First Momentum Ventures

We’re beyond excited to introduce the new Venture Scouts at First Momentum Ventures! Please give them a warm welcome: 🪐 Maximilian Edenhofer – As a Management and Technology student at the Technical University of Munich, Maximilian specializes in Mechanical Engineering. Over the past years, he has been an integral part of the TUfast Eco Team, where he and his team build 100% solar-powered, high-performance vehicles. 🪐 Nina Hierhager – With internships at UBS, Baker Tilly, and Macquarie Group under her belt, Nina combines financial sector expertise with insights gained through her studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and involvement with START Munich. 🪐 Jan-Philipp Groth – Studying International Management and Business Law at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Jan-Philipp gained hands-on startup experience at SureIn . 🪐 Alberto Messina – Studying Management Engineering at Sapienza Università di Roma and TU Munich, Alberto is now co-leading a Quantum Computing Entrepreneurship program at TUM’s Chair for Strategy and Organization. At First Momentum Ventures, our Scouts play a crucial role in discovering and supporting groundbreaking tech startups. They empower founders and our fund to transform visionary ideas into thriving businesses. Interested in spotting Europe’s next big startups while gaining hands-on VC experience? Join our Venture Scout team! Learn more here: https://2ly.link/24L5U #FirstMomentum #VentureCapital #DeepTech #IndustrialTech #B2B #VentureScouts #StartupJobs #VCJobs

Feeling the February blues? Time to shake things up and grow your career! 📈 Join one of our 30+ First Momentum Ventures portfolio companies and make an impact from day one. 😃 👉 https://2ly.link/246ug 🌊 Brineworks: Sustainable, affordable, and abundant sourcing of CO2 Roles: Water Engineer, Pilot Engineer, Instrumentation and Control Engineer (All Amsterdam) 👉 More here: https://2ly.link/246tG 📷 Lightly: Helping machine learning teams curate better datasets for AI models. Roles: Machine Learning Engineer (OSS), (Senior) Full-Stack Engineer (Remote), Machine Learning Evangelist (Zurich) 👉 More here: https://2ly.link/246tI 🏭 Daedalus: Building the autonomous factories of the future with AI and robotics. Roles: Technical Product Designer, Working Student / Minijob Technician, Technical Training Manager (All Karlsruhe) 👉 More here: https://2ly.link/246tM 💳 Pliant: Revolutionizing corporate credit cards with seamless automation and flexibility. Roles: (Senior) Insurance Partnership Manager, Junior Finance Analyst, Brand Design Lead (Berlin), Finance Manager (Helsinki), Software Engineer - Frontend (Remote) 👉 More here: https://2ly.link/246tN P.S. We at First Momentum Ventures are hiring, too! Roles: Investment Intern, Operations & Platform Intern, Finance & Investor Relations Manager (Munich or Remote) 👉 More here: https://2ly.link/246tO Didn’t find the right fit? Set up a job alert to get notified when new roles match your profile: https://2ly.link/246ug #startupjobs #hiring #deeptech #techjobs #b2b #VCNetwork #remotejobs #vcjobs #FirstMomentum

We're thrilled to announce that Florian Steinmetzger has joined our team! 🎉 Florian comes to us from Leipzig University, where he earned a Master's in Management Science. With a background that includes roles at SPRIND - Bundesagentur für Sprunginnovationen and the startup MAIA, he's perfectly poised to engage with some of Europe's most groundbreaking tech innovators. "Having collaborated during the last Spinoff Summit, I was truly inspired by First Momentum's origin and mission. The enthusiasm for supporting innovators and scientists is truly contagious, and I am excited to immerse myself in transformative projects every day." At First Momentum Ventures, Florian will enhance our Venture Scout community, aiding our portfolio companies in scaling up, tapping into emerging tech trends, and fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous learning. Welcome aboard, Flo! We're excited to see the impact you'll make. 🚀 👉 Interested in joining one of Europe's leading Deep Tech VCs? Explore our open positions in the comments below. #firstmomentum #team #vcnews #vcjobs #vcplatform

