Dr Klaus Hommels, Founder & Chairman, Lakestar (Credit - Lakestar)
In a surprise move, Dr. Klaus Hommels, one of Europe’s most prominent venture capitalists and founder of Lakestar venture capital fund, exclusively revealed to Pathfounders that he will not raise another Lakestar generalist VC fund.
The move brings to an end a run that included investments in unicorns such as Spotify, Revolut, Helsing, and Neko Health.
Instead, he plans to concentrate on what he calls Europe’s “real economy”, such as defence, aerospace, deeptech, and industrial resilience. And on helping his team spin out their own ventures, such as new funds or startups.
“I’m staying with the funds and investments we already have, but I’m not raising another one,” Hommels told me over a call. “I’m seeding some of the team members who want to pursue their own ideas.”
Hommels said Lakestar will focus entirely on maximising the potential of its existing portfolio, rather than pursuing the raise of a new generalist fund. “We are on track to have raised close to $500 million by year-end,” he said, calling 2025 “a successful year” but also “the perfect moment to sharpen our mission.”
However, Hommels left the door open to investing in so-called ‘resilience’, the broad term to describe companies operating in areas such as defence, security and supply chains, perhaps with a new vehicle or under the Lakestar brand. Hommels recently stepped down as chair of the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), which he was instrumental in building.
“I have basically 20 of the top 25 defence companies… and I thought the upside is way higher when I double-down that,” he told me.
The decision marks a strategic turning point for Lakestar, one of Europe’s largest and most influential VC firms, which has raised several billion dollars across multiple funds since its founding in 2012. Prior to forming Lakestar, Hommels was an early tech entrepreneur and executive in Europe from the mid-1990s onwards, and an early investor in companies such as Spotify, Airbnb, SumUp, Skype, King, Facebook, and Xing.
In a statement published online today, Hommels added: “Going forward, both Lakestar’s and my focus will be on maximising the potential of the existing portfolio and we will not raise any new generalist venture funds as we have in the past… Our future investments will be larger, more concentrated, and made with our own capital, allowing greater agility and freedom to pursue the big, visionary bets that have always defined our work.”
The new strategy reflects Hommels’ long-held belief that Europe must build industrial and technological champions, not just tech unicorns, merely for the sake of it.
“If you do a company, so what? What does it have? How does it help Europe to be a strong continent?,” he told me. “That means creating real companies with real surplus, like Spotify was for digital culture.”
A bet on Europe’s defence and resilience
Hommels’ shift comes as geopolitical tensions rise, especially between Europe and the US. But Hommels has spent the last several years backing defence and dual-use technologies, often privately, when such investments were still taboo under ESG rules.
“Five years ago, when I started investing in defence, people said I was totally idiotic,” he said. “Some of those deals were even forbidden under ESG rules, so I did them privately. Now we’re seeing how critical they are.”
Hommels also revealed that Lakestar will open a new office in Munich, a key European defence hub, to expand its “resilience-focused strategy.” He has also been in talks with Porsche and Volkswagen about repurposing underused factory capacity for drone manufacturing, inspired by similar efforts in the Netherlands.
“The only thing that counts now is lifting production by a factor of 30,” he said. “We can’t just talk about ecosystems — we need to build.”
Raising VC in Europe, and LPs
I asked him if his decision was based on an implicit criticism of LPs in Europe. Did he think raising VC funds in Europe was now too hard?
“This decision is about my personal choice to reallocate my time differently. I’m not criticizing LPs in Europe. Absolutely not. The market is growing, and there are a lot of initiatives. So I think people are getting there, but it's just not for me. I want my time to be spent differently,” he said.
He said the circumstances were very individual: “This is a very special situation, because I have these five, six companies that I want to work with. Like Revolut, Neko Health, Auterion [drones].”
I asked him if the implication of this decision was that it's easier to raise from LPs in the US. He admitted that “the ecosystem in the US is more advanced, and capital sources are also different,” he said. “You have endowments, which you don't have in Europe, pension funds that allocate more, that don't do so much here. This is more like the macro picture. So this decision is a ‘micro-picture’ about where I spend my time.”
He said the existing LPs in Lakestar’s funds up to date were “very happy” with his new strategy.
Succession and the next generation
Beyond defence and industrial investment, Hommels said a central priority of his will be supporting his team in launching new funds and ventures, effectively seeding a new swathe of investors.
“Supporting our next generation of leaders in the industry is a crucial mission for me,” he wrote online. “I will seed promising ventures initiated by talented members of the Lakestar team as they embark on their own entrepreneurial journeys.”
He believes venture capital must evolve away from ‘asset gathering’ and toward direct, mission-driven engagement with founders.
“Lakestar has been built on vision, conviction, and deep relationships with founders,” he wrote. “This is the moment to return to the purest form of venture, working closely with entrepreneurs, solving complex challenges, and deploying networks strategically to open doors that change trajectories and lives.”
“I’m not money-motivated anymore,” he told me. “What matters is building real companies that make Europe strong,” he said.
A month ago, Lakestar raised a $265m ‘continuation fund’ to extend its investments in selected portfolio companies, marking one of the largest such vehicles in European venture capital. Continuation funds are increasingly emerging in venture capital as investors seek liquidity alternatives. In the U.S., firms such as General Catalyst, Lightspeed, and NEA have launched continuation funds, while HV Capital rolled out a €430m ($500m) vehicle in 2022.