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Nucleus Capital
Nucleus Capital backs technical teams at the nucleus of their journey, rewiring the fabric of modern life through biology, food, and industrial systems.
Nucleus Capital
Nucleus Capital backs technical teams at the nucleus of their journey, rewiring the fabric of modern life through biology, food, and industrial systems. They are thesis-driven high conviction investors with a concentrated portfolio active in Europe and the US. They write first checks of up to €1,0M and lead or co-lead as first believers, with a support model built for scientific deep-tech ventures.
General information
Firm type
Private Equity
Year founded
2021
Location
Region
Europe
Country
Germany
City
Berlin
Corporate office
Berlin, Germany
Principals
Dr. Isabella Fandrych
General Partner
Maximilian Schwarz
General Partner
Dr. Carolina Villa
Principal
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Nucleus Capital?
General Partners Dr. Isabella Fandrych and Maximilian Schwarz run the firm. Fandrych focuses on Neo Industrials and corporate relationships; Schwarz leads Food Tech and Programmable Biology. Principal Dr. Carolina Villa handles technical due diligence for biology deals, with particular expertise in bioprocess scale-up and techno-economic analysis. The firm's website states founders work only with decision-makers — implying the GP group makes all investment calls directly.
What investment stages does Nucleus Capital typically target?
The firm writes first checks, explicitly leading or co-leading pre-seed and seed rounds with commitments of up to €1M. It describes itself as engaging when direction is still being encoded — which in practice means pre-product, pre-revenue, and often pre-institutional syndicate formation. The concentrated portfolio and thesis-driven posture discourage later-stage follow-on deployment as a primary strategy.
Which sectors does Nucleus Capital explicitly avoid?
Nucleus's stated sector focus — Programmable Biology, Food Technology, and Neo Industrials — excludes enterprise SaaS, consumer internet, fintech, and generalist software. The firm is explicit that its support model is built for scientific ventures, and it actively rejects the SaaS playbook for deep-tech. That has the effect of avoiding any sector where capital efficiency alone, rather than technical risk and industrial scaling, is the dominant underwriting criterion.
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