Our first commercial plant in Miajadas, Spain is now fully operational and producing Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) at injection quality - it’s a world’s first! 🎉 We now operate the largest electrolyzer in Extremadura and the second-largest electrolyzer in Spain used for decarbonizing the European industry. And it’s the first time renewable natural gas has been produced in Spain. ✅ All permits have been received for the Electrolysis Plant in Extremadura (Spain) to start RNG production. ✅ The plant has been commissioned and is ready for commercial operation. ✅ A successful 100-hour test run confirmed consistent production of RNG at injection quality. This achievement marks a significant step in our mission to drive sustainable energy solutions. We’re so proud of our team for this achievement, and look forward to scaling even further! 🚀

📈 The First Analytics Service for Kafka 📈 We are thrilled to share that our portfolio company, Streambased, has raised a $2.7m Seed round from lead investor Elaia and investors Seedcamp, TKM, and us, First Momentum Ventures. In a world where #ApacheKafka is critical to business operations, most organizations struggle with the Insights Loop: delays caused by traditional workflows that require engineering to prepare data for analytics. Streambased eliminates these bottlenecks by turning Apache Kafka into a genuine platform for ad-hoc exploration, delivering: • Up to 100x faster query performance on raw Kafka data. • Unified access to live and historical data for deeper insights. • Seamless integration with tools like #Tableau, #PowerBI, and other BI tools to meet teams where they already work. Congratulations to the entire Streambased team around Tom Scott and Leo Delmouly on their Seed Round 👏 Interested in learning more? Check out the demo on Streambased's website. #firstmomentum #streambased #apachekafka #fundraisingnews #data #streaming #analytics #devtools

Our first commercial plant in Miajadas, Spain is now fully operational and producing Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) at injection quality - it’s a world’s first! 🎉 We now operate the largest electrolyzer in Extremadura and the second-largest electrolyzer in Spain used for decarbonizing the European industry. And it’s the first time renewable natural gas has been produced in Spain. ✅ All permits have been received for the Electrolysis Plant in Extremadura (Spain) to start RNG production. ✅ The plant has been commissioned and is ready for commercial operation. ✅ A successful 100-hour test run confirmed consistent production of RNG at injection quality. This achievement marks a significant step in our mission to drive sustainable energy solutions. We’re so proud of our team for this achievement, and look forward to scaling even further! 🚀

⚛️ Breaking the Scaling Barrier for Quantum Computers ⚛️ We are thrilled to announce our investment in ZuriQ, building the most robust and scalable Quantum Computer of the future. The team of brilliant scientists and engineers around founders Pavel Hrmo, Tobias Sägesser, and Shreyans Jain raised a $4.2m Seed round, led by Founderful, with participation from SquareOne Venture Capital, Onsight Ventures, QAI Ventures, and us, First Momentum Ventures. ZuriQ is developing a quantum computer based on Penning Ion traps, where charged ions that function as qubits, the fundamental units of quantum information, are confined in two dimensions with electromagnetic fields. Ion traps are one of the most mature platforms but face inherent scaling and connectivity challenges. Penning Traps is an exciting approach to overcoming these challenges and scaling Ion trap quantum computers. ZuriQ plans to demonstrate a working prototype in 2026. Congratulations to the ZuriQ team on their Seed Round, and welcome to the First Momentum family! 👏 Announcement & press coverage in the comments 👇 #zuriq #firstmomentum #deeptech #quantumcomputing #fundingannouncements #startupnews

⚛️ Breaking the Scaling Barrier for Quantum Computers ⚛️ We are thrilled to announce our investment in ZuriQ, building the most robust and scalable Quantum Computer of the future. The team of brilliant scientists and engineers around founders Pavel Hrmo, Tobias Sägesser, and Shreyans Jain raised a $4.2m Seed round, led by Founderful, with participation from SquareOne Venture Capital, Onsight Ventures, QAI Ventures, and us, First Momentum Ventures. ZuriQ is developing a quantum computer based on Penning Ion traps, where charged ions that function as qubits, the fundamental units of quantum information, are confined in two dimensions with electromagnetic fields. Ion traps are one of the most mature platforms but face inherent scaling and connectivity challenges. Penning Traps is an exciting approach to overcoming these challenges and scaling Ion trap quantum computers. ZuriQ plans to demonstrate a working prototype in 2026. Congratulations to the ZuriQ team on their Seed Round, and welcome to the First Momentum family! 👏 Announcement & press coverage in the comments 👇 #zuriq #firstmomentum #deeptech #quantumcomputing #fundingannouncements #startupnews

