PROTOTYPE 🦾

It only takes a few crazy ones to fix a continent. Let's be crazy.

We invest in hyperambitious European frontier tech founders – and push Europe forward. 🚀

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

We've launched our new fund – full focused on European frontier tech!

First check. First round. As early as it gets.

We back what Europe is world-class at: robotics, automation, manufacturing.

Anything that requires hard engineering.

More info below ⬇️

[Andreas Klinger 🦾 @andreasklinger]

It only needs a few crazy ones to fix a continent… Let's be crazy… I got something to announce:

We're launching PROTOTYPE: a new fund, fully focused on Europe.

A small fund that punches way above it's size.

With it we back what Europe is world-class at: robotics, automation, manufacturing, and anything that requires hard engineering.

First check. First round. As early as it gets.

Europe invented industry. We're the birthplace of precision manufacturing. The second largest manufacturing hub on the planet. Leaders in automation and robotics.

And yet…

We sell out our best tech to China. We export our best founders & most of our investment money to the US. That's insanity.

What should we do instead?

Build the next trillion euro companies in robotics, manufacturing, automation right here: in Europe. Showcase to young founders what is possible and change the system around them where needed.

What we will do:

→ Publish all our fund updates and build in public: https://t.co/JROaYikB2Y

→ Showcase Europe’s Most Ambitious Startups on Youtube: https://t.co/l3xVkjtbox

→ Launch & support more projects like @euinc_petition. Enough talking about Europe. Time to build it: Startups, makerspaces, student clubs, and much more.

→ And most importantly, invest into the best founders in Europe. Same model as our previous funds that are in their top 1-5% cohorts worldwide.

We won’t do a VC fund in the classic sense.

This will be a community of hyper-ambitious people who want to actively change Europe for the better.

It only needs a few crazy ones to fix a continent… Let's be crazy.

Check out https://t.co/h2lPmypoaM!

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

We're just building it.

No excuses.

Europe is the best place on this planet to build hardware.

Join us.

[Andreas Klinger 🦾 @andreasklinger]

The best robotics meetup in the world.

Tonight in Berlin

CLANKERS

Multiple fully autonomous heavy duty machines. Industrial multi arm robot installations. Drones. Anti drone products. Space lasers. And thats not even all of it.

https://t.co/yEDQD4XAkb

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

We are incredibly proud to have contributed to the launch of @esra_robotics!

We genuinely believe all future robotics giants of Europe will come out of this network. This is the start of Europe's hardware ecosystem.

We will support you in any way we can in the future, ESRA!

[ESRA | European Student Robotics Association @esra_robotics]

We're launching the European Student Robotics Association (ESRA) (13 universities, 8 countries, 2.5k+ members)!

We’re young, driven and together we’re tackling the European fragmentation problem heads on.

Who are we?
- ETH Robotics Club (Zürich) @ethroboticsclub
- RoboTUM (Münich)
- EPFL AI Team (Lausanne) @epflaiteam
- Unaite (Paris)
- Team Polar (Eindhoven)
- TU Wien Robotics Club (Vienna)
- Robotics Collective (Aachen) @robocollectiv
- KTH AI Society (Stockholm) @KTHAISociety
- Delft Robotics Student Association
- KN CybAiR (Poznan)
- AEA Polimi (Milan)
And just getting started!

What do we do?
→ Pan-European robotics competitions
→ Cross-border technical project collaborations
→ Coordinated access to funding opportunities across Europe

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

Witnessed 🫡

Europe is the best place to build robotics

[Robin Dechant @robindchnt]

We ran a hackathon with @ethroboticsclub and
@Siftedeu covered it.

As I may have said: "What's happened here in the past 12 months is fricking awesome"

https://t.co/wE95Pc1Bkn

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

https://t.co/JuewWcSer5

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

We visited Carl Pei @getpeid in their @nothing workshop in London to find out how he's beating Apple at their own game - from Europe.

Link to full video below.

[Carl Pei @getpeid]

Europe is building momentum.

We’ve been building @nothing out of London, proving you can build ambitious tech companies in Europe. Shipped millions of devices globally, crossed $1B in sales last year.

@andreasklinger, co-initiator of @euinc_petition and host of “Europe’s Most Ambitious Startups,” came to London to visit Nothing’s workshop. We talked about competing with Apple and Samsung, why manufacturing in Europe would be challenging for our product categories, and how AI will make every phone’s OS personal to its owner.

The tailwind is building for startups in Europe. For years, the narrative has been brain drain to the US, weak capital markets, startups relocating, and that is changing.

Ursula von der Leyen announced EU-Inc at Davos this week, a pan-European company structure letting startups scale across all 27 member states under one rulebook. What started as a grassroots initiative co-initiated by Andreas is now becoming policy.

€5B Scaleup Europe Fund launches this spring for AI, quantum, semiconductors. European Innovation Act coming in Q1 to remove barriers. The EU is moving.

