Evertrue closes oversubscribed $17M Fund I for early-stage U.K. and European startups

Yvonne Bajela has closed an oversubscribed $17 million Fund I for Evertrue, the venture fund she launched to invest in early-stage companies across the U.K. and Europe. The close was reported on November 3, 2026, in TechCrunch.

The fund's final size is above the roughly $13 million the firm originally targeted. Evertrue had already backed seven companies at the time of the announcement, and it plans to back at least 20 companies over the next three years. The average check size, meaning the amount the fund writes in each initial investment, will be around £350,000.

Bajela previously worked as a venture capitalist (VC) at LocalGlobe and at Impact X Capital Partners. Evertrue's own limited partner (LP) base is concentrated at home. Around 80% of its LPs, the investors who put money into the fund itself, are based in the U.K., with the remainder in Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

The fund has five institutional backers, including the British Business Bank and Basecamp. Evertrue was part of the British Business Bank's £400 million Investor Pathways initiative. Basecamp is a fund-of-funds, a fund that invests in other funds rather than directly in startups. It is the fund-of-funds of Phoenix Court, which is also home to LocalGlobe, the firm where Bajela previously worked as a VC.

In my view, the structure of this fund says as much as its size. A first-time manager with a stated early-stage mandate and an LP base that is roughly four-fifths British is an unusual profile to sustain. The institutional backing from a state-backed investor and a fund-of-funds with a LocalGlobe connection gives the fund a credible anchor for its first vintage, meaning the group of investments made from this first fund. The arithmetic is also worth holding in mind. At the stated average check size, 20 companies would absorb roughly £7 million in initial investments over three years, a modest figure next to the $17 million raised. That gap is where follow-on capital (later rounds into companies already backed), reserves (money set aside for those rounds), and the firm's later choices will matter most.

The broader context here is the continuing search among European seed and early-stage investors for managers who can bring domestic networks and sector depth to founders at the earliest stages. A fund of this size, built around specific check sizes and a clear company target, gives founders in the U.K. and Europe another well-defined source of early capital. Whether Evertrue can convert that mandate into the portfolio it has described will become clear over the coming years. The structure it has put in place is a concrete starting point for a fund that is only at its beginning.