Less Sugar, More AI: How Red Bull Ventures Is Spending Its €200 Million
Around a year after its launch, it’s becoming clear where the journey is headed for Red Bull Ventures. The corporate VC arm of the beverage giant from Fuschl am See, which officially launched in 2025 after months in stealth mode, has now built up a visible portfolio – and with US-Korean video AI company Twelve Labs, it has just made its most prominent investment to date.
The fund’s website currently lists five portfolio companies – and strikingly, the investments closely mirror the focus areas Red Bull Ventures defined at launch: Sports & Human Performance, Consumer Engagement, Media Tech, and Supply Chain. Here’s an overview:
The Red Bull Ventures Portfolio
Liom (Switzerland): Founded in 2017 by Leo Grünstein, the HealthTech startup from Pfäffikon in the canton of Schwyz (formerly Spiden) is developing the world’s first non-invasive glucose wearable – blood sugar monitoring on the wrist, entirely without needles. Red Bull Ventures came on board in December 2025 as part of a CHF 13 million Series A extension, alongside former On co-CEO Marc Maurer; total funding now stands at CHF 63 million. The fit with Red Bull is obvious: real-time biomarkers for athletes and health-conscious consumers.
Zya (United Kingdom): The London-based FoodTech startup, founded by Oxford graduates Joshua Sauer and Niels Wicke (formerly Inulox), has developed an enzyme called Convero that converts up to 30 percent of sugar into dietary fiber in the digestive tract – while keeping the taste unchanged. For a company whose core product is sugary drinks, a strategically obvious move.
Algori (Spain): The AI-powered shopper insights platform from Madrid provides FMCG manufacturers and retailers with granular, near-real-time purchase data at SKU level, based on around 45,000 active panel participants per week in Spain – its AI-based analysis of receipts replaces traditional household surveys. Red Bull Ventures participated in a €3.6 million round in December 2025; expansion is planned first for Poland, Germany, and France, and later Latin America.
Kinexon (Germany): The Munich-based sports tech company is an established player in real-time tracking. Kinexon provides player and ball tracking with advanced analytics that help teams, coaches, and leagues improve performance and decision-making – its technology is used in the NBA, NFL, and football, among others. An investment that fits perfectly with the Red Bull sports empire from Leipzig to Salzburg.
Dorsia (USA): Founded in 2021 by Joshua Stern and Marc Lotenberg, the Miami-based members-only platform gives paying members priority access to high-demand restaurants, nightlife, and luxury experiences. Dorsia has raised a total of $50.4 million to date, including from Index Ventures and Invus. Here, Red Bull is investing in consumer engagement and premium hospitality.
Latest Investment: Twelve Labs and the Future of Video Understanding
The biggest deal so far, however, is Red Bull Ventures’ most recent one: video AI company Twelve Labs has closed a $100 million Series B, co-led by NEA and Naver Ventures – with Red Bull Ventures on board alongside Amazon, Radical Ventures, Index Ventures, and Korea Investment Partners. The startup’s total funding now exceeds $207 million.
Founded by Jae-sung Lee, the San Francisco-based company with Korean roots builds foundation models that understand video natively – rather than splitting videos into individual screenshots, as today’s LLMs do. Its flagship products, Marengo 3.0 and Pegasus 1.5, convert video material into machine-readable, searchable data structures and identify scenes, entities, and events over time. As part of the investment, Twelve Labs has also signed a multi-year agreement with AWS to optimize video inference workloads for Trainium chips.
For Red Bull, which owns one of the world’s largest sports and action video archives through Red Bull Media House, the investment is naturally an exciting one: whoever owns millions of hours of footage wants to make it searchable, analyzable, and monetizable.
Red Bull Ventures: Around €200 Million for “Visionary Entrepreneurs”
For context: Red Bull Ventures was founded in 2025 and is Red Bull’s corporate venture capital arm, headquartered in Fuschl am See. Previously, the company had only invested in startups indirectly through funds such as Speedinvest, Fund F, Calm/Storm, 3VC, and xista; according to media reports – we were the first to report on this – the fund is targeting a volume of around €200 million.
The focus is on early-stage investments across six areas: media and entertainment technologies, advanced manufacturing & supply chain, sports & human performance, digital innovation, consumer engagement & retail, and sustainability. The fund is led by Nai-Tseng Chen (Global Head, Salzburg) and Dr. Sabrina Jones (Head of Investments, Vienna); the team has been expanded to include Investment Associate Nik Skalik and Fund Operations Analyst Anita Reizelsdorfer, and operates out of Salzburg and Vienna.
The pattern after year one: Red Bull Ventures invests broadly across Europe and the US, but very recognizably along the company’s own DNA of sports, health, consumer, and media. With Twelve Labs, frontier AI has now arrived in the portfolio as well.
