CapitalT

Today we’re excited to announce that we’ve led Xylo’s £2.8M pre-seed round. 🏛️ We backed Xylo because it takes on a real bottleneck in the physical economy; not a lack of demand, capital or ambition, but the operational friction that slows planning teams down. Homes, clean energy: the projects are there, and the funding follows. What holds them up is a public delivery layer that’s already under strain, where every extra week of throughput matters. Xylo goes after the part of that problem where software can move the needle. Planning capacity is scarce for all kinds of reasons, but a lot of officer time gets eaten by repetitive admin: intake, validation, research, paperwork. Xylo’s AI agents take that layer off their plate, so officers get more of their time back for the judgment calls that need a human. At one of their first customers, that meant 40%+ more applications processed per officer per month, and 83% of officers saying it helped them work more accurately. Faster and better, not one traded for the other. What gave us conviction wasn’t just the product, but how and by whom it was built. Habs and Dermot spent 300+ hours alongside planning officers, in deep collaboration with Leeds City Council, before writing a single line of code. They took the time to understand the problem, the people they’re building Xylo for, and the institutions those people work in deeply. That care shows in everything they’ve build so far, and in what is still to come. We think the next wave of physical infrastructure won’t be unlocked by capital and construction alone, but by the systems that let good projects move faster through the public sector. Xylo is building for exactly that layer. Congrats to the whole Xylo team! We are very happy that we get to be a part of your journey. Habs Isabelle Kim Dermot O'Riordan Janneke Niessen Nina Donker

Yesterday Center Parcs hosted She Leads 2026 event, 50 women and lots of real talk! One line from Janneke Niessen stuck with me: "Mediocre men are perfectly fine claiming the top spot. Why aren't mediocre women?" It points at something real. Women wait until they're absolutely sure before going for the top. Men just... go. Proud that Center Parcs invests in this, and that we have strong alies at the top Olivier Garaïalde and Marcel Berghuis. Not Done. Not Alone. 🩷 Already looking forward to 2027. Thank you for making this day a success: Sacha Martina, Anouk Ellen Susan (M.A.) Janneke Niessen Marjolein van der Linden Nerys Williams Giuliani, PhD Inge Zwaagman Olivier Garaïalde Marcel Berghuis Lena Kettel Anna Almeida Mayssa Labacci and Caroline Lafuente

We're joining Norrsken Amsterdam as a founding member, and we couldn't be more excited. A 1000+ person hub for founders, funders and builders in a former steam train factory. Opening September 1st in Amsterdam. Let’s build it together. Apply for your membership via link comments.

Are you an AI or SaaS founder building something remarkable? You'll meet Nina Donker from CapitalT. An Amsterdam-based VC actively looking for the next wave of German and European software startups, investing in EdTech, HealthTech, ClimateTech, Future of Work, and SocialTech. No panels. No noise. Just curated 1-1 conversations. 📅 June 29-30 | 14:00–18:00 CEST Apply now → link in the comments

We are super excited to announce our investment in New Dawn Bio 🌳! Wood is one of humanity's oldest and most widely used materials and for centuries, producing it has meant one thing: cutting down trees. New Dawn Bio is changing that. By harvesting stem cells from trees, multiplying them in bioreactors, and guiding their growth directly into the intended shape, they can produce premium wood without logging and up to 10,000 times faster than conventional forestry. We led their €2.1M oversubscribed pre-seed round, alongside Norrsken Evolve, Ontdekkers Groep, and angel investors including Jelle Prins. This is our first biotech investment, and that's not a coincidence. From the first conversation, Tom Clement and Kianti Figler's conviction was contagious. The scientific depth, the commercial clarity, the sheer ambition to go after one of the oldest industries in the world and genuinely reinvent it. We screen founding teams rigorously, and we couldn't be more excited to work with these two. The scale of the problem they're addressing is hard to ignore. The world lost 4.3 million hectares of tropical primary forest last year alone. Entire industries are already facing supply constraints because we're running out of trees. New Dawn Bio's approach could avoid up to 2.1 gigatons of CO₂ emissions annually, while producing a genuinely better product with less waste and lower manufacturing costs. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e-eRtSGt Welcome to the CapitalT portfolio, New Dawn Bio 🌳! 🚀 Janneke Niessen Eva De Mol Ph.D Nina Donker

Ask any VC what matters most at pre-seed and they’ll all say the same thing: the team. Yet VCs have consistently failed to assess founder quality, and the data is clear. Diverse teams outperform, but receive a fraction of the funding. The decisions we think are merit-based are often bias with a confident face. Most VCs trust their gut to assess teams, but very few have the frameworks to challenge it. At CapitalT, we built VCVolt to tackle this problem. We use it not to make the decision for us, but to fact-check our assumptions before we decide. Our partner Janneke Niessen is taking this to the stage at SuperVenture on June 9 at 14:40 in the panel “Founders & VCs: How to Find a Unicorn” and will be sharing more about our approach behind assessing teams at CapitalT. If you’d like to know what a great team actually looks like and how to spot your own blind spots when assessing founders, this is the session to join 👀🏎️

Catch us in October in Barcelona 🌊 Get your ticket via https://lnkd.in/d8b2e4zs

The grid was built for a different climate. Overstory is one of the few companies actually solving for the one we have, using remote sensing to direct maintenance resources before outages and wildfires happen, not after. They are now recognised as TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2026, Top 10 in Sustainability. Well deserved. 🌳 Congrats Fiona Spruill and the whole Overstory team!

Opportunity you wouldn't want to miss! 👀

Early stage founder in ClimateTech or Future of Work? Sign up below and have a chat soon with our Investment Associate, Nina Donker 🔥