welcome to our march newsletter
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
It was a milestone-packed March: 9fin joined the unicorn club, Basecamp Research launched a trillion gene atlas, we released our European Dynamism report together with Sifted, celebrated 20 years of redalpine at our Family Day, and much more! Read on for these updates and more.
portfolio updates
9fin reaches unicorn status in $170M Series C
We first invested in 9fin (RAC VI) in their 2021 Series A and have continued to back them in every round since, becoming their largest investor last year. Today, we're delighted to celebrate a major milestone: 9fin has closed a $170M Series C led by HarbourVest at a $1.3B valuation, and our participation marks the largest single investment in redalpine's history.
The conviction has always been clear: 9fin is building the AI-native intelligence platform for debt capital markets, the world's largest asset class valued at $145 trillion. Its platform brings together everything credit professionals need in one place, including news, financials, covenants, deal predictions, and AI-powered search. Multiple consecutive years of 100%+ ARR growth and 300+ institutional clients are a testament to what the team has built.
Huge congratulations to founders Steven Hunter and Huss El-Sheikh, along with the entire 9fin team. We couldn't be more excited to keep supporting them as they bring debt capital markets into the 21st century. Read more in Bloomberg.
portfolio news
Mistral AI (Summit Fund) is advancing its enterprise offering with Forge, a platform that enables companies to build custom AI models trained on their own proprietary data. Forge gives enterprises greater control over how AI systems operate within their workflows and compliance environments, reflecting a broader shift in the market toward enterprise-owned AI. Read more in Forbes.
Basecamp Research (RAC VII) is pushing the frontier of AI-driven biology with the launch of the Trillion Gene Atlas, an initiative to expand known genetic diversity by 100x in collaboration with Anthropic, NVIDIA, PacBio, and Ultima Genomics. The project underscores a key shift: progress in AI biology will be driven not just by models, but by unique data. Read more here.
redalpine in the media
Europe’s AI ecosystem is stronger than you think - Handelsblatt
Oliver discusses Europe's growing strength in AI, bolstered by record early-stage rounds, a growing number of unicorns, and increasing founder ambition across the continent. Read the AI Briefing here.
Where Europe can excel technologically in the future - FAZ
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung featured our European Dynamism report, highlighting six sectors where European tech is set to lead. Read the article here.
Europe can build, but can it scale? - Pathfounders podcast
Sebastian joined Mike Butcher to unpack our European Dynamism report and discuss why European tech has achieved real structural advantages today. Listen here.
team updates
Manuel joins us after nearly two decades at Partners Group, where he gained impressive experience and expertise across a vast number of roles - from investing and business development all the way to leading the CFO function.
Throughout his time there, he played a key role in building and supporting the firm's growth into one of the world's leading private markets managers. He brings extensive experience in building and leading teams, driving strategic initiatives, and scaling organizations and functions.
On his decision to join redalpine, Manuel said: “I’m excited to be close to venture-funded businesses, where you’re right at the forefront of the themes shaping the world our children will grow up in. I’m passionate about building businesses myself and am looking forward to working with the redalpine team in growing the firm to the next level.”
Welcome aboard, Manuel, we're delighted to have you!
redalpine family day 2026
Family Day 2026 was a special one! We brought together founders, LPs, and friends of the firm to celebrate two decades of backing European companies, while focusing firmly on what comes next. The conversations centered on Europe’s next chapter, where software meets science and real technological differentiation drives global impact, from AI and robotics to biology, energy, and beyond. Seeing our founder community pushing boundaries across all these fields was the clearest signal yet that Europe's next generation of global companies is already being built. Thanks to all who joined for an unforgettable event!
event highlights
Thinkers Dinner, St. Gallen
Ahead of START Summit, we co-hosted our Thinkers Dinner with Fly Ventures at Gasthaus zum Gupf, bringing together a curated group of AI researchers, founders, investors, and policymakers. Set away from the noise, the evening focused on one core question: how Europe can drive its next industrial chapter across AI, energy, advanced manufacturing, and more.
START Summit 2026
At START Summit, Gianmarco joined the main stage to explore what it takes to build Europe’s first trillion-dollar company together with leaders from Helsing and Proxima Fusion. The discussion highlighted the ambition, talent, and capital required to scale deep tech globally, and how Europe can turn its structural strengths into world-leading companies.
what we’re reading
world models: computing the uncomputable - Not Boring
Why it matters: This piece argues that the next major leap in AI may come not from language models, but from “World Models” - systems that learn to predict how environments evolve in response to actions. Instead of only generating text or video, they aim to simulate causality, dynamics, and decision-making in the physical world.
The big implication is for robotics and embodied AI. If agents can train inside realistic, action-driven simulations before operating in the real world, development cycles could speed up dramatically. As momentum builds across the field, World Models are emerging as a serious contender for the next foundation model paradigm.