In 2024, corporate venture capital (CVC) arms continued to play a big role in seeding European tech, backing everything from AI-powered legal assistants to climate tech and therapeutics.
Sifted tracked over 450 publicly announced CVC equity investments in Europe last year. The 10 most active CVCs backed at least nine startups each. France’s BNP Paribas, a multinational investment bank and financial services provider, topped the table with 31 deals, followed by Denmark’s Novo Holdings, the investment arm of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, with 29 and France’s Crédit Agricole, a cooperative banking group, with 14. The data excludes venture debt — including bank-provided facilities — as well as acquisitions.
Sifted crunched the numbers on all publicly announced deals involving CVCs in Europe last year and spoke to these firms to verify their activity. Not all investors responded to requests for confirmation. The average deal size represents the total deal amount, not just the investor’s contribution. Here’s who was busiest — and the bets they made.
The top 10 most active CVCs in 2024
1\ BNP Paribas
HQ: France
Deal count: 31
Average deal size: €23m
Most active vertical: Climate tech
The French banking giant has built a broad startup portfolio spanning deeptech, fintech and climate tech. In 2024, its bets included quantum computing startup C12, climate-friendly packaging firm Lactips and French AI lab Mistral.
2\ Novo Holdings
HQ: Denmark
Deal count: 29
Average deal size: €55m
Most active vertical: Healthtech
Novo Holdings, which manages a chunk of pharma giant Novo Nordisk’s profits, deployed €4.6bn into life sciences ventures last year. It has backed companies like Orbis Medicines (small molecule drug discovery), Circtec (circular waste tech) and Adcendo (cancer therapeutics). With a suite of seed, venture and growth funds, Novo Holdings supports biotech at every stage — helping funnel Big Pharma profits back into European life sciences.
3\ Crédit Agricole
HQ: France
Deal count: 14
Average deal size: €22m
Most active vertical: Deeptech
Crédit Agricole is one of France’s largest banking groups and through its venture arm, it actively invests in French startups in sectors like medtech, cybersecurity, robotics and climate tech. Its 2024 portfolio includes CibleR, a retail media platform, and deeptech players like Blackleaf (graphene) and QiOVA (lasers).
=3\ M Ventures
HQ: US
Deal count: 14
Average deal size: €38m
Most active vertical: Healthtech
The corporate venture arm of life sciences and electronics group Merck focuses on cutting edge science. The firm has backed startups like cultivated meat startup Mosa Meat and hydrogen production company IonKraft.
=3\ Zürcher Kantonalbank
HQ: Switzerland
Deal count: 14
Average deal size: €9m
Most active vertical: Healthtech
The largest Switzerland government-owned bank backed a science fiction wishlist of homegrown startups in 2024, including Zurich-based Food Brewer, which is making cocoa from plant cell culture, Lymphatica Medtech and Somagenetix, which are delivering targeted therapies through the bloodstream and Drone Harmony, which develops autonomous drones.
6\ Morgan Stanley
HQ: US
Deal count: 12
Average deal size: €13m
Most active vertical: B2B SaaS
Investment bank Morgan Stanley’s venture arm cast a wide net in 2024, backing startups as varied as sustainable fashion platform Cult Mia, ESG tracker Datamaran and energy data intelligence startup Vortexa.
7\ Sabadell Venture Capital
HQ: Spain
Deal count: 11
Average deal size: €6m
Most active vertical: B2B SaaS
The corporate venture arm of Spanish bank Sabadell has made early investments across the Spanish startup ecosystem, backing a diverse range of sectors from edtech and satellite tech to B2B SaaS and travel. Its portfolio includes coding bootcamp CodeOp, space tech innovator FOSSA Systems and sustainable data tracker Dcycle.
8\ GV
HQ: US
Deal count: 10
Average deal size: €56m
Most active vertical: B2B SaaS
As the venture arm of Alphabet, GV backs startups across B2B SaaS, fintech, healthtech and deeptech. In 2024, it invested in UK-based startups like legal AI platform Genie AI, lawyer online network Lawhive and social media app Lapse. GV has a track record of early bets on European successes like UK fintech Monzo and is known for giving its portfolio access to Google’s technical muscle and product expertise.
=8\ Santander
HQ: Spain
Deal count: 10
Average deal size: €11m
Most active vertical: Climate tech
The CVC arm of Spanish banking giant Santander has been building a portfolio of climate tech and deeptech bets. In 2024, it backed Caeli Wind, which helps identify sites for wind turbines, as well as insect protein producer Tebrio and cloud storage service Internxt.
10\ Blackrock
HQ: US
Deal count: 9
Average deal size: €63m
Most active vertical: Fintech
The asset management giant made bets across fintech, climate tech and healthcare, investing in startups like decision intelligence platform Pyramid Analytics, radar satellite developer Iceye and investment API provider Upvest.
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