Tenet is a Berlin-based inception-stage investment firm founded in 2026 by four investors with over 25 years of combined experience across venture capital, growth capital, and private equity. The firm was built around a singular and timely thesis: that AI-powered roll-ups represent a new and underserved asset class in Europe, one that sits in a structural gap between traditional private equity mandates and early-stage venture capital. Tenet's founding ambition is to address Europe's SaaS adoption shortfall and succession crisis simultaneously, backing founders who are acquiring and transforming professional services businesses into scalable, AI-native platforms from the ground up.
Tenet's debut fund has a target size of €80 million and launched in February 2026. At the time of launch, the firm had already raised approximately one third of that target and secured its first anchor investor.
The fund deploys cheques of approximately €5 million per company, positioning Tenet as an inception-stage backer for founders building AI roll-up platforms before those platforms have achieved meaningful scale. The fund's strategy is explicitly designed to fill the gap that neither classic private equity nor early-stage VC can comfortably occupy.
Private equity typically requires substantial scale and debt leverage at entry, making it unsuitable for backing roll-ups at inception. Traditional VC, meanwhile, often lacks the buy-and-build operational expertise these platforms require. Tenet has structured itself to bring both the capital and the cross-disciplinary know-how needed at the earliest stages of a roll-up build.
The fund already made its first investment at launch, leading a €5 million round into Taxforce, a German AI-native tax advisory platform founded by Burkhard Reffeling, former Head of Engineering at Klarna, and Caspar Gerleve, a fintech entrepreneur.
Leadership
Tenet was founded by four partners who collectively cover the full capital stack from which AI roll-ups emerge. Martin Janicki serves as General Partner and was previously a Partner at Cavalry Ventures, the Berlin-based early-stage VC firm now known as NAP, where he focused on software and B2B investments. Alexander Maly brings a private equity background from Clearsight Investments, giving the fund a buy-and-build operational lens. Sahil Patwa joins as General Partner after serving as Principal at Unbound, a London-based investment firm, and has written publicly and extensively on the mechanics and selection criteria of AI-powered roll-ups. Simon Lohmann, formerly of Atlantic Labs and Food Labs, serves as General Partner and COO and brings operational experience from the Berlin startup ecosystem. The firm is also supported by an advisor network that includes founders of existing European AI roll-ups such as Arbio, Buena, and Zinco.
Investment Strategy
Tenet's strategy centers on backing founders at the very inception of building an AI roll-up, before the acquisitions begin and before a platform has taken shape. This means Tenet enters earlier than any private equity fund would, and with far more operational and strategic specificity than a generalist VC. The firm's investment model is designed to support founders through the earliest and most operationally complex phase of a roll-up build: identifying acquisition targets, structuring deals, and integrating AI to drive margin improvement and efficiency across acquired businesses. Tenet's focus is on the European SMB and Mittelstand market, where large numbers of small professional services firms face acute succession challenges, creating a supply of acquisition targets that founders can consolidate. The firm positions AI not as a software layer sold to these businesses, but as an embedded operational capability built into the roll-up platform itself. Deal flow is sourced through the team's deep networks across Berlin, London, and Central Europe, as well as through its advisor community of active roll-up founders.
Notable Investments
Tenet's first and only announced investment to date is Taxforce, a German AI-native tax advisory platform that is acquiring and modernizing traditional tax advisory firms across Germany. The company was founded by Burkhard Reffeling, formerly Head of Engineering at Klarna, and Caspar Gerleve, an experienced fintech entrepreneur. Tenet led the €5 million inception-stage round into Taxforce, making it a clear signal of how the firm intends to deploy its fund: backing highly credentialed technical founders taking a buy-and-build approach to sectors where AI can drive structural change.
Notable Exits
As a firm launched in February 2026, Tenet has no exits to report at this time.
Other
Founders considering Tenet should understand that this is not a traditional VC fund in terms of the model it backs. Tenet does not invest in pure SaaS or software-only companies. It is specifically built for founders pursuing an acquisitive, platform-building strategy in professional services, where AI is used to transform the underlying economics of existing businesses rather than sell software to them. Founders need to have a credible thesis around which service sector they are targeting, why it is ripe for consolidation, and how AI will be deployed post-acquisition. Given the fund's hybrid VC and private equity DNA, founders who come from operator, finance, or M&A backgrounds are likely to be well-received.
Alexander Maly - General Partner
Sahil Patwa - General Partner
Simon Lohmann - General Partner & COO
Germany
