15 years, I’ve watched with admiration as he built a media powerhouse. 

Rob Moffat didn’t plan to become a leading fintech and gaming investor—it evolved through curiosity and opportunity. Since joining Balderton in 2016, he’s backed companies like Cleo and Dream Games. He shares how he spots winners and why Europe is closing the gap with the US. 

Staffan Mörndal’s entrepreneurial instincts showed early. Now a partner at Verdane, he’s helped grow the firm to managing over $8B in assets. He talks about scaling with discipline and where he sees the biggest opportunities in AI and decarbonization. 

In 2020, Noor van Boven and Anna Brandt launched Invested to back the next generation of HR tech. Combining investing and operating, they’re funding innovation while reshaping how work gets done. Noor reflects on exceeding expectations and building with purpose. 

Maximilian Schwarz’s path to founding Nucleus Capital was anything but linear. From side-hustle pitch decks to raising a €40M fund, he’s championed scientific founders and impact-driven VC. He shares the grit, support, and conviction behind the journey. 

Lucile Cornet became the first female partner at Eight Roads Ventures Europe in 2021 after rising from associate in just five years. She shares her views on European tech, diversity in VC, and being a steady voice in the boardroom—along with rediscovering fiction. 

Julius Göllner is a serial entrepreneur and SaaS pioneer shaping Europe’s startup ecosystem. Founder of 16 companies and founder of the ARRtist Summit, ARRtist Circus and host of the ARRtist on Air podcast, he shares how passion, experience, and curiosity fuel his approach to investing. 

For Daniel Keiper-Knorr, venture capital is about people, not ticket size. The Speedinvest co-founder reflects on managing over €1B in assets and why human connection matters more than numbers at every stage. 

Chats with our portfolio companies

Get to know our portfolio companies and founders, by reading these interviews. 

Construction is the largest industry in Europe, yet one of the least digitized. After nearly a decade working in the sector, Hugo Lochmann saw firsthand how broken the operational systems were - fragmented, error-prone, and outdated. In 2024, he co-founded Grafit to build the tools he wished he’d had as a business unit manager

A neurologist leaves the ward—not from boredom, but because 40% of medicine is still admin. Jasper Mecklenburg founded dotbase to give doctors that time back, creating a new context layer where humans and AI can finally work together in hospitals.

When the pandemic killed his travel startup, Julian Philipp Nagel didn’t cling to it. He followed the real friction instead: hours lost to sales admin. That insight became Along AI.

Warehouses power the global economy, yet many still rely on manual counts and guesswork. After seeing the visibility gap firsthand, Boris Iskrev built Uvionix—autonomous drones delivering real-time, trustworthy inventory data.

Corporate pensions seem dull—until you see how broken they are. We spoke with Penzilla co-founder Catherine Leser about building during a pandemic, digitizing a paper-heavy industry, and scaling a product that could secure millions’ financial futures.

Mariana Barona is one of the sharpest thinkers I’ve met this year. Her company, Synthera.ai uses generative AI to simulate forward-looking market scenarios in fixed income and FX.

Magnus Carlsen and Jan Henric Büttner are reinventing chess with Freestyle Chess, a global Chess960 tour that resets the board and turns players into stars. 

When Harrison Rose co-founded Paddle at 18, he helped turn it into one of the UK’s fastest-growing software companies by rethinking how to reach customers. A decade later, he’s betting on that same philosophy of precision with his new venture, GoodFit.

Paypercut co-founders Stoil Vasilev and Gareth Walsh helped scale SumUp into a $10B payments giant. Now they’re back, aiming to unlock BNPL for small and mid-sized merchants across Central and Eastern Europe.

Sebastian Hjärne and the Talentium team are rethinking hiring from the ground up—fixing the core problem instead of layering AI onto broken systems.

If you’d like to be interviewed, drop us a line — we’re in.

Thank you

So that was 2025: big steps forward, new faces, and plenty of moments that reminded us how lucky we are to do this work.

Thank you for the support, the conversations, the intros, the trust — and the friendship. We’re grateful for every part of this journey.

Shout-outs

Huge thanks to:
Lucas and Lisa at Gaspard Partners. Piet and team for launching the new Robin Capital website. Marc for managing the merch logistics. Wouter for capturing the retreat with his incredible photos and videos. Our notary, Konstantin and his team at 3n.berlin. Tytus Cytowski, and his incredible team — Fabiana Morales Centurion, Heidi Fan, and Eresi Tracy Uche at Cytowski and Partners in the US.

We can’t wait for 2026 — and everything it brings for our LPs, our founders, and the whole Robin Capital community.

Here’s to more building, more learning, and more good things ahead.