Kompas VC closes €160M Fund II to back industrial AI in a fragmented world
What's the deal? Kompas VC, a European early-stage venture firm focused on industrial technology, has closed its second fund at €160M.
The firm was founded in 2021 and operates from offices in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Barcelona. It is led by partners Sebastian PeckDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Talia RafaeliDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Andreas Winter-ExtraDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
Cornerstone LP VKR HoldingDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has continued its backing, and RealdaniaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — a Danish institution with expertise in the built environment — has joined as a new limited partner. Eight investments have already been made from the new fund.
Kompas backs early-stage companies tackling industrial transformation across manufacturing, the built environment, supply chains, and decarbonisation, writing initial cheques of €3M to €5M from seed through Series B across Europe and North America. Its investment focus spans physical AI, advanced materials, industrial robotics, and decentralised energy.
Why now? Kompas launched in 2021 during a period of widespread enthusiasm for sustainability and industrial tech themes. The market has since shifted dramatically — AI has captured the bulk of investor attention and capital.
Rather than pivot, Kompas is doubling down on its original thesis: that physical industries face a persistent triple challenge of productivity growth, supply chain and cyber risk, and decarbonisation at scale, and that the gap between technological potential and real-world adoption in these sectors remains enormous.
Geopolitical fragmentation has, if anything, strengthened the fund's investment case. Reshoring, supply chain resilience, and energy security are now political priorities across Europe and the US — creating a favourable environment for startups solving precisely the problems Kompas was built to back.
What could go wrong? Industrial transformation is slow and capital-intensive. Deep tech and industrial AI startups typically have longer development cycles, more complex sales processes, and harder paths to the kind of hypergrowth that drives large venture returns. Kompas is deliberately positioned as a specialist, smaller fund — but that also means limited ability to follow on aggressively in its best companies through later rounds.
The fund's geographic focus adds another layer of complexity. Industrial adoption patterns vary significantly across European markets — what works in Scandinavia does not always translate to Germany or Southern Europe, let alone the US. Founders that cannot access the US market may find their addressable market more constrained than their technology deserves.
The signal: Kompas's Fund II is a signal that patient, specialist capital for industrial transformation continues to find LP support — even as generalist AI funds dominate the headlines. The addition of Realdania as an LP is strategically notable: a Danish institution with deep expertise in the built environment investing in a fund that backs startups modernising exactly those industries reflects genuine domain conviction rather than financial opportunism.
The fund also reflects a broader truth about the current venture landscape: the AI wave has created enormous tailwinds for physical industries that are just beginning to adopt intelligent systems. Kompas is betting that the most durable value will be created not in AI software alone, but where AI meets the messy, complex, capital-intensive reality of making and building things in the physical world.
Sources:
Tech Funding News
ESG Today
TechCrunch
Mezha
Sebastian Peck, LinkedIn
Image credit:
Kompas VC
J.V.
