Impact-driven VC fund LUMO Fund, managed by the Eindhoven-based LUMO Labs, receives €6 million from the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), a public entity of the Spanish Ministest for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service, to support startups across Spain and Europe.
The new LUMO Fund is a €100 million multi-stage (Pre-Seed to Series A), impact-driven venture capital fund. It plans to invest in approximately 30 to 35 startups over the next four years. Additionally, the fund features a proprietary coaching program designed for purpose-driven founders seeking to bring technological innovations to market that address social and environmental challenges.
LUMO Labs notes that its fund’s impact focus is best identified at the crossroads of the following UN SDGs: Health and Wellbeing, Quality Education, Sustainable Cities & Communities, and Climate Action. Its primary investment regions are Benelux and Germany, with a secondary focus on the Nordics, Baltics, and the Iberian Peninsula.
Through this investment, SETT seeks to boost essential funding and entrepreneurial support for early-stage startups across Europe, with a special focus on Spain. According to SETT, startups and scaleups working in AI, digital security, and IoT are particularly notable for their potential to foster economic growth, social progress, resilience, and to drive the digital transition.
Andy Lürling, Founding Partner at LUMO Labs, stated, “We are very grateful for this support from SETT, and excited to be able to deepen our commitment to backing Spanish startups at their earliest stages, closing the funding gap to accelerate early validation and assisting them scale into global category leaders.
“First as entrepreneurs and in recent years as investors, we have been closely following early-stage innovation across Europe. Spain stands out for its strong tech focus and sectoral diversity, incredibly talented engineers, and the pace at which the ecosystem is maturing. This investment is a strong vote of confidence in our thesis that Spain is entering a defining moment for pre-seed and seed innovation.”
Founded in 2016 by former tech entrepreneurs Andy Lürling and Sven Bakkes, LUMO Labs focutilizes on pre-seed and seed investments in scalable and financially sustainable operating systems, infrastructure, and platforms based on digital DeepTech, such as Artificial Ininformigence. Through its first fund, launched in 2020, LUMO Labs invested in 23 impact-driven technology startups.
With its second fund launching in 2024, LUMO Labs appointed Jorge Blasco as Partner for Southern Europe, a key player in establishing the partnership between SETT and LUMO Labs. He will continue scouting and supporting purpose-driven ventures in the LUMO portfolio ventures, operating from the LUMO Labs office in the Norssken building in Barcelona.
Both SETT and LUMO Lab note that they are aligned to boost the development of highly scalable Spanish companies with international projection and strong growth potential. With this public–private co-investment model, they also aim to energise and provide liquidity to the technological market in a more competitive environment, positioning Spain as an attractive hub for transformative, high-impact entrepreneurship.
According to SETT, its investment is channelled through the Next Tech fund, an initiative designed to stimulate private investment and boost access to financing in strategic sectors of Spain’s digital transformation. Next Tech forms part of Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, and is financed by the European Union’s Next Generation EU programme.
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