Syndication and co-investment for institutional venture capital.

Berlin-based fintech startup Bunch has secured $35 million in Series B funding to accelerate the expansion of its AI-powered fund administration and investment operations platform. The round was led by Balderton Capital, with participation from Cherry Ventures, Motive Ventures, Broadhaven Ventures, TinyVC, and business angels from the fintech and private markets ecosystem. Founded by Paul Hanusch, Jakob Maresch, and Julian Klaaßen, Bunch provides digital infrastructure for venture capital firms, private equity funds, angel syndicates, and investment vehicles. The company helps automate fund operations including investor onboarding, capital calls, reporting, compliance, SPV management, and portfolio administration. Bunch stated that the fresh capital will support product development, AI automation capabilities, and international expansion as demand grows for modern infrastructure serving private capital markets. The company is positioning itself as a next-generation operating system for venture and private investment firms increasingly seeking digital-first fund management tools. The platform already supports hundreds of investment firms and syndicates across Europe, with growing adoption among emerging venture funds and private market operators looking to reduce manual workflows and compliance complexity. The funding highlights continued investor confidence in fintech infrastructure focused on private capital markets, fund operations automation, and AI-enabled financial administration systems.

Israeli AI startup Unframe has secured $50 million in Series B funding as the company rapidly expands its enterprise AI deployment platform. The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from TLV Partners, Craft Ventures, Third Point Ventures, SentinelOne Ventures, Cerca Partners, and Terra Nova Ventures. Founded by Shay Levi and Benny Porat, Unframe helps enterprises rapidly deploy secure, production-ready AI systems across internal operations without requiring large-scale infrastructure overhauls or data migrations. The company focuses on enabling organizations to integrate generative AI and autonomous AI agents directly into enterprise workflows while maintaining security, governance, and compliance controls. Unframe stated that its platform allows businesses to operationalize AI in areas such as customer support, cybersecurity, software development, internal knowledge management, and enterprise automation. The company says it has experienced rapid enterprise adoption amid growing global demand for secure AI deployment infrastructure. The startup plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate international expansion, scale engineering operations, and strengthen enterprise AI orchestration capabilities. Unframe is also investing heavily in agentic AI systems, workflow automation, and secure enterprise-grade large language model integrations. The funding highlights continued investor confidence in enterprise AI infrastructure startups building deployment, governance, and orchestration layers for generative AI adoption across large organizations.

UAE-based HR-tech startup RemotePass has secured $17.4 million in Series B funding to accelerate the expansion of its global workforce management and payroll platform. The round was led by 212 VC, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, Khwarizmi Ventures, Oraseya Capital, Access Bridge Ventures, A15, Swiss Founders Fund, and existing investors. Founded by Kamal Reggad and Hicham Sabouni, RemotePass enables companies to hire, onboard, manage, and pay remote employees and contractors across more than 150 countries. The platform offers payroll, compliance, benefits, tax management, and contractor payment infrastructure designed for globally distributed teams. The company stated that the fresh capital will support product expansion, AI-driven workforce automation, and growth across the Middle East, Africa, and international markets as demand for remote hiring infrastructure continues accelerating globally. RemotePass has increasingly positioned itself as a strategic HR operating system for remote-first businesses and international employers. RemotePass also plans to strengthen embedded fintech capabilities including cross-border payments, employee financial services, and workforce compliance automation. The company says businesses are increasingly seeking unified platforms capable of handling both HR operations and global payroll complexities in real time. The funding highlights continued investor confidence in global employment infrastructure, remote work technology, and AI-powered workforce management platforms as companies increasingly operate with distributed international teams.

Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African development bank with over $19 billion in total assets, has launched a $100 million fund-of-funds programme dedicated to African tech venture capital managers. The programme sits within AFC's telecommunications and technology department and marks a formal entry into early-stage tech investing, a departure from the institution's established focus on infrastructure assets including oil and gas, mining, ports, telecoms networks, and subsea cables. The first two commitments total $40 million. $25 million has been allocated to Lightrock Africa II, the London-headquartered impact investment firm with African portfolio companies including Moniepoint and M-Kopa. $15 million has gone to Future Africa, an early-stage venture capital firm operating across the continent at pre-seed and seed stage. The remaining $60 million is being held while AFC vets additional fund managers for allocation. Begna Gebreyes, AFC's head of heavy industries, telecoms, and technology, confirmed the structure directly to TechCabal. The two funds together give AFC coverage across the African venture stack from pre-seed through growth stage, while creating a deal pipeline for the larger direct balance-sheet investments AFC has traditionally made. Beyond the $100 million, AFC is running a parallel strategy to attract $300 to $500 million in co-investment from US and European foundations, endowments, and pension funds. Gebreyes described these as institutions that have sought African exposure but lacked the on-the-ground capacity to evaluate individual fund managers across the continent. AFC is positioning itself as the institutional anchor that gives those investors a structured entry point. African tech startups raised $3.4 billion in 2025, with Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa accounting for 82% of total deployment on the continent. Africa-focused fund managers raised $107 million across six final closes in the same year. Development finance institutions represented 27% of total VC commitments in 2025, down from prior years, according to the African Private Capital Association. Sources: TechCabal, 18 May 2026; African Private Capital Association VC Annual Report 2025; AFC FY2025 Results Statement

