Yvonne Bajela closes $17M debut fund for EU startups
Original: Yvonne Bajela is bringing $17M in fresh capital to Europe’s startup scene
Why This Matters
U.K. early-stage capital is growing, and new solo GPs are reshaping who writes the first checks.
Veteran VC Yvonne Bajela has closed Evertrue's oversubscribed $17M Fund I, targeting early-stage U.K. and European startups with ~£350K average checks, backed by British Business Bank and Basecamp.
Yvonne Bajela, formerly of LocalGlobe and Impact X Capital Partners, officially closed her debut fund, Evertrue, at $17 million — oversubscribed. The announcement came Tuesday. Over her decade-plus in venture, Bajela backed companies that became unicorns, including fintech Wise, insurance startup Marshmellow, and robotaxi company Mooves.
Evertrue has already deployed capital into seven companies. The plan is to back at least 20 early-stage startups across the U.K. and Europe over three years, writing average checks of around £350,000. Five institutional LPs signed on, including the British Business Bank and Basecamp, the fund-of-funds run by Phoenix Court — the same firm that houses LocalGlobe.
Bajela cited the current AI boom as part of her timing rationale. "The ability to build has been democratized," she said, "but the ability to build something enduring remains rare." That gap, she argues, is where early-stage investors can add real value.
Fundraising wasn't easy. Bajela described the most painful rejections as those that came after months of back-and-forth, only to end in a no. Even so, the broader U.K. emerging manager market showed resilience: PitchBook data through September shows emerging managers in the region raised $7.4 billion in 2026, already above the $6.2 billion total for all of 2025.