Aspire11 deploys first €100M from €515M pension-backed fund
What's the deal? Aspire11Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has deployed the first €100 million from a €515 million fund backed by a Czech pension fund. It has invested in private technology companies including Revolut, Databricks, VAST Data, Vinted, ElevenLabs, and Baseten.
What's the endgame? The firm will place around 80% of its capital into a vehicle dubbed "Eternals," a concentrated portfolio of later-stage technology companies. The remaining 20% goes to "Tribes," which backs pre-seed and seed venture funds.
How it invests: Aspire11 targets established private companies that are growing quickly but have become less risky than early-stage bets, including businesses that are already profitable or generating positive cash flow. It starts with smaller positions and builds them over time.
"We start small, and as we see a company becoming a potential long-term compounder, we increase our exposure over time," said co-founder Zaya KadyrovaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, who joined after three-and-a-half years at Ontario Teachers'Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → venture-growth arm. The firm invests across Europe and the US, with an average hold period of eight years — and can retain positions through an IPO and beyond.
Why now? British politicians, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves, are pushing for more pension capital to reach growth businesses. The UK's Mansion House Accord has set a target for major workplace pension providers to allocate at least 10% of their default funds to private markets by 2030, but the industry has been slow to turn those commitments into venture investment.
The context: Venture-backed companies are taking longer to reach public markets, with the median time to a listing now running past a decade, against four to five years in the early 2000s. CB InsightsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → tracks 1,345 private unicorns worth about $6.4 trillion in aggregate.
The signal: Europe remains well behind Canada in using pension capital to back private companies. "With a lot of value creation and AI disruption happening in private markets, where companies are staying private longer, these pension funds are missing out," Kadyrova said. Aspire11's structure is a bet that European institutions will follow.
Read more: Pathfounders
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
