Picus Capital

As the year comes to a close, we’re hitting pause to look back on the achievements that defined our journey in 2024. This year, we expanded our portfolio with 18 new investments, and 32 follow-on investments. We announced the launch of our second growth fund and welcomed a fresh group of student venture partners to strengthen our university presence. To our founders, partners, and team: you’re the soundtrack to our success. Thank you for another year of incredible collaboration, resilience, and innovation. Here’s to setting the stage for 2025—bigger, bolder, and louder! 

Just like startups who disrupt incumbents, the venture model is also prone to disruption in itself. The VC of 2035 cannot continue to operate like the VC of 2025. Our colleagues Abhijay Thacker and Claudius Seitz had a great chat with Isabella Garcia Foster and the Specter team, where they discussed the future of tech-enabled and data driven VCs - link to the full conversation in the comments below.

2024 was a defining year for AI, marked by over $80B in total fundraising, groundbreaking releases like NVIDIA’s Blackwell GPUs and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, and the rapid rise of application-focused companies, particularly in search and Voice AI. Infrastructure scaled significantly, while the competition in foundational models stabilized, and enterprise application-layer AI software spend surged 8x compared to 2023, signaling a shift from experimentation to real-world impact, as highlighted by our colleagues Alexander Kremer and Claudius Seitz in their 2024 review and 2025 outlook. Looking ahead, the focus will turn to energy-efficient and cost-effective infrastructure, alongside AI governance, compliance, and customized AI workflows that deliver tangible returns. As enterprises grapple with the complexity of AI integration, start-ups offering tailored, industry-specific AI solutions are poised to lead the next wave of growth. At Picus, we believe 2025 will be the year AI moves from "potential" to AI with "real" ROI, unlocking even deeper use cases and driving significant business impact. If you're building in this space, we’re excited to partner with you in the year ahead! Read the detailed 2024 review and 2025 outlook here: https://lnkd.in/gYc87hqw Thanks for contributing to this piece: Andrew Antos, Ce Gao & Dr. Niklas Panten.

2024 was a defining year for AI, marked by over $80B in total fundraising, groundbreaking releases like NVIDIA’s Blackwell GPUs and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, and the rapid rise of application-focused companies, particularly in search and Voice AI. Infrastructure scaled significantly, while the competition in foundational models stabilized, and enterprise application-layer AI software spend surged 8x compared to 2023, signaling a shift from experimentation to real-world impact, as highlighted by our colleagues Alexander Kremer and Claudius Seitz in their 2024 review and 2025 outlook. Looking ahead, the focus will turn to energy-efficient and cost-effective infrastructure, alongside AI governance, compliance, and customized AI workflows that deliver tangible returns. As enterprises grapple with the complexity of AI integration, start-ups offering tailored, industry-specific AI solutions are poised to lead the next wave of growth. At Picus, we believe 2025 will be the year AI moves from "potential" to AI with "real" ROI, unlocking even deeper use cases and driving significant business impact. If you're building in this space, we’re excited to partner with you in the year ahead! Read the detailed 2024 review and 2025 outlook here: https://lnkd.in/gYc87hqw Thanks for contributing to this piece: Andrew Antos, Ce Gao & Dr. Niklas Panten.

We’re thrilled to continue the partnership with our portfolio company Cove, as they successfully secure $4.5M in fresh funding from existing investors, including Eurazeo and Keppel Ltd.. This new funding comes as Cove continues to focus on operational excellence, having already achieved EBITDA profitability in Singapore, Indonesia, and at the Group level. With this new funding, Cove is set to accelerate its expansion across the Asia Pacific region. The company now manages 6,000+ rooms across 4 countries - Singapore, Indonesia, and its newly established presence in South Korea and Japan. To support this next phase of growth, Cove has appointed Ashish Manchharam as a Board Advisor. As the founder and CEO of 8M Real Estate, Ashish brings extensive expertise in property investment and hospitality, particularly with Singapore's iconic conservation shophouses. Congratulations to Guillaume Castagne, Luca Bregoli and the entire Cove team! We’re proud to support Cove on this exciting journey and look forward to seeing them continue to break new ground in the co-living space. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gMqC38ig