Check out my interview with Andreas: https://t.co/fpwuia2zSW

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

The European startup community made this happen 🇪🇺🫡

[EU–INC @euinc_petition]

President Ursula von der Leyen officially announced the EU–INC today at Davos!

A single legal entity for all European founders to grow massive companies in Europe. Online incorporation in 48 hours. No more bureaucratic mess across European borders.

All of you made this happen!

[Seb Johnson @SebJohnsonUK]

Yesterday @andreasklinger announced his new $15m @prototype_cap fund.

His previous funds have all been in top 5% of funds globally.

I interviewed him to get all the details.

Best Bits:

(01:25) - What does first cheque mean in Hardware/Robotics?
(03:35) - Sourcing strategy
(06:11) - Does Europe underfund hardware companies at the early stages?
(07:50) - Prototype Value-add
(09:25) - How Andreas analyses investment opportunities
(12:30) - Previous Funds performance and fundraising (16:10) - Why this fund is focused on Europe not Globally like the others
(21:40) - Biggest wins in venture to date 24:40 Quickfire (favourite AI tool, number 1 trait in a founder, biggest venture miss)

[Luke Knight @lukeknight]

The one thing I've noticed with every world class founder + investor I know is that they genuinely never stop.

My friend @andreasklinger is a great example. He's the founder of @prototype_cap and helped initiate @euinc_petition

Prototype Capital:
- Solo GP Fund where all of his current funds are in their global 1%-5%

- Just launched €15m of a new €20m fund to back European founders working on robotics, automation and AI

EU-INC
- For the last two years they have pushed for creating a new pan-European legal entity

- Ursula von der Leyen (president of the European Union) announced in her speech in Davos that they're pushing through with it's implementation

- Most impressively they're calling it EU-INC

- Now European founders can incorporate once and raise from any European investor without the legal friction that currently kills cross-border momentum.

@andreasklinger has had a mega few days.

He's coming on @etnshow today at 11:30AM GMT

[Lyuben(🇺🇦,🇺🇦, 🇪🇺, 🇧🇬) @lyuben]

Great news- @prototype_cap - my friend's @andreasklinger new fund just closed.

My partner @TodorBreshkov and I been invested in all of Andreas’ prior funds since 2019 — RFC I, RFC II (2021), and Growth Fund (2022) — and each has already returned capital with DPI > 1x.

Prototype reflects a vision i fully subscribe to- ambitious strategy focused on early, first-check bets in Europe and globally transformative companies.

Watch here: https://t.co/C1o1MelEg9

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

Check out https://t.co/F8D2fLgzD0 for more.

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

We've launched our new fund – full focused on European frontier tech!

First check. First round. As early as it gets.

We back what Europe is world-class at: robotics, automation, manufacturing.

Anything that requires hard engineering.

More info below ⬇️

[Andreas Klinger 🦾 @andreasklinger]

It only needs a few crazy ones to fix a continent… Let's be crazy… I got something to announce:

We're launching PROTOTYPE: a new fund, fully focused on Europe.

A small fund that punches way above it's size.

With it we back what Europe is world-class at: robotics, automation, manufacturing, and anything that requires hard engineering.

First check. First round. As early as it gets.

Europe invented industry. We're the birthplace of precision manufacturing. The second largest manufacturing hub on the planet. Leaders in automation and robotics.

And yet…

We sell out our best tech to China. We export our best founders & most of our investment money to the US. That's insanity.

What should we do instead?

Build the next trillion euro companies in robotics, manufacturing, automation right here: in Europe. Showcase to young founders what is possible and change the system around them where needed.

What we will do:

→ Publish all our fund updates and build in public: https://t.co/JROaYikB2Y

→ Showcase Europe’s Most Ambitious Startups on Youtube: https://t.co/l3xVkjtbox

→ Launch & support more projects like @euinc_petition. Enough talking about Europe. Time to build it: Startups, makerspaces, student clubs, and much more.

→ And most importantly, invest into the best founders in Europe. Same model as our previous funds that are in their top 1-5% cohorts worldwide.

We won’t do a VC fund in the classic sense.

This will be a community of hyper-ambitious people who want to actively change Europe for the better.

It only needs a few crazy ones to fix a continent… Let's be crazy.

Check out https://t.co/h2lPmypoaM!

[Andreas Klinger 🦾 @andreasklinger]

🔥🇪🇺 New Video!

Fun fact – the fastest-growing smartphone company ever is in Europe

It's @nothing !

We went to meet their founder Carl Pei in their design studio!

Nothing is different to all other phone company emulating apple. Instead of wanting to be like Apple, they want to be the next Apple.

They bet on radical design, strong community, specialized products for markets (eg india), and a product culture that actually feels different.

In the video: We go inside Nothing’s workshop, see how they design and build hardware, and how @getpeid thinks about the future of smartphones in the AI era.

Link to the YouTube video in the reply!

