AMSTERDAM, June 9, 2026 — Today, the Amsterdam-based specialist venture capital firm Curiosity officially announced the first close of its second fund: Curiosity Fund II. The fund has gathered €17 million in  commitments to capitalize on the current inflection in applied AI, where vertical, AI-native software providers and agentic services are challenging legacy players across industries. 

The firm’s co-founder and managing partner Herman Kienhuis on the thesis behind Fund II:

“Applied AI is moving from demos to deployments. The next wave of category-defining European software companies will be built on top of vertical AI, solving specific, high-value problems inside industries like finance, legal, real estate, energy, manufacturing and cybersecurity. Fund II doubles down on what worked in Fund I: being one of the first checks for founders who understand those industries deeply and offering a platform for growth through our AI founder community and broader network.”

Building on the Success of Fund I

This second fund builds directly upon the track record of Fund I, which backed 23 early-stage AI startups across the Benelux, Nordics, and Baltics. Across the portfolio, 10 companies have collectively raised more than €84 million in follow-on capital so far. Fund I demonstrated the potential of applied AI, with portfolio companies achieving technological breakthroughs in enterprise software, fintech, legaltech, real estate, marketing & sales automation, cybersecurity and beyond. Standout examples of these investments include:

• Strise (Oslo): Automating anti-money laundering (AML) and KYC compliance for banks, fintechs and professional services firms. Strise’s AI-driven intelligence system detects complex financial crime. Following seed backing from Curiosity, the company secured a €10 million Series A led by Atomico to scale its solution internationally and across verticals.
• Orq.ai (Amsterdam): Pioneering the collaboration and infrastructure layer for enterprise AI. After recently closing a €5 million round (bringing total funding to €7.3 million), Orq.ai now serves over 100 engineering and product teams scaling AI agents on a sovereign stack in compliance with the EU AI Act and GDPR.
• Dreamdata (Copenhagen): Emerging as the definitive B2B revenue attribution platform for the AI era. Dreamdata last year secured a $55 million Series B from US investor PeakSpan to accelerate its international expansion, empowering hundreds of B2B companies globally to track customer journeys and attribute revenue.
• Altura (Amsterdam): Transforming public and private tendering through next-generation AI bid management. Following an initial seed round led by Curiosity, Altura closed an €8 million Series A led by Octopus Ventures in 2025. This capital is driving Altura's expansion into the UK market and the development of its AI-native bid workflow platform, empowering organizations to structure, collaborate on, and win more proposals.

A Community-Driven Approach to Growth

Curiosity continues to leverage its unique community-driven investment model. This model allows supported entrepreneurs and expert advisors to share in the profits from the funds, aligning incentives across founders, advisors, and LPs. Through this network of AI founders, advisors and ecosystem partners, Curiosity gives pre-seed and seed founders a support platform built for international growth. In the same spirit, Curiosity has pledged 10% of its carried interest profits to the Curiosity Foundation, which aims to stimulate entrepreneurship among underrepresented groups, as a way of investing back into a more diverse and inclusive tech ecosystem.

Expanding Across Europe to Fund Vertical AI

With Fund II, Curiosity will keep its primary focus on investments in the Benelux, Nordics and Baltics regions, but will also selectively co-invest alongside like-minded investors in other European AI hubs, such as London, Berlin and Paris. As the AI software market shows significant growth potential and as Europe pushes for more tech sovereignty and responsible AI solutions, Curiosity's targeted approach is well-suited to capture that opportunity: deep specialization in vertical AI and agentic services, early conviction, and a portfolio of founders building European software companies on European terms.

Backed by entrepreneurs, family offices and the Dutch government

Curiosity Fund II is backed by 44 private investors, many of them successful entrepreneurs, as well as by the Dutch government through the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) Seed Capital arrangement, under which it provides matching funding for Dutch investments alongside private commitments. Following today’s official launch of the fund, Curiosity is open for new investor commitments until a final close later this year, targeting a total fund size of €30-40 million.

About Curiosity VC

Founded in 2021 by experienced investors and former operators Herman Kienhuis and Maurice Beckand Verwée, Curiosity is a Dutch venture capital firm operating out of Amsterdam. The firm focuses on pre-seed and seed investments in European AI-centric software companies. Across Fund I and Fund II, Curiosity has invested in 24 portfolio companies, such as Altura, Dawnguard, Dema, Dreamdata, Moonlit, Neople, Onesurance, Orq.ai, QA.tech and Strise, with combined assets under management of €50 million. For more information, see www.curiosityvc.com or email hello@curiosityvc.com.

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