Connect Ventures is a London-based early-stage venture capital firm that calls itself the Product VC. Investing since 2012, it has backed more than 120 companies at inception, pre-seed and seed — always as a GP-only, high-conviction team, with no associate layer between founders and the partner leading their investment.
In September 2026 Connect announced a $55 million first close of its $80 million fifth fund. Fund V is anchored by the British Business Bank, with significant participation from returning LPs Aldea Ventures, Sella Venture Partners and Molten Ventures, alongside new investors including European family offices and founders of companies previously backed by Connect.
Thesis
Connect's Fund V sharpens its focus on founders with deep technical expertise — entrepreneurs whose engineering, scientific research or software-building experience directly shapes the product, the ambition and the velocity of the company. The firm believes that kind of expertise creates structural advantages competitors cannot easily replicate. It targets founders building at the intersection of AI, hardware and automation — spanning artificial intelligence, infrastructure, hardware, robotics and biotechnology — from day zero. Its model is deliberately low volume, high conviction and high support: it leads pre-seed rounds, writing cheques of $500,000 to $5 million, across Europe, and partners work directly with founders through to exit. Beyond capital, it curates its founder community through events including its flagship product summit Built By Few.
The people
The GP-only investment team comprises Pietro Bezza, Sitar Teli and Rory Stirling, co-founder and co-managing partner, supported by experienced operators, product builders, community experts and finance professionals.
Portfolio
Connect often leads the first round, investing as early as an idea. Its portfolio includes TrueLayer (the leading Pay By Bank network — Connect led its pre-seed in 2016), Aikido Security (a European leader in AI cybersecurity — co-led seed, 2023), Dust (AI assistants for teams — co-led seed, 2023), ai-coustics (AI audio — led pre-seed, 2023), Mosaico (robotics — led pre-seed, 2025), Nexcade (led pre-seed, 2025) and Deepstash (led seed, 2020).
The firm has not publicly disclosed a founder credits or perks programme.
Why it matters for founders
If you are a deeply technical founder building in AI, hardware or automation — especially in Europe — Connect Ventures is one of the few seed funds that evaluates you on technical depth rather than traction slides. It leads pre-seed rounds of $500k–$5M, invests as early as an idea, and you deal directly with a GP, not an associate. Its 13-year track record of leading first rounds into companies like TrueLayer and Aikido makes it a serious contender for any technical founding team's lead investor.