Silicon Gardens is an early-stage, founders-for-founders fund based in Slovenia, with an office in Palo Alto. The firm is led by entrepreneurs who have scaled and sold their own companies, and is backed by more than 110 founders and operators from across Europe and the US.
Silicon Gardens is currently investing out of its third fund, with €33 million in AUM. Vuk Lau, the fund's Partner, told Vestbee more about its strategy and approach.
Fund strategy overview
Geography: Europe and the US
Preferred industries: sector agnostic
Investment ticket: average initial ticket size is $500k-1M
Company stage: pre-seed and seed
Product type: agnostic
Product stage: pre-product+
Revenues: pre-revenue+
Q&A with Vuk Lau, Partner at Silicon Gardens
What are the 5 main things you look for in a startup?
Naturally, since we invest at the earliest stages, we focus first on the team and the size of the market. Within the team, what matters most is speed of execution and an obsession with distribution. In the market, a strong pull is always a good sign — though depending on the industry and the startup's stage, that pull isn't always easy to read.
What disqualifies a startup as your potential investment target?
A lack of ambition and a lack of transparency, both of which you can sense quickly. Ambition and transparency are essential for a successful collaboration over the years to come.
What, in your opinion, differentiates the best founders from the rest?
Crazy ambition, an obsession with distribution, and intimate knowledge of the market they operate in. And if the founders are great at fundraising and have already built high-performing teams, the funding tends to follow.
What startups should take into account before making a deal with a VC fund?
I always say that founders should do their due diligence on the fund, just as we investors do ours on them. Ask the partners to introduce you to their best and most relevant portfolio founders, to open doors to potential customers, or to introduce you to the talent you're missing. Ask the partners whether they can connect you with the follow-on funds they have strong relationships with.
Choosing the right VC can be a make-or-break decision for your company. Now is the time when there is more VC money than great startups.
I'd go so far as to say that in just five years, Europe has gone from being underfunded to being oversaturated with capital, at least at the early stage. Use that to your advantage.
What is your approach to startup valuation and preferred share in the company?
Market dynamics are changing faster than ever. We do aim for a specific ownership target at both pre-seed and seed, but when we truly believe in a startup's potential, we'll deviate significantly from our initial investment model, especially now that we're actively investing in the US.
How do you support your portfolio companies?
Since everyone on our team is an ex-founder, we can get involved right down to the operational level when needed. We can also take a backseat and just enjoy the ride. Usually, it's something in between.
We help with planning and often with hiring by both sourcing candidates and helping with the selection. And, naturally, with introductions to follow-on investors for later rounds.
What are the best-performing companies in your portfolio?
In Fund II, we have a genuinely diverse set of potential winners — from hardware startups like Bird Buddy, to foodtech Juicy Marbles, B2B players like Tasq.ai and Influee, and D2C stories like 57hours.
In Fund III, I'd point first to Daytona and BibleChat, although there are several serious contenders, including Prepia, Phylo, Fotonation, and a few others we can't disclose yet.
What are your notable lessons learned from investments that didn’t work out as expected?
Ambition isn't something you can teach a founder. There were times when we believed in the potential of a founder's idea and team more than the founders did themselves — and it never worked out in the end.
What are the hottest markets you currently look at as VC, and where do you see the biggest hype?
I personally don’t believe in hype, and I think our team shared a similar mindset. Also, if a certain market is "hot", most likely, we are already too late, taking into account that we invest in the earliest stages.
In your view, what are the key trends that will shape the European VC scene over the coming years?
- First, the slow death of the "AI company" as a category. Very soon, calling yourself an AI startup will sound as redundant as calling yourself an internet startup did fifteen years ago.
- Second, capital efficiency is back. The era of growth at any cost is over, and both the founders and funds, who internalize that early, will have a real edge.
- Third, structural reform at the European level. Initiatives like EU Inc. and the push to harmonize company law and fundraising across the continent could finally let founders build pan-European companies without 27 different legal and tax regimes in the way. If that lands, it will the single biggest unlock for European tech in a decade.
It’s crazy that we still don’t have a good alternative to Delaware C-corp anywhere in the EU.
Underneath all of it, Europe has moved from being underfunded to oversaturated at the early stage, which means capital is no longer the differentiator. Instead, distribution, focus, and actually building something people want are the differentiators.
