futurepresent Launches With $300M Fund to Back AI Startups

A new venture capital firm has just stepped into the spotlight with serious firepower. 1German-US VC firm futurepresent is emerging from stealth with Fund I totalling $300 million, revealing a portfolio of 14 companies and a sharp bet on artificial intelligence that touches the real world, complex industries, and the infrastructure behind it all.

What futurepresent Is Building

2 futurepresent is a venture capital firm investing in AI platforms and infrastructure across the United States and Europe.

But this is not your typical mega-fund trying to be everything to everyone. 1The firm is being built as a deliberately small partnership with a flexible mandate, arguing that founder relationships matter more than platform scale.

2 The team describes itself as repeat founders and investors, building futurepresent with a single focus: maximizing time and energy in the service of founders. They partner at inception and take a concentrated approach at early growth.

That “small by design” philosophy sets futurepresent apart in a market flooded with billion-dollar AI funds. Instead of chasing hundreds of deals, the firm is placing deeper, more personal bets on fewer companies.

futurepresent VC firm $300 million AI fund launch 2026

14 Portfolio Companies Across Three Core Themes

1 The firm has already invested in 14 portfolio companies with an investment strategy that includes Pre-Seed/Seed and concentrated-growth investments.

Those 14 companies are spread across three clearly defined investment themes:

AI for the Physical World

1 The portfolio includes General Intuition, which is building a world model for spatiotemporal reasoning. This is the kind of AI that moves beyond chatbots and into real-world environments where machines must sense, understand, and act.

Applied AI in Complex Industries

1 Portfolio companies include Skalar, a fully autonomous tax and audit provider, alongside Afori and inca, which are rebuilding different parts of the insurance value chain with AI.

These are sectors where red tape, labor shortages, and outdated systems have long resisted change. AI is now cracking them open.

AI Infrastructure

1 The portfolio includes Isidor, where futurepresent led the Pre-Seed round for vertically integrated data pipelines supporting reinforcement learning and model training, and Slide, where the firm recently participated in the Series B for modern IT infrastructure for Managed Service Providers in the AI era.

Other named portfolio companies, based on public disclosures by the partners, include Polaron, Seltz, and encentive, though details on these remain limited.

Who Is Behind futurepresent

The firm is led by partners Thomas Lueke and Johnson Yang. Both bring deep experience from opposite sides of the Atlantic.

21 Thomas Lueke previously served as Partner at Cherry Ventures Management. Prior to Cherry, he gained experience as an entrepreneur building Bonusbox, an e-commerce data and loyalty network. 21 He also worked as Assistant to the CEO and in Corporate Development at Penguin Random House in New York and in the e-commerce division of Bertelsmann/Arvato. He gained additional experience at McKinsey and in several startups. He studied Economics in Essen, London and Berkeley and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. 25 Johnson Yang started his career at Insight Partners as the firm’s first undergraduate hire onto the Onsite Strategy and Analytics team, where he both evaluated investment opportunities and provided operational support to disruptive software and internet businesses. 25 At General Catalyst, he partnered with founders reimagining consumer experiences, working with companies like Bilt Rewards, Bloom & Wild, Blank Street, and Hallow, predominantly in consumer internet and fintech. 19 He holds a degree from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and is based in New York.

In their own words, the partners made the firm’s mission clear:

“We deliberately architected futurepresent as a small partnership maniacally focused on building relationships with founders.” Thomas Lueke, Partner

“Our intention is that each founder we work with gets to build a genuinely authentic relationship with our whole team, that lasts from the earliest stages through scale.” Johnson Yang, Partner

A Transatlantic Edge in an AI-Hungry Market

2 As a deliberately small partnership with presence in both the US and Europe, futurepresent is built to connect both sides of the Atlantic for founders with global ambition.

That dual-market access matters more than ever. 31In 2025, firms in the United States attracted approximately 75% of global AI VC deal value, while the EU27 accounted for 6%. European AI startups are growing fast but still face a massive funding gap compared to their American peers.

Firms like futurepresent, with feet planted on both continents, can help European founders tap into US capital networks while giving American investors early access to emerging European AI talent.

The timing is also notable. 32AI captured close to 50% of all global funding in 2025, up from 34% in 2024. A total of $202.3 billion was invested in the AI sector in 2025, and funding to AI increased more than 75% year over year.

33 AI is driving much of the early-stage momentum, capturing 65% of US VC deal value. AI startups raise capital earlier and faster, with a median age at first financing 65% lower than that of their non-AI peers.

Why This Launch Matters for AI Founders

futurepresent’s debut comes at a critical moment. The AI venture landscape is becoming top-heavy.

28 Given the size of AI rounds, multistage firms have an advantage. Smaller funds are forced to go earlier or write small participation checks. It could be a great time to be an early-stage firm if you can pick well and get in before the big uptick rounds.

That is exactly the window futurepresent is targeting. By writing Pre-Seed and Seed checks and then following with concentrated growth investments, the firm sits at a sweet spot where few large funds bother to compete.

30 Enterprises have been experimenting with AI tools for a few years. Investors predict they will start to pick winners in 2026. For early-stage AI startups, having a VC that truly knows your industry and will stay with you through that selection process is not a luxury. It is survival.

futurepresent is a quiet but confident statement in a market that loves noise. At a time when AI funding rounds are closing in days and billion-dollar deals dominate headlines, this firm is betting that the best outcomes still start with something old-fashioned: trust between a founder and their investor. Whether that $300 million can outperform the mega-funds will take years to prove. But for the 14 founders already in the portfolio, the bet has already been placed.

Drop your thoughts in the comments below. What do you think about futurepresent’s approach to AI investing