🛳️✈️ Green Fuels: Can Ships and Airplanes Become Climate-Neutral? In our latest industry briefing, Anke Gratz and Cristina Doumitrachko from DTCF | DeepTech & Climate Fonds shared their expertise on green fuel as a carbon-neutral solution in shipping and aviation. 👉 If you’d like to catch the whole discussion, check out the YouTube video here: https://2ly.link/23T4U 🔌 The Challenge Sectors like aviation and shipping are difficult to electrify, but their decarbonization remains critical, as these industries contribute significantly to global emissions. While electrification works for many areas, green fuels step in where batteries fall short. Batteries lack the energy density required for long-range operations and struggle to perform in harsh conditions. 🛢 What Makes a Fuel “Green”? Green fuels rely on green inputs like renewable energy and captured carbon, ensuring a closed carbon cycle. Processes like power-to-liquid and power-to-gas enable the sustainable production of e-fuels for shipping, aviation, and the chemical sector. 🔬 Key areas of technological innovation • Enhancing process efficiency, such as optimizing heat management in reactor engineering. • Refining process calibration, including improvements in syngas composition. • Advancing material technologies, like the development of innovative catalysts. • Streamlining process integration, ensuring seamless connections between distinct process stages. • Simplifying scalability, using modular or containerized configurations for ease of deployment. 💰 Investment Opportunities The success of green fuel startups depends on high technical readiness, strategically placed test facilities, and adaptable business models that bridge the green premium gap. Therefore, key investment areas include scalable technologies, site optimization, and market adaptability. In this deep dive, you can find companies like INERATEC (modular e-fuel plants), Liquid Wind (wind-to-liquid), Synhelion (sun-to-liquid), and many more. Our portfolio companies, Brineworks and TURN2X, are active in adjacent markets. Brineworks sources CO₂ via seawater electrolysis to enable large-scale e-fuel production, while TURN2X generates e-LNG via methanation, which is ideal as a green drop-in fuel for the maritime sector. 👉 For more deep dives and industry insights, follow First Momentum Ventures on LinkedIn! #greenfuels #decarbonization #energyTransition #sustainableaviation #maritimeinnovation #climatetech #venturecapital #dtcf #firstmomentum #deeptech #industrialtech

We're ecstatic to announce the latest additions to our Venture Scouts team at First Momentum Ventures! 🎉 Please welcome our new members: 🪐 Vincent Adler – Currently an In-house Project Manager at bootstrapped energy startup Greenflash, Vincent was previously part of TUM Boring – Innovation in Tunneling e.V., the winning team of Elon Musk's Not-a-Boring Competition. He also spent part of his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, expanding our reach to German founders in the valley. 🪐 Julia Schaefer – Currently a Medical Doctor student at the Technical University of Munich, Julia is also one of the Co-Managing Directors of Nucleate Germany, an international initiative dedicated to empowering the next generation of biotech leaders. She previously combined multiple research stints at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and DKFZ German Cancer Research Center with VC experience at HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds. 🪐 Gaurav Dev – Working in the innovation team of our portfolio company, Kipu Quantum, Gaurav is predominantly a data science student at the Technical University of Munich. He is passionate about scientific research and tech entrepreneurship, strongly focusing on developing quantum & ML algorithms for finance. At First Momentum Ventures, our Scouts are essential in scouting and supporting cutting-edge tech startups. They help both founders and our fund transform groundbreaking ideas into thriving businesses. Are you interested in discovering Europe's next big startups and gaining invaluable VC experience? Join our team as a Venture Scout. Learn more here: https://2ly.link/23JqD #FirstMomentum #VentureCapital #DeepTech #IndustrialTech #B2B #VentureScouts #StartupJobs #VCJobs