identity.vc
ActiveVenture Capital
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Financial History
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Leadership Team
Key people at identity.vc.
Key people at identity.vc.
identity.vc (also known as Identity Ventures) is Europe’s first dedicated venture capital impact fund focused on LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs, with a mission to back early-stage startups that have LGBTQ+ representation in leadership—founders or C-level executives. The firm believes that diverse leadership drives superior innovation and financial performance, and it aims to close the funding gap faced by LGBTQ+ founders in Europe while building a strong, visible community of queer entrepreneurs and investors.
The fund is sector-agnostic and invests across all industries, focusing on technology-driven companies from pre-seed to Series A stages, primarily in Europe but also considering opportunities beyond. With a target fund size of €50 million (Art. 9 SFDR impact fund), identity.vc writes checks ranging from €250,000 to €1.5 million (up to $3 million in some descriptions), combining capital with community-building to support founders who often face unique challenges in traditional venture ecosystems. By centering LGBTQ+ leadership, the firm is redefining norms in European venture capital and helping to make diversity a core competitive advantage in the startup landscape.
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identity.vc was founded in 2023 by Til Klein and Jochen Beutgen, with Mari Luukkainen joining as Principal. Til Klein, a former BCG partner, UBS banker, and fintech founder based in Zurich, brought deep strategic and operational experience, while Jochen Beutgen, a Berlin-based family office investor with over two decades of venture capital exposure, contributed extensive investment expertise and network access. The firm emerged from a recognition that while LGBTQ+ founders in the U.S. had begun to see more targeted support, Europe lacked a dedicated, institutional-scale vehicle for LGBTQ+–led startups.
The idea was not just to replicate existing models like Gaingels, but to build a traditional, standalone venture fund—rather than a syndicate—so it could make follow-on investments and establish long-term partnerships with portfolio companies. The decision to target a €50 million debut fund (rather than starting smaller) was intentional: to signal seriousness about the opportunity and to generate sufficient management fees to fund both investing and community-building efforts across Europe. Since launch, identity.vc has positioned itself as both a capital provider and a community anchor for LGBTQ+ founders and investors on the continent.
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identity.vc is riding two powerful trends: the growing recognition that diverse teams outperform homogenous ones, and the increasing demand for impact-aligned investing in venture capital. In Europe, where LGBTQ+ founders remain significantly underfunded relative to their share of the population and entrepreneurial activity, identity.vc fills a critical gap by providing both capital and legitimacy to queer-led ventures.
The timing is particularly significant as European regulators push for greater transparency around social and environmental impact (via SFDR), and LPs increasingly seek funds that combine strong returns with measurable social outcomes. identity.vc’s Art. 9 classification positions it at the forefront of this shift, showing that impact and performance are not trade-offs.
Moreover, the firm is helping to normalize LGBTQ+ leadership in tech and beyond, challenging the still-persistent bias in traditional VC circles. By building a visible, connected ecosystem of LGBTQ+ founders, operators, and investors, identity.vc is not just funding startups—it’s reshaping the culture of European venture, making it more inclusive, innovative, and resilient.
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Looking ahead, identity.vc is poised to become a benchmark for identity-conscious impact investing in Europe. As it continues to raise toward its €50 million target and expand its portfolio, the firm will likely deepen its influence by setting best practices for how VCs can support underrepresented founders without tokenizing them.
Future success will depend not only on strong deal flow and returns but also on how effectively it scales its community infrastructure—events, mentorship networks, and cross-border collaboration—into a self-sustaining ecosystem. If it can demonstrate that LGBTQ+-led companies consistently outperform peers, it may catalyze a wave of similar funds and force mainstream VCs to rethink their diversity strategies.
Ultimately, identity.vc’s legacy may be less about the individual startups it backs and more about the norm it helps establish: that embracing LGBTQ+ leadership isn’t just “nice to have”—it’s a strategic imperative for innovation and performance. In that sense, the firm isn’t just funding the future of tech; it’s helping to define what an equitable, high-performing European startup ecosystem should look like.
Key people at identity.vc.
