Aspire11 has deployed the first €100 million from a €515 million fund backed by a Czech pension fund, investing in private technology companies including Revolut, Databricks, VAST Data, Vinted, ElevenLabs and Baseten.
The deployment comes as British politicians, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Andy Burnham(likely the next PM), push 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.
Europe also remains well behind Canada in its use of pension capital to back private companies. Zaya Kadyrova, who joins Aspire11 as co-founder after three-and-a-half years at Ontario Teachers’ venture-growth arm, said European pension funds had historically been underallocated to venture and growth.
“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,” she said on a call with Pathfounders.
Venture-backed companies are indeed taking longer to reach public markets, with S&P Global, citing PitchBook, putting the median at more than ten years, compared with four to five years back in the early 2000s. Furthermore, CB Insights tracks 1,345 private unicorns with aggregate reported valuations of about $6.4 trillion.
Aspire11 will place around 80% of its capital into a vehicle dubbed “Eternals”, a concentrated portfolio of later-stage technology companies, with the remaining 20% allocated to “Tribes”, which backs pre-seed and seed venture funds.
Kadyrova said Aspire11 would initially take smaller positions in companies and increase them as their performance and its conviction grew.
“We start small, and as we see a company becoming a potential long-term compounder, we increase our exposure over time,” she said.
The fund is targeting established private companies that are growing quickly but have become less risky than early-stage investments, including businesses that are already profitable or generating positive cash flow.
Aspire11 can also retain investments after companies list. “Our hold period is eight years on average, but we can hold for ten or twelve years, through an IPO and beyond,” Kadyrova said.
The firm invests across Europe and the US and plans to expand its portfolio and attract further institutional investors.
