Former Speedinvest partner Rick Hao has closed a $50m inaugural fund for Ruya Ventures, a new solo GP vehicle backing deeptech companies at the early stage.
Hao previously led the Deep Tech team at Speedinvest, where he backed more than 30 companies.
The fund, rooted in Europe but investing globally, says it will back around 20 companies working across AI, batteries, robotics, semiconductors, materials science and novel compute.
Ruya is already deploying capital, with its first investments including WLF Energy, which is developing energy infrastructure from generation to grid, MegaCool, a cooling hardware company built for modern compute, and three ‘stealth’ startups across AI, robotics and semiconductors.
Hao said in a statement that he is positioning Ruya as a “day-zero” deeptech fund, helping to turn lab breakthroughs into products that can be manufactured, sold and scaled from the earliest stages.
To do that, Ruya plans to use networks across Europe, the US and Asia to help founders with manufacturing, supply chains, customer access and international expansion.
“Deep tech is a marathon not a sprint,” Hao said. “Most deep tech companies stall because no one helps founders figure out how to cross the chasm between a working prototype and a product that can be manufactured at scale and adopted by the market.”
The fund claims it reached final close in under a year and was oversubscribed.
The fund lands as European investors continue to hunt for companies building in strategic technology areas where Europe wants more control: compute, energy, advanced manufacturing, robotics and semiconductors.
There are very few DeepTech Solo GPs in Europe, but perhaps the closest to Ruya may include Air Street Capital, the London-based AI specialist led by Nathan Benaich, which raised a $232m fund.
Robin Capital is a Solo-GP firm led by Robin Haak, which does some deeptech, robotics and AI.
FINDUS Venture is an Austria-based solo-GP VC, as is Julian Capital.
Other possible competitors might include First Momentum, Creator Fund, HCVC, Deeptech Seed Fund, Earlybird-X/U2V, Cloudberry, APEX/Amadeus APEX, IQ Capital, Vsquared, Elaia and Quantonation.