[Andreas Klinger 🦾 @andreasklinger]

2025 was a completely crazy year for PROTOTYPE 🦾🇪🇺🔥

1) All of our current funds are in their global 1%-5%
Fund 1 (2019): 4.9x MOIC, 0.95x DPI
Growth (2022): 5.6x MOIC*, 2.75x DPI
Fund 2 (2022): 2.4x MOIC*, 0x DPI

(*) MOIC of F2 + Growth are lower bound estimates as we have two rounds closing atm

2) Our portfolio raised far over $1B in this year alone
Keep in mind that we invest almost only first-round.

3) Fund 3 raised in record time and due to LP demand had to extend another 25%

Most of the new LPs are hyper-european family offices and founders! Super excited for that. Some of the best people in our game that are genuinely excited to push stuff forward on every front.

We will announce Fund 3 properly in early January. Will be epic. ❤️

4) We started a Youtube channel that already gained 250k views
MUUUUCCHHHH more to come here in 2026! Like and subscribe! ;)

5) EU–INC is on it's way to become European Law 🇪🇺🔥
TBD if they will implement it useful as wished or designed based on some politician fever dream.

6) We invested in 15 companies this year.
Mostly robotics, automation, and first-round
All European.

7) And much more i can't yet publicly talk about!
Super excited for 2026 to come.

PS: I rarely ever @VCBrags about my fund – but it's EOY so LFG! 😉

[Andreas Klinger 🦾 @andreasklinger]

China is now the dominant player in frontier tech manufacturing. And the west is starting to fall behind more and more in multiple industries – How did that happen?

The common narrative in the West is: "state grants" + "IP theft" – but that's not really the story.

The real story is supplier networks and massive investments from western companies.

China isn't the villain in this story. We are the idiots.

In multiple frontier industries we are repeating the same mistake:

First modern electronics, then phones, then EVs, now pharma.

You cannot outsource manufacturing of frontier tech without becoming redundant in all other parts of the value chain too.

Because whoever builds it, learns it, ultimately owns it.

In this latest video we explore:

1) Why the West invested multiple times the Marshall plan into chinese manufacturing ecosystem

2) What worked and what didn't for China – eg cars didn't really take off until Tesla came and helped building their own competitors

3) Why we didn't only pay them to become market leaders in modern electronics, EVs, but now also in Pharma.

4) What the West could try to reverse this? Should we have more chinese factories in the West? Under which conditions?

If we are serious about reindustrializing the West the first step is to understand better how we got to where we are now.

This video is part of our deep-dive series on this topic.

Full video-link in the reply 🔥

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

Full video on our youtube channel:

https://t.co/rLta6oVII2 🔥

Please like & subscribe & comment & cheer & celebrate and everything else algorithms like ;)

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

We are reindustrialising Europe.

For that, we dug into how China managed to become the world's manufacturing hub. We don't want to become China, but we should learn from what worked.

If we want Europe to lead in value creation we need to lead in manufacturing again.

Link below

[Andreas Klinger 🦾 @andreasklinger]

Everyone's talking about US policy & industrial efforts. But this misses the real story.

For 40 years, we – the West – outsourced our manufacturing to China, thinking we kept the "valuable" part.

Well we were dead wrong. 😑

In this first episode we dissect Chinese industrial policy, and how they are now able to build so quickly and at such massive scale.

How did they get there? Everyone screams “government subsidies” – ok, but how? Which ones? How much? And most importantly: Why did they actually work over there?

In this, we video dive into dozens of case studies to find it out.

Topics:
- How they bought high-speed rail blueprints... then outbuilt everyone.
- The real scale and role of government subsidies and five-year plans.
- How BYD makes EVs, toys, batteries, trains, AND probably your keyboard.
- How their EV market became the Hunger Games: 500+ startups until only killers survived.
- Why "Designed in California, Assembled in China" is no longer a thing.
- What “process knowledge” is and why you can’t buy it.
- How outsourcing frontier tech ultimately made western R&D redundant.

I am doing this video with @skagarroum who helped me with the research on it.

Our aim is to learn from China. Not to become like them, but to learn practices that actually work and to learn from our mistakes.

Let's reindustrialize Europe!

Link to the full video as reply.

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

Full video: https://t.co/7AWvV65Zyj

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

Europe accounts for 17-18% of global manufacturing output, second only to China. High-mix, low-volume production forms the backbone of the European economy. Full video linked below

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

Full video: https://t.co/7AWvV65Zyj

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

We had industrial robotic arms for decades. The reason it was only used in mass manufacturing, is that every robotics setup was a one-off built from scratch.
Sunrise Robotics is changing that with their general purpose manufacturing cells that can learn any task in simulation.

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

Full video: https://t.co/7AWvV65Zyj

[PROTOTYPE 🦾 @prototype_cap]

Sunrise Robotics trains their robotic manufacturing cells in simulation, then tests them in their lab, and finally ships them to the customer's factory where they wake up and can immediately go to work.
Full video linked below