Noctua Launches With €15 Million as Erste and Verbund Back University Spin-Off Fund

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Austria’s universities conduct world-class research but produce too few startups, and a new fund now wants to get that value out of the lecture halls.

Noctua Science Ventures, the pre-seed fund for deep tech spin-offs from Austrian universities and research institutions, has completed its first closing at €15 million. Investors include Erste Group, Verbund X Ventures, the federal promotional bank Austria Wirtschaftsservice (aws) and the fund of funds Allocator One, along with several deep tech entrepreneurs. Further investors are to be admitted selectively in the coming months, with a target fund size of up to €25 million.

Speedinvest and Five Universities

Noctua is backed by a joint venture originally founded by Speedinvest and TU Wien. TU Graz, Montanuniversität Leoben, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU) and Johannes Kepler University Linz have since joined the operating company. Speedinvest also acts as the fund’s regulatory manager (AIFM). Noctua is led by investment lead Philipp Stangl and portfolio lead Lukas Rippitsch.

"Cutting-edge research only realizes its full value when it finds its way to market, but there is often a lack of private financing for high-risk deep tech projects," says Stangl. For Allocator One, which invests exclusively in emerging fund managers worldwide, Noctua is its largest investment in a European fund to date, according to founder Michael Ströck.

Up to €500,000 per Spin-Off

Noctua plans up to ten investments per year and can commit up to €500,000 as lead investor in a spin-off’s very first financing round. It invests across technologies and throughout Austria, explicitly including spin-offs from institutions outside its shareholder group. Beyond capital, the fund aims to help with technology transfer and IP strategy, pair scientific founders with experienced entrepreneurs and make sure cap tables are set up for later financing rounds from the start.

In total, up to 40 spin-offs are set to receive funding. “We believe this is a good size for a pure pre-seed strategy with a national focus; after all, we want to remain very selective and can only invest in the very best spin-out teams,” Stangl told Trending Topics.

When it comes to AI, Noctua draws a clear line. The fund is looking for spin-outs that are often backed by years of research, frequently including patents or other robust intellectual property. Vibe coding is a tool for moving faster on secondary topics such as go-to-market, Stangl said. “If the IP is based purely on an AI-generated codebase and the focus is therefore more on execution, it is not an investment case for us.”

Noctua has already made several investments, two of which are public: Vienna-based spin-off Turn-Motion and Graz-based TU spin-off DiLT Analytics, whose software detects faults in building technology.

A Small Fund for a Big Gap

The need is there. In Austria, much of the intellectual property generated by research goes unused, and the number of spin-offs is low by EU standards. Money is also getting scarcer at the earliest stage: smaller early-stage funds struggle to raise new capital without exits, as investors recently pointed out in Trending Topics’ Founders Dispatch.

At €15 million to €25 million, however, Noctua is a comparatively small fund. With ten deals a year and initial tickets of up to €500,000, there is little room for follow-on financing, which is often much larger for deep tech companies.

Stangl is betting on specialization: “We have found a specific niche and want to be excellent in that niche.” That means a deep understanding of Austria’s scientific ecosystem and the challenges spin-offs face, so the fund can spot the best teams early and support them in a targeted way. Noctua is also not alone in this niche: xista science ventures in Vienna and tecnet equity in Lower Austria also finance research-based startups at an early stage, and aws supports spin-offs through its own programs. More early-stage capital could also come from the federal government’s planned fund of funds, which is explicitly meant to invest in funds for university spin-offs as well.