Big Sur Ventures launches fourth fund targeting €100 million for deeptech start-ups

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Big Sur Ventures, a Spanish early-stage manager founded in 2012, has launched its fourth venture fund, BSV IV Ariadne, with a target size of €100 million. The plan is to back 20 to 25 start-ups, mostly at seed, with first cheques of at least €1 million each. Roughly half the money is meant for Spain and the other half for the rest of Europe. The focus is deeptech: artificial intelligence, microelectronics and semiconductors, photonics, advanced materials, quantum communications and industrial hardware, the kind of companies that need years of lab work before they have anything to sell.

The fund is not entirely new to paperwork. It has been on the CNMV register since 30 July 2024, under number 155, and on 29 July 2025 the government authorised a €40 million stake in it through SETT, under the Next Tech facility funded by the Recovery Plan and Next Generation EU money. A target of €100 million is, of course, a target; how much is actually raised and invested depends on commitments still to come.

Founder and managing director José Miguel Herrero ties the strategy to Europe's need to rebuild its technological and industrial capacity, beyond ordinary software. The firm says it has made more than 50 investments and ten exits across earlier funds, including Nanopower Semiconductor, LuxQuanta and Axiomatic AI, and that it looks at more than 6,000 companies a year, which leaves a selection rate for this fund of well under one percent.