Investor behind Revolut and first backer of ElevenLabs unveils Baobab Ventures, a €12.9M fund for pre-seed innovators.
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Carles Reina, the angel investor behind Revolut and ElevenLabs, has officially launched Baobab Ventures, a solo GP fund with a $15M (approximately €12.9M) in capital.
The fund, which was oversubscribed and completed its fundraising in a single closing round, has attracted significant backing from global Tier 1 institutional LPs, including Cendana Capital, Isomer Capital, RSJ Investments, Emergence Ventures, and Cyber Fund.
Additionally, the fund has received backing from operator LPs, which include partners from early-stage funds such as Concept Ventures, Credo Ventures, and Lucca & Stella Norton’s Family Office. Among the angel LPs are notable figures like professional football player and business angel Mario Götze, broadcast entrepreneur Carles Cuní, and deep tech investor Dr. Fatima Godall.
Baobab Ventures aims to invest in pre-seed and seed stage founders who are developing globally ambitious startups in rapidly evolving sectors such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and defence.
The team has already begun deploying capital from the fund. Startups backed at the pre-seed stage include: robotics startup Theker, collective AGI platform Altan AI, and debt collection tech Murphy, along with three more unannounced companies.
The fund is launching with a positive multiple on invested capital (MOIC)
Carles Reina backed 74 startups
As one of Europe’s most successful angel investors, Carles has backed 74 startups across a number of industries, but most predominantly in DeepTech since 2017.
He started by investing in the fintech company Revolut and has since supported other startups like Vsim, Happyrobot, Strawberry Browser, Praktika AI, Praxipal, and Theker Robotics.
Carles was also the first investor in ElevenLabs, the voice AI giant now valued at $6.6B, and became the company’s fourth hire.
As the current GTM lead, Carles has driven company revenues to $200M+ ARR, whilst launching the company’s Enterprise offering across the US, Europe, Japan, India, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and the Middle East.
With this capital, he will be making average investments of $300-350K in pre-seed and seed stage startups.
Carles is focused on helping founders develop and execute their GTM, operations, and product strategies, as well as providing hands-on support with customer pitches, contract negotiations, and critical hires – enabling them to hit critical velocity in record time.
Carles Reina comments, “Building startups has dramatically changed in the last few years. Sales cycles are faster, there are hundreds of competitors within months, and AI has killed cold outreach conversion rates. Founders need to move incredibly quickly whilst building a sales and growth motion fit for the AI age. To do that, they need operators on their cap table who can draw on relevant frontline experience from the AI era and who are hands-on with their help. This AI-informed operator experience is a clear gap in the European landscape and it’s one I believe Baobab can fill.”