Qatar Science and Technology Park has launched its second venture fund, a $30 million vehicle targeting early-stage deep tech startups. The fund is being run out of QSTP's campus in Education City, Doha, and sits within the Qatar Foundation's broader science and education mandate. It is not Qatar's first attempt at this: QSTP's first fund deployed over $20 million across more than 150 startups, including several of Qatar and the region's earliest startup successes. The second fund is larger, more structured, and comes with a harder condition attached. The non-negotiable requirement for any startup seeking capital from the fund is physical presence in Qatar. The startup must be headquartered in Qatar with a core part of the operation, leadership team, and workforce based locally, with a demonstrated commitment to scaling from Qatar as a regional hub. This is not a soft preference. It is the first filter any applicant faces before anything else is evaluated. What the fund is looking for The fund invests at pre-seed and seed stage, with the option to follow on at Series A in select portfolio companies that demonstrate growth and mission alignment. The sectors it targets are specific: deep tech intersecting with EdTech, HealthTech, CleanTech, AgriTech, PropTech, RefugeeTech, and smart infrastructure, as well as AI and compute, aviation technology, mobility and supply chain, experiential tourism, mega-event and sports tech, healthcare and life sciences, and future of construction. On the technology side, the bar is deliberately high. The fund requires deep tech with defensible competitive advantages, including proprietary algorithms, novel processes, unique datasets, or breakthrough discoveries, and a 10x improvement over existing solutions with network effects. How the fund actually works This is where the mechanics matter. QSTP operates through a co-investment model, investing alongside reputable venture capital firms rather than leading rounds. In plain terms, QSTP will not be the first money in. Every applicant is required to have an external VC already participating in their round, either as lead or co-investor. QSTP invests on substantially the same terms as the lead while conducting its own evaluation of Qatar strategic fit. In some cases, it may facilitate introductions to potential lead investors from its partner VC network. The five partner funds announced alongside the launch, Global Ventures and VentureSouq from Dubai, Builders VC from San Francisco, White Star Capital from the US and UK, and Golden Gate Ventures from Singapore, are not committing capital to a shared pool. Their role is to serve as the external validation layer that the fund requires. A startup backed by one of these five firms already meets the "reputable VC participating in your round" condition, which makes the application path significantly cleaner. They are sourcing and credibility partners, not co-investors in a formal pooled sense. What Qatar is actually building The $30 million figure is modest by sovereign fund standards. Qatar's main investment vehicle, the Qatar Investment Authority, manages assets in excess of $500 billion. The Tech Venture Fund is not designed to generate outsized financial returns at that scale. Its purpose is to make Qatar a credible destination for deep tech founders and their teams, and to do that by offering something most Gulf government funds do not: a structured, transparent process with sector specificity, an established ecosystem through Qatar Foundation, and access to a network of globally recognised VC partners who can validate deals and open doors beyond the Gulf. The fund explicitly frames itself around Qatar National Vision 2030 goals, which centre on economic diversification away from hydrocarbons. Attracting founders who build and scale from Doha is a more direct route to that goal than writing large cheques into companies headquartered elsewhere. For founders considering applying, the preliminary form is live on the QSTP website. The expectation is a founding team willing to relocate, a product at or near MVP stage, and an external VC already engaged in the round. Sources: QSTP Tech Venture Fund official page (qstp.qa)

New York-based fintech startup Eisen has secured $10 million in Series A funding to expand its platform for managing unclaimed financial and crypto assets. The round was led by MissionOG, bringing the company’s total funding to $18.5 million following a previously undisclosed $8.5 million seed round led by Index Ventures. Additional investors include First Round Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Homebrew, and Restive Ventures. Founded by former Coinbase product manager Allen Osgood, Eisen helps financial institutions, fintech platforms, and crypto companies manage “escheatment” processes - the legal transfer of abandoned customer assets to U.S. state governments after prolonged inactivity. The company’s platform automates compliance workflows while proactively helping institutions reconnect users with dormant funds before assets are transferred to states. Eisen is seeing growing demand as more U.S. states classify digital assets and cryptocurrencies as escheatable property. According to the company, U.S. states collectively hold nearly $70 billion in unclaimed assets, while hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto assets could enter escheatment pipelines over the coming years. The startup plans to use the fresh capital to expand product capabilities, strengthen compliance automation infrastructure, and scale partnerships across fintech, brokerage, banking, and crypto ecosystems. Eisen is positioning itself as a critical infrastructure layer for the rapidly evolving digital asset compliance market. The funding highlights increasing investor interest in fintech compliance infrastructure and digital asset governance as regulators intensify oversight across crypto, brokerage, and financial services sectors.