Yvonne Bajela closed a $17 million first fund after more than a decade as a venture capitalist at LocalGlobe and Impact X Capital Partners, where she invested in unicorns including fintech Wise, insurance company Marshmallow, and robotaxi Mooves.
Evertrue Capital, her new firm, closed an oversubscribed round on Tuesday and has already backed seven companies. The fund will target early-stage investments across the U.K. and Europe with an average check size around £350,000, aiming to back at least 20 companies over three years.
Bajela said the AI boom helped convince her to launch her own fund now. "The ability to build has been democratized," she said. "But the ability to build something enduring remains rare."
Five institutional backers backed the fund, including the British Business Bank and Basecamp, the fund-of-funds arm of Phoenix Court, which also owns LocalGlobe. Evertrue received part of the British Business Bank's £400 million Investor Pathways initiative, which allocated £90 million to 10 first-time fund managers.
Bajela initially targeted $13 million but saw strong investor interest. She chose not to expand the fund beyond $17 million. "Fund size is a strategic decision, not a measure of success in itself," she said. "I wanted enough capital to build meaningful positions in my highest-conviction investments without creating pressure to deploy capital simply because it was available."
Around 80 percent of Evertrue's limited partners are U.K. based, with others spread across Europe, Asia, and the U.S. More than half her portfolio already operates in the U.S.
The fund will invest mainly in AI and fintech. Bajela said she looks for founders with "a unique insight into a problem, an unusual ability to execute and the ambition to build something much bigger than their initial product."