Pre-seed cheques are usually paid for speed: a founder, an early product thesis and a credible path to technical differentiation. Allocator One is betting that this workflow, when applied to B2B deep tech and AI, is becoming investable again.
Munich-based Vanagon Ventures has secured EUR 20 million in funding from Allocator One, recently announced, to back pre-seed B2B deep tech and AI startups in Europe. Vanagon writes initial investments of up to EUR 500,000 and often acts as the first institutional or lead investor for its portfolio companies.
Why this is an against-trend bet
In a market where many venture firms have tightened entry criteria and shifted capital toward later-stage “de-risked” rounds, Vanagon is explicitly leaning into the earliest stage. Managing partner Susanne Fromm has argued that “many venture capitalists shy away from this pre-seed phase because their standard SaaS playbooks are ill-suited for deeptech disruption.”
That statement captures the core tension: deep tech timelines, technical validation and go-to-market motion rarely match the quick iteration loops and benchmark metrics that power classic SaaS underwriting. By funding a specialist that is built for that complexity, Allocator One is effectively underwriting a different operating model for venture at the front end.
Fromm also said that “the steepest value creation is shifting to the earliest stages of a company’s life.” If that shift is real, then winning access at pre-seed matters more than ever, and the scarcity is not capital but conviction and capability.
What Vanagon is building
Vanagon targets pre-seed B2B deep tech and AI companies and reports a portfolio of around 30 companies. The firm backs AI-native and DeepTech founders in Industrial, Nature, and Digital Infrastructure, with interests including spatial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics and other frontier software aimed at large, long-term markets.
Examples cited from its portfolio span sustainable data storage, AI-powered quality control in manufacturing, and advanced demand forecasting. These are categories where early product-market fit can look less like self-serve growth and more like technical deployment into complex environments, often with longer sales cycles and heavier integration requirements.
This is where a pre-seed specialist can create switching costs earlier than a typical software investor expects: through deep implementation choices, data pipelines, integration into industrial processes, and early reference customers that are hard to replace.
Commercial logic: why lead pre-seed can compound
Vanagon’s emphasis on being first institutional or lead investor is not just branding. It is a structural advantage in a market where later-stage funds are often reluctant to price ambiguous technical risk.
Being early can drive:
- Access and ownership: leading pre-seed typically improves allocation in the companies that break out.
- Follow-on positioning: early leads can shape milestones and syndicate composition, which matters in deep tech where validation pathways vary.
- Category learning: a focused portfolio across frontier software creates pattern recognition around technical readiness, regulatory constraints, and enterprise adoption.
The trade-off is obvious: higher variance, slower feedback loops, and a need for a different support model than “growth playbooks.” Vanagon describes its approach as conviction-led and “designed to embrace this complexity and invest where foundational innovation occurs.”
Likely focus areas for the new capital
Vanagon has not detailed a deployment plan beyond its stated pre-seed focus. Based on its model and cheque size, likely focus areas include (inference): expanding the number of initial investments, reserving more capital for selective follow-ons, and building deeper domain coverage in its priority areas such as industrial AI, robotics and digital infrastructure.
For Allocator One, the deal reads as a portfolio construction move: gaining exposure to European deep tech at the point where entry prices are set, and where competition is thinner because many generalist funds hesitate.
What this enables
- More pre-seed lead rounds for B2B deep tech and AI founders in Europe
- A larger pipeline of technically differentiated companies reaching seed with clearer validation
- Stronger early syndicates in frontier categories like robotics, spatial intelligence and quantum
What to watch
- Whether Vanagon can consistently lead and then syndicate follow-on capital into longer-cycle deep tech businesses
- How quickly portfolio companies translate technical progress into enterprise-grade deployments
- Whether more allocators follow into pre-seed specialists as generalist funds stay cautious