Entourage, a European early-stage venture firm founded by Showpad co-founder Pieterjan Bouten, has closed a second fund of €100 million after passing its €75 million target in about two weeks, according to The Next Web. The fund was announced on Thursday, October 29, and Tech.eu carried it under the headline that Entourage had raised €100 million for a second fund aimed at AI, robotics and deep tech. The Next Web reports that the fund drew more than €100 million in commitments and was capped at €100 million. It plans to back about 25 companies at pre-seed and seed stage, in Europe and beyond.

What the fund will do

According to The Next Web, first checks will range from €1 million to €5 million, with money held back for follow-on rounds. The check range is attributed there to Tech.eu, whose full article could not be opened for this report. Entourage usually leads or co-leads a round but seldom takes a board seat, a choice Bouten describes as deliberate. “Most VCs destroy value in early-stage boardrooms,” he said in a statement, and he added that “Great founders don’t need babysitting.”

The new fund is broader than its predecessor. The Next Web describes the first fund as mainly focused on software and says the second adds AI, enterprise software, robotics, physical AI and deep technology. The same article notes, citing Tech Funding News, that moving into robotics and deep tech tests the firm’s light-touch model of leading rounds without taking board seats. It does not say how Entourage plans to adjust.

Lens analysis: dividing €100 million by about 25 companies gives an average of roughly €4 million per company before fees and before any follow-on reserves are set aside. Checks at the top of the stated €1 million to €5 million range would therefore be possible for only a few companies, unless the portfolio ends up smaller than planned. The sources do not discuss fees or the size of the reserve.

Who put up the money

The Next Web says entrepreneurs, family offices and private investors supplied all of the capital, citing EU-Startups. Among them are founders of Aikido, Collibra and TechWolf, and The Next Web adds that SAP agreed this month to buy TechWolf. That acquisition is reported in the article but was not confirmed independently for this report. No institutional investors in the fund were named in any source reviewed.

The fund was launched by a firm that dates to 2024. When Entourage was announced in March 2024, Silicon Canals reported that it began as a venture studio and early-stage fund of $30 million, about €27.7 million, for European software founders, based in Ghent. Silicon Canals did not say how that amount was split between the studio and the investment arm, so it cannot be compared directly with the new fund. The Next Web now describes Entourage as having a London office and a presence in Paris.

The partners named by The Next Web are Bouten, Evert Beeckman and Maarten Mortier, and the firm has added three investors: Erwan Gardelle, Sixtine Riescher and Illja Schiller. Beeckman and Mortier were named as partners in the 2024 launch coverage as well, with Beeckman responsible for the investment arm and Mortier for the studio. Bouten ran Showpad for more than a decade, according to The Next Web, and says he has personally invested in more than 60 companies. In 2024, Silicon Canals put the number at more than 30 business-software scale-ups.

The track record Entourage points to

The Next Web lists four companies as evidence for the strategy. Entourage says it was among the first investors in Aikido Security, a Belgian developer-security company, according to The Next Web, and Silicon Canals listed Aikido in the Entourage Capital portfolio at the firm’s 2024 launch. SecurityWeek reported on January 14 that Aikido raised $60 million in a Series B at a $1 billion valuation led by DST Global, with total funding above $84 million. SecurityWeek’s article does not mention Entourage, so the firm’s role in that round is not confirmed there.

Lexroom, a Milan-based legal AI company, raised a $50 million Series B on May 19, according to Tech.eu, with Left Lane Capital leading and Entourage among the participants. Tech.eu reports that more than 8,000 law firms and corporate legal teams use the product, that the company has raised more than $73 million in total, and that the money will fund expansion into Spain and Germany. Conveo, an AI consumer-research company, raised a $50 million Series A on September 2, according to Tech.eu, from investors including DST Global Partners and Balderton Capital. Tech.eu does not name Entourage in that report, while The Next Web says Entourage backed Conveo early.

Tekst, which The Next Web says came out of Entourage’s studio, is described there as having raised a €10 million Series A. Tech.eu’s tag page for Entourage carries a May 7 headline saying a Belgian AI startup called Tekst raised €11.5 million. The two amounts may describe the same round reported in different ways or different parts of it, and the full Tech.eu article was not available to check.

Other fund news the same day

Another fund close was reported on October 29 by Tech.eu. BY Venture Partners, headquartered in Dubai, announced a $60 million Fund III and a new office in Lisbon, with two local investment hires it did not name. The anchor investor is the Dubai Future District Fund, and the firm says its assets under management now exceed $200 million. It plans about 40 companies, has made 15 investments so far, and writes checks of up to $1 million from pre-seed to Series A, according to Tech.eu.

BY Venture Partners says about two-thirds of its capital goes to North America and Europe rather than to its home region of the Middle East and North Africa. Its partners say the Lisbon office is meant to deepen its European push and to give European founders access to international capital. The comparison with Entourage is limited, because BY’s checks are smaller and its fund is based in the Gulf, but both announcements show investors pitching early-stage funds around AI.

The Next Web also mentions Syndicate One, a Belgian fund that raised €22 million for early-stage startups in February, as a separate vehicle that is not part of Entourage.

What to watch

The two-week fundraising claim comes from The Next Web, and the EU-Startups report on the close, whose page could not be opened, carries the same claim in its web address. The sources do not report the first fund’s returns, the fund’s fees or the names of any investments the new fund has made, so there is nothing yet to show how Fund II will perform.

Lens analysis: the first signs will be the companies Entourage backs in robotics and physical AI. Those businesses are likely to need more capital and time than the software companies in its earlier portfolio, which tests whether its approach of leading rounds without taking board seats carries over. The first investments the new fund announces will show how far it moves away from software.

Sources

Image: Old and New Ghent.jpg by rvanhegelsom, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Illustrative photo; it does not show the events described.