Pre-seed & seed · Deeptech · Pan-European

From atoms,
to altitude.

The Athens-born deeptech fund backing founders who change how the world works — not just how it scrolls.

Pitch Skybound ↗

$38M

First close, oversubscribed — as reported, tech.eu

EIF

Anchor LP — European Investment Fund

€0.5–2M

First cheques, conviction from day one

15–20

Companies. Concentrated by design

Alt 00 · Mission — verbatim

Skybound empowers dreamers who dare to reach higher, shaping a better tomorrow through breakthrough innovation.

“We back founders with a massive chip on their shoulder. The ones obsessed with atoms, not just bits.”

George Varvarelis · Co-founder & GP — tech.eu, May 2026

Alt 01 · Flight crew · 12 km

Two operators. One direction of travel.

They didn’t meet at a conference. She advised the company he built — then they raised a fund together.

Co-founder & General Partner

Thaleia Misailidou

The capital half

Seven years at Marathon Venture Capital, rising to Principal. Mechanical engineering at NTUA, financial engineering at Imperial College London, M&A Industrials at Merrill Lynch. She has sat on the LP side of EIF underwriting — experience that matters when your anchor is the EIF.

“Europe doesn’t need another passive fund, it needs investors who understand the grind, move at founder pace, and go all-in when they believe.”

NTUA→Imperial→Merrill Lynch→Marathon VC→Skybound

LinkedIn ↗

Co-founder & General Partner

George Varvarelis

The operator half

A kid from his uncle’s corn fields with a PhD in engineering from the University of Thessaly. Built Augmenta — real-time crop-sensing hardware riding on working tractors — to ~60 people across the EU and US. Acquired by CNH Industrial in 2023; then Engineering Head of CNH’s Global Sense & Act division.

Field to founder to exit — he engineered his way back from the fields, and now writes the first cheques he never got.

Thessaly (PhD)→Metka→Augmenta→CNH Industrial→Skybound

LinkedIn ↗

Tarik DutkunerPrincipalLinkedIn ↗

Natalie DayanAssociateLinkedIn ↗

Dr. Stefanos ZafeiriouVenture PartnerLinkedIn ↗

Ivana Henckel von DonnersmarckVenture PartnerLinkedIn ↗

Alt 02 · Flight plan · 32 km

Atoms, not bits.

Four frontiers, one filter: it has to work in the physical world.

01 / Domain

Infrastructure

The physical backbone — energy, industry, the systems Europe actually runs on.

02 / Domain

Advanced computing

Silicon, embedded systems, machines that compute at the edge of physics.

03 / Domain

Bioengineering

Electrodes, organisms, interfaces — engineering that touches living systems.

04 / Domain

Frontier technologies

The bets that look too early. That’s the point.

// Not our lane: pure software with no deeptech angle. If it only changes how the world scrolls, we pass — and we say so before you book the meeting.

Pre-seed + Seed

Stage — we lead

€0.5–2M

First cheque

+€2M

Follow-on, doubled down

15–20

Positions — every winner moves the fund

“Our model is simple: back the boldest founders early, stay true through the journey, and build category-defining companies together.” — skybound.vc, investment approach, verbatim

Alt 03 · Why Skybound · 52 km

Hardcore operators, at altitude.

From skybound.vc — “Why choose Skybound”, verbatim

“We are hardcore operators at heart — having built products in global companies, led teams of hundreds, and driven growth through both startup and corporate M&A. We know the grind of finding product–market fit, scaling teams, and breaking into markets, and we bring that hands-on experience and hunger to help founders move faster, scale smarter, and aim higher.”

We’ve shipped hardware.

Augmenta went from an Athens workshop to ~60 people on two continents to a CNH Industrial acquisition. Your GP has stood on the factory floor — and on the tractor.

Institutional spine.

Anchored by the European Investment Fund, with institutional and family-office LPs behind it. Underwriting-grade discipline from day one — Thaleia spent seven years on the other side of that table.

The Athens vantage.

A pan-European mandate flown from outside the Munich–Paris–London axis. We see the founders the axis misses — and we get to them first.

Concentrated conviction.

Fifteen to twenty positions, with real follow-on reserves. Every winner moves the fund. No index of maybes.

Where the record was earned — anchor LP · the exit · the seven years

European Investment Fund — anchor LP of Fund I

CNH Industrial — acquired George’s Augmenta, 2023

Marathon VC — Thaleia’s seven years, to Principal

Alt 04 · Portfolio · 72 km

Position 01: a soft interface to the human brain.

A concentrated Fund I fills slowly, on conviction. Here is the first bet — led, not followed.

Fund I · Position 01 · Seed — Lead investor

Skybound led Neurosoft Bioelectronics’ $7.5M oversubscribed seed — soft, stretchable, sub-millimeter electrodes that rest on the surface of the brain instead of penetrating it. Swiss engineering, New York operations, and clinical data no generalist seed fund was ready to underwrite on day one.

Alongside Protocol Labs · IAG Capital Partners · Connecticut Innovations

$7.5M

Oversubscribed seed — Skybound led

10 · 2

Patients · clinical trials

25+

Patents

25+

Peer-reviewed papers

Why we led — the engineering, in one picture

Rigid Soft

The bet: sub-millimeter, stretchable electrodes that conform to the cortex instead of piercing it — unprecedented neural data, no tissue damage. Engineering no generalist seed fund was ready to underwrite on day one.

“Their stretchable, sub-millimeter electrodes are a feat of engineering that finally allows us to interface seamlessly with the brain without damaging it… gathering the unprecedented neural data required to map and decode the human cortex at scale.”

George Varvarelis, on leading the Neurosoft seed

PosCompanySectorStatus

01Neurosoft Bioelectronics ↗Brain-computer interfacesSeed — Lead · 2026

02TBA——

03TBA——

Two slots read TBA because that’s the truth. Fifteen to twenty positions will fill this manifest — on conviction, not on calendar.

Alt 05 · 100 km — Kármán line

Building with atoms? Send it up.

Pre-seed or seed, anywhere in Europe, technically complex by design. Skybound runs on two GPs — your pitch isn’t going to a committee.

Submit your startup ↗ Visit skybound.vc ↗

Thaleia — LinkedIn ↗ George — LinkedIn ↗

Hiring — Analyst & Associate, Athens · join@skybound.vc

Unsolicited concept redesign by Keep Pivoting — not affiliated with Skybound Venture Capital. See the official site →