Onstage Fund I is an early stage venture capital fund launched in 2025 by the team behind Onstage, Europe’s largest and most influential demo day program. After reviewing more than 15,000 startup applications and building deep relationships with leading European VCs and LPs, the firm created its own investment vehicle to back the strongest founders emerging from its platform. The fund represents the next evolution of Onstage's mission to aggregate Europe’s fragmented startup ecosystem and give the continent’s top early-stage founders a scalable path to capital.
Onstage focuses primarily on Europe’s most promising early-stage technology companies, sourcing deal flow directly from its large-scale application pipeline and its continent-wide VC network. Its sector footprint is broad and tech-forward, with investments driven by founder quality and market potential rather than narrow vertical constraints.
Onstage Fund I is a £10 million vehicle designed to invest in the strongest startups emerging from Onstage’s annual pipeline. The fund leverages Onstage’s role as a European aggregation layer for early-stage venture, where more than 3,000 startups apply each year for 20 finalist spots in its flagship demo day.
Historically, demo day finalists have raised over £500 million from top-tier global VCs, including well-known companies such as Scan.com and Lawhive. Fund I was built to capture this momentum and give Onstage the ability to provide direct capital, not just platform access.
Founders joining the portfolio receive the full power of Onstage’s distribution network, access to experienced operators, and exposure to Europe’s most active VC and LP communities. The investment committee includes both internal leaders and carefully selected external members, ensuring a balanced and rigorous decision-making process.
Leadership
The fund is led by founding partner Joel Hambly, with core team members Issie James, Taos Edmondson CFA, Hector Mason, Luis Druschke, and Peter Simon. They are supported by external members of the investment committee, including Emma Ruth Phillips, Laura McGinnis, and Jamesin Seidel. The leadership team has deep experience in venture selection, platform building, and early-stage startup acceleration across Europe.
Investment Strategy
Onstage uses a platform-driven sourcing model to identify top-tier founders. Their strategy centers on selecting the top 1 percent of applicants from their European pipeline, evaluating founders through a combination of performance signals, community insights, and cross-VC validation. The fund’s thesis is that Europe’s fragmentation creates structural barriers for founders, and a scaled aggregation layer can reveal exceptional companies earlier and more reliably than traditional sourcing. The fund typically makes fast decisions supported by Onstage’s long-term relationships with the continent’s leading VCs and LPs.
Notable Investments
While Fund I is newly launched, Onstage’s platform has previously surfaced some of Europe’s strongest fast-growth companies, including Scan.com, which raised £60 million, and Lawhive, which raised £44 million. Across six years of operations, demo day alumni have collectively raised more than £500 million from leading investors across the continent.
Other
Founders entering the Onstage pipeline benefit from exposure to VCs across Europe, structured feedback, and the signaling value of being selected as a demo day finalist. Onstage is known for extremely high application volume and strong filtering, which increases the credibility of companies chosen for investment.
The fund does not aim to compete with top-tier VCs but instead collaborates closely with them, functioning as a trusted early picker and ecosystem amplifier. Because the sourcing mechanics resemble YC’s top-of-funnel filtering, founders with strong traction or compelling early signals may gain rapid visibility across Europe through the program.
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