Cherry Ventures

Cherry Ventures is a pan-European early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2012 by Filip Dames and Christian Meermann, both members of the Zalando founding team. The firm's core philosophy is captured in its motto: 'We don't invest in companies. We invest in founders.' Cherry backs Europe's boldest problem-solvers, typically as their first institutional investor, and supports them across go-to-market strategy, team formation, and scaling at every stage of their journey. Cherry's investment approach is deliberately industry-agnostic — 'from AI to energy to gaming to space tech, our investment approach is industry-curious.' The firm looks for founders with a vision to create revolutionary technologies — whether in AI, healthcare, robotics, consumer, or others — that impact society and change the world for the better. Before committing, Cherry evaluates three overlapping qualities in every founding team: anomaly, the red thread, and personality. It is never too early for Cherry to meet a team; the firm has previously invested pre-product and pre-revenue. Cherry's core stage is seed, with occasional pre-seed and early Series A investments. The firm typically writes initial cheques of €2–7 million, reserving the majority of its capital for follow-on investments to champion portfolio companies along their growth journey. Cherry makes approximately 10–12 early-stage investments per year, allowing it to remain focused and deeply engaged with each founder. Over 80% of Cherry's seed founders graduate to Series A. With the launch of Cherry V in February 2025 — a $500 million vehicle split between a flagship Early Stage fund and an Opportunity Fund targeting Series B and beyond — Cherry has signalled its ambition to be a long-term financial partner capable of funding Europe's first trillion-dollar company. The firm's LP base includes top European entrepreneurs from Supercell, Wolt, and Flix, and its broader network spans operators from Dropbox, Zalando, Spotify, N26, Skype, and Doordash. Cherry has offices in Berlin, London, and Stockholm, and invests throughout Europe without country-specific constraints.