The VC firm, established by founders of MySQL and MariaDB, has secured a €100M first close with increased support from Isomer Capital and KRR Fund of Funds
OpenOcean, a pan European venture capital firm specialising in early-stage investments in business software that drive AI innovation, has today announced its fourth main venture fund. It has already completed a €100 million first close in 2024, and made its first investments in two start-ups: Embeddable and Dreamfold. This new fund features increased investment from Isomer Capital and KRR Fund of Funds, as well as continued support from other backers including ELO pension company, European Investment Fund and many more. The fund is targeting a €130 million final close in H1 of 2025.
OpenOcean aims to use this funding to help scale technical, data-driven startups from Europe to global category leadership. This begins with backing visionary founders with an initial product-market fit in the earliest phases of their growth – irrespective of location across Europe. Using its hands-on, value-add approach, the fund provides ongoing strategic support to its portfolio companies, granting them access to its international network of corporations, investors, and leaders in the global technology ecosystem.
The fund’s first investment, customer-facing analytics startup Embeddable, represents OpenOcean’s strategic focus on startups that address developers in the enterprise using better data solutions in today’s market. Other investments, including recently completed protein search and design AI-platform startup Dreamfold.ai, will continue to champion transformative AI, data, and software-based solutions from the most promising startups.
“Partnering with OpenOcean is a real game changer for Embeddable,” said Tom Gardiner, CEO at Embeddable. “Their deep expertise in data products perfectly complements our mission to empower companies with customisable, customer-facing analytics. OpenOcean isn’t just about capital—they bring strategic insight that will help us accelerate growth and innovate faster. I’m excited for what the future holds with them by our side.”
An AI revolution is underway, with agentic AI co-creating the future of work, customer expectations soaring, and businesses cutting operational inefficiencies to create new value faster than ever. At the heart of this change is data: the ultimate moat in AI, driving product value and business defensibility. OpenOcean’s history and data-driven approach, grounded in deep technical expertise and operational insight, is driving success across the portfolio, as well as continued strategic investments such as the e-ID platform pioneer Authologic.
OpenOcean has celebrated several notable exits in recent years including portfolio companies Truecaller (IPO), LoopMe (acquirer Mayfield Equity), Passfort (acquirer Moodys), Appgyver (acquirer SAP), RapidMiner (acquirer Altair), and Strong Networks (acquirer Citrix).
“Our strategy is centred on supporting exceptional teams with deep domain expertise,” said Patrik Backman, General Partner at OpenOcean. “We focus on companies showing early traction and clear demand, creating easy-to-love solutions that genuinely address and anticipate industry challenges. According to Diversity VC, we are one of only 8% of VCs with UK operations who have first-hand experience founding or running startups. Technical expertise is the foundation of our philosophy, helping startups take on traditional, legacy industries with innovative, defensible products.”
“We are at a pivotal moment in the venture capital landscape,” said Tom Henriksson, General Partner at OpenOcean. “While the focus narrows to mega-funds, we see an immense opportunity to support Europe’s most innovative startups. Tomorrow’s category leaders will be founded by exceptional teams with unique perspectives, deep domain expertise, and inspiring leadership.”
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Additional information:
Tom Henriksson
General Partner, OpenOcean
tom@openocean.vc
About OpenOcean
OpenOcean is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in frontier technologies across Europe, with offices in London and Helsinki. Our mission is to invest in the disruptive, data-driven B2B software that is driving today’s AI revolution. We pride ourselves on building long-term relationships with founders, tracking start-up progress at the earliest stage, and making strategic and impactful investments of up to €6 million – typically at Seed or Series A.
OpenOcean’s DNA is rooted in having a deep understanding of the underlying technology and software stacks, which drive the growth of innovative new digital platforms and services. With an entrepreneurial background from building several category-defining software businesses such as MySQL and MariaDB, we work together with founders to build and scale global category-leading companies.
OpenOcean’s portfolio includes a range of leading European startups such as Binalyze, Booksy, IQM, MindsDB, Supermetrics, and Truecaller.
