Plural, a UK based early-stage investment fund that backs the most ambitious founders on a mission to change the world through technology, has announced a new £342.5m fund, 18 months after the lunch of its first £216 M fund in 2022.
Through the announcement Plural revealed that in 18 months, it invested in 26 transformative companies across 6 countries, including Denmark, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and US.
Plural highlighted that exceptional teams are making important progress across a range of sectors, including AI (e.g. Robin AI or Unitary) frontier tech (e.g. Proxima Fusion or VSPARTICLE ), climate & energy (e.g. Field or Isometric)) and health & tech bio (e.g. Sano Genetics or Teton).
Commenting on the announcement, Taavet Hinrikus, known as Wise co-founder and former CEO and Plural partner,said “Founders tackling major world problems through technology are exactly the types of companies we are backing at Plural.
“By supporting the most ambitious founders with our hard-won experience, we’re determined to build enduring global companies that will have a GDP-level impact and be transformative for economies and society.”
Based in Tallinn, Estonia and London, UK, Plural’s mission is to have GDP-level impact on Europe, address systemic risks and reduce the opportunity gap worldwide through the companies it backs.
As Techchrunch notes, as an European VC Plural has carved out a reputation for itself as being one of the few VCs in the region started and led by entrepreneurs who grew their own startups.
Its founders include Taavet Hinrikus from TransferWise/Wise; Sten Tamkivi; and Ian Hogarth, the founder of Songkick who more recently has also added a role with the U.K. government in AI safety strategy.
Now Plural itself is scaling up, with a fresh €400 million fund to back what Hogarth refers to as “transformational” startups in the region, bringing more operational know-how to get them running as businesses.