We’re proud to continue our partnership with SpotmyEnergy as they close their €10.5 million Seed funding round, led by Norrsken VC, with participation from Vorwerk Ventures. SpotmyEnergy is redefining energy management for private households through its all-in-one solution, combining smart meters, dynamic energy management systems, and innovative electricity tariffs. By helping households reduce energy costs and unlock the full potential of technologies like home batteries, EVs, and rooftop solar, SpotmyEnergy is driving the energy transition forward. This funding will enable the team to scale their technology, expand their operations, and accelerate the smart meter rollout in Germany. We’ve been impressed with the team’s vision and execution since leading their pre-seed round earlier this year and are excited to see their continued growth. Congratulations to Jochen and the entire SpotmyEnergy team on this next big step—we’re thrilled to be part of your journey! And welcome on board to our fellow co-investors Norrsken VC (Fabian Erici) and Vorwerk Ventures Venturs (Dr. Dominik Steinkuehler & Peter Schmetz) Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eZpsBKRB

Exciting updates from our portfolio! FINN, Enpal, and Hawk have secured their spots on the Sifted 250, Europe’s ultimate ranking of the fastest-growing startups. The Sifted 250 recognizes Europe’s most rapidly growing startups, spotlighting those with the highest revenue growth over the past three years. FINN (#4): Transforming the way we think about mobility, achieving an impressive 697% revenue growth. Enpal (#94): Making solar energy more accessible to all, with a remarkable 186% revenue growth. Hawk (#191): Revolutionizing AML & CFT with AI to enhance risk coverage and fraud detection, achieving an outstanding 105.74% revenue growth. Congratulations to Maximilian, Max, Andreas, Nikolai, Mario, Viktor, Jochen, Tobias, Wolfgang, and their entire teams for their hard work and dedication driving such impressive growth! Their success is proof of what’s possible when vision meets execution and we are proud to be part of this journey since day 0. Curious about the other changemakers shaping Europe? Check out the full list here: https://lnkd.in/dNnqkV6V

We’re excited to share that we are leading a 7.4M USD funding round for our portfolio company Omni HR to drive its expansion across the Asia-Pacific region. Over the last years, Omni HR has quickly emerged as a key player in Asia’s HR tech scene, offering a HRMS platform that through workflow automation simplifies processes like onboarding, employee management, or payroll and compliance - specifically designed for the complexities of the APAC region. Their innovative, full-stack approach addresses critical pain points for organizations, enabling them to streamline their operations and enhance employee experience. With a large share of its customer base being multi-country and its customers’ employees being based in 79 countries, Omni HR effectively balances global reach and tech standard with local Asian expertise. We firmly believe in Omni HR’s vision and the potential to set new benchmarks in the Asian tech landscape. This investment reflects our commitment to backing forward-thinking founders who are transforming the future of work. Congratulations to Brian and the entire team on this incredible achievement! Read more in the article linked below! https://lnkd.in/dDegdyef

Today marks a significant milestone for our portfolio company, D2X Group, as they officially kick off trading operations. Huge congratulations to Don van der Krogt, Theodore Rozencwajg, Laetitia Grimaud, and the entire team for becoming the first MiFID-regulated exchange for crypto derivatives, operating 7 days a week. We are excited to be part of D2X Group's journey pioneering the next-generation market infrastructure and offering secure trading as well as off-exchange collateral accounts held with a Tier-1 EU credit institution. Find out more in the article below! https://lnkd.in/dh9a79k9

🔒 GenAI is everywhere - but how exactly is AI impacting the way CISOs and security professionals think about the org’s cyber operations?  We may have a few thoughts on that! Florian, Oliver, and Alex have just published a deep dive into the state of modern SOCs, based on conversations with over 50 CISOs and cybersecurity experts. Our research reveals critical challenges facing security teams today: 👉 28% of CISOs see their SOCs overwhelmed by workload demands 👉 90% of current SIEM tools generate excessive noise 👉 50%+ of CISOs see major challenges in providing the right data platform for their teams The game-changer? AI is set to revolutionize how we approach cybersecurity - both from a data and operations perspective, with the global market for AI cyber products projected to grow from $15B to $135B by 2030. Want to understand how AI will reshape cybersecurity? Link to the medium article in the comments below. Reach out to Florian Reichert, Oliver Heinrich, or Alex Rohregger if you are building in this space - or just want to share your thoughts / opinions. A special thanks also goes out to Clementine Gazay and Patrick Hermann for their work in making this piece come to live. #Cybersecurity #AI #SOC #CyberTrends #SecurityInnovation Cc. Christian Beedgen, Kyle Derr, Tom Findling, Alon Yotvat, Mark Kurman, Paul Bleicher, Lucas Masson, Benoît Larroque, Sergej Epp, Renaud Deraison, Imade Elbaraka