Stockholm-based venture capital firm Creandum has closed a €668 million ($750 million) fund, Creandum VIII, to back early-stage technology startups from pre-Seed to Series A.
The fund, its largest to date, will support approximately 30 investments over the next two years, with a particular interest in opportunities emerging from the rapid development of AI. It follows the firm’s €500 million Creandum VII fund, which closed in June 2024.
“We continue to focus on the early stage. 1 in 6 companies we’ve backed has become a $1B+ company. We have tripled our team in San Francisco in the past 12 months. We support founders globally from day 1,” said Peter Specht, Partner at Creandum, in a public statement.
Creandum VIII joins a series of European venture capital fundraising announcements in 2026.
London-based QuantumLight closed a €432 million second fund, Berlin-based Earlybird VC secured €360 million for Fund VIII, and Seedcamp raised €279 million across two investment vehicles.
In Sweden, Norrsken Evolve closed a €62 million pre-Seed fund, while Turbine Capital finalised a €54 million vehicle targeting Nordic DeepTech startups.
Across comparable announcements reported by EU-Startups this year, disclosed fund sizes total approximately €1.64 billion, rising to €2.31 billion when Creandum VIII is included.
EU-Startups previously covered Creandum’s €448 million sixth fund in 2022 and its role in leading AI software startup Lovable’s €14.3 million funding round in 2025.
“After almost a decade at Creandum, this is a proud and exciting moment. Grateful for the team and my partners, and just so excited about the incredible founders out there to back,” adds Peter.
Founded in 2003 by Staffan Helgesson, Creandum is a Swedish VC, with additional offices in London, Berlin and San Francisco. Before establishing Creandum, Helgesson founded Startupfactory, an investment firm focused on mobile internet businesses.
The new fund has secured commitments from approximately 30 institutional investors across Europe and the United States, including backing from university endowments, pension funds and charitable foundations.
The firm is known for its early investments in companies such as Spotify, Klarna, iZettle, Depop, Bolt and Trade Republic. More recently, its portfolio has expanded to include AI-powered software development startup Lovable, AI image-generation company Black Forest Labs, cloud infrastructure startup Modal and AI accounting platform Rillet.
Creandum VIII arrives at a time when AI is reshaping established technology markets and creating opportunities for new entrants. The firm believes that rapid changes in software development, enterprise technology and digital infrastructure are opening the door for startups to challenge existing products and business models.
In its announcement, Creandum reflected on previous periods of technological and economic uncertainty, including the aftermath of the dotcom crash, the 2008 financial crisis and the venture capital market correction of 2022.
“The pattern has repeated for over two decades: the biggest companies get founded when the ground is shifting. And the ground has never shifted like it is shifting today,” said the company.
Despite the growing importance of AI across its portfolio, Creandum intends to maintain its generalist investment strategy rather than limit the new fund to a particular technology or sector.
The fund also reflects Creandum’s expanding international ambitions. While the firm remains optimistic about Europe’s startup ecosystem, it is strengthening its presence in the United States to reach founders operating across different markets.
Having established a presence in San Francisco approximately a decade ago, Creandum has tripled the size of its West Coast team over the past two years. The expansion is intended to strengthen its investment activities and support European companies looking to enter the US market, alongside American startups seeking early-stage capital.
In its announcement, the Creandum team noted: “The best founders no longer belong to one geography, and neither do we.”
The firm also pointed to Europe’s universities, engineering talent and increasingly experienced founder community as reasons for its confidence in the region’s technology sector. It believes AI could enable European startups to compete more effectively with established global technology companies, particularly as access to advanced development tools becomes more widespread.
Internally, Creandum is adopting AI-based processes to improve how it identifies investment opportunities, evaluates companies and supports its portfolio. The firm describes these changes as part of a broader effort to adapt its investment operations to the technologies being developed by the startups it backs.
