London-based seed firm Seedcamp has raised $320 million across two funds—$220 million for flagship Seedcamp VII (22% larger than its 2023 predecessor) and $95 million for Seedcamp Nation II (follow-on fund). It is Seedcamp's largest raise in its 19-year history, reflecting a deliberate pivot away from horizontal SaaS into physical AI, embodied robotics, and science-adjacent applications where European deep-tech capabilities remain competitive.
The timing and thesis matter: Europe missed the LLM boom that fueled US fundraising recovery, but European VCs are doubling down on physical AI—autonomous systems, robotics, space manufacturing—areas where the continent has legacy strength. Seedcamp's new fund will target 35 companies yearly with tickets up to $1.3M, leading rounds in European startups with selective US/Israel exposure. Recent portfolio moves include BioOrbit (space manufacturing, $13.2M seed) and Sunrise Robotics (autonomous robotics), signaling the direction.
For builders in physical automation, this validates a thesis: as infrastructure commoditizes via custom silicon (AWS Graviton, Google Axion) and agent frameworks normalize, defensibility shifts to domain-specific embodied systems and proprietary training data. Seedcamp's check sizes and European focus suggest a 4–5 year cycle where horizontal SaaS incumbents face displacement by vertical, AI-first automation stacks.