Spotify, Lovable backer Creandum said to raise $750M new fund

Creandum, the Swedish venture capital firm, has raised a new $750 million fund to invest in early-stage startups, according to a Bloomberg report citing co-founder Fredrik Cassel. It is the firm's eighth fund and its largest so far. The previous fund closed in 2024 at €500 million ($559 million).

The fund was raised from around 30 institutions in the US and Europe. Creandum plans to make about 30 investments from it over the next two years.

The firm was an early backer of Klarna and Spotify, and more recently of AI coding startup Lovable and AI model maker Black Forest Labs. Its portfolio also includes Emulate, an AI startup founded by three Google DeepMind alumni that focuses on world models, as well as AI cloud startup Modal and AI accounting software firm Rillet. Cassel said AI investments have been a "net positive" for the firm.

Cassel also offered a view on where AI investing is heading. Investors will need to look beyond the makers of large language models, he said, because enterprises are turning to open source technology from Europe and China as a viable and cheaper alternative.

The raise shows continued investor appetite for a European early-stage firm with a track record in both consumer tech and AI, and it signals that Creandum intends to keep placing AI bets while spreading them beyond model builders.