Portuguese venture capital firm Faber has achieved a first closing of its Faber Tech II fund, securing €20.5 million (equivalent to $24.3 million). This fund will concentrate on providing investment to early-stage, data-focused companies originating from Southern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. The firm anticipates reaching a final fund closure of €30 million in the near future.

The fund’s investment strategy centers on pre-Series A and early-stage ventures specializing in areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science.

The fund has received backing from the European Investment Fund (EIF) and a local Financial Development Institution (IFD), representing a combined commitment of €15 million. This support is facilitated by the Investment Plan for Europe – also known as the Juncker Plan – and the Portugal Tech program, alongside contributions from various private institutional and individual investors.

Alexandre Barbosa, managing partner at Faber, commented that the successful first close indicates increasing demand for this type of investment. He believes that the digital shift driven by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses, and that Southern Europe is poised to become a significant hub for innovation in these fields.

Faber has already identified and committed to three initial investments, holding them in reserve. These include co-financing a €15.6 million Series A round for SWORD Health, a Portuguese company that has developed a pioneering digital physiotherapy platform integrating artificial intelligence with clinical expertise. The firm also spearheaded the pre-seed funding round for YData, a startup offering a data-centric development platform designed to provide data science professionals with tools for accessing and utilizing high-quality, privacy-protected data. Additionally, Faber participated in the pre-seed round for Emotai, a platform leveraging neuroscience to deliver analytics and performance enhancements for virtual sports.

Faber has a history of early investment in several of Portugal’s most successful startups, including Seedrs (co-founded by Carlos Silva, a Faber partner, and recently merged with CrowdCube), Unbabel, Codacy, and Hole19.

With a primary focus on deep-tech and data science ventures, Faber has assembled a team of approximately 20 experts. This team includes researchers, data scientists, CTOs, founders, and professors specializing in artificial intelligence and machine learning, all contributing to the firm’s investment approach.

As part of this strategy, Faber has introduced the new position of Professor-in-Residence, with Mário Figueiredo, a distinguished professor from Lisbon’s Instituto Superior Técnico, as its inaugural appointee. Professor Figueiredo’s research interests encompass signal processing, machine learning, AI, and optimization, and he is a highly recognized researcher in these areas.

In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Barbosa noted a growing trend of both first-time and repeat entrepreneurs choosing Lisbon, Porto, Barcelona, Valencia, and Madrid as locations to launch their startups. He also highlighted the increasing interest of successful entrepreneurs in establishing engineering teams and hubs within Portugal and Spain.

“We have consistently taken a countercyclical approach, observing a resurgence of startup activity in Iberia as early as 2012/2013. Currently, starting in mid-2020, we are very optimistic about our ability to contribute to the region’s entrepreneurial growth,” Barbosa stated. “We are particularly focused on the data stack – encompassing all aspects of data, AI, machine learning, and data science – as a core area of opportunity. The current wave of transformation and digitization presents numerous promising prospects, and we are witnessing a wealth of talent establishing companies in Portugal and Spain, making this a significant story for Europe as a whole.”