Yvonne Bajela, whose early investments include Wise, Marshmallow and Moove, has closed Evertrue Capital's oversubscribed £13 million debut fund. The pre-seed fund will back AI and frontier technology founders across the UK and Europe who understand a problem deeply and have the discipline to build on it before the wider market catches on.
Evertrue leads and co-invests at pre-seed, making a concentrated number of investments each year rather than pursuing a high-volume portfolio strategy. It looks for what often isn't visible on a CV: a deep understanding of a problem, perspective built through experience and the ability to turn that into execution. The fund is backed by Bajela's former firm Phoenix Court through Basecamp, its fund of funds for emerging managers, alongside the British Business Bank, Better Society Capital, Bootstrap 4F (Invest in Women Taskforce) and Allocator One. Founders, operators and GPs from Evertrue's network have also invested and will give founders hands-on support alongside the fund's capital.
Evertrue has already invested in seven companies, including YC-backed Revion, agentic AI for the automotive sector; Poindexter Labs, an AI capability and efficiency lab; Zuba, a fintech building infrastructure for global businesses; and Zaro, a shared knowledge layer for enterprises, alongside companies still operating in stealth. Half the portfolio has already launched operations in the US.
Bajela brings more than a decade of investing across Europe, Asia and Africa. She began her career at Goldman Sachs and founded her own company before joining Mitsui & Co., where she became one of its youngest investment managers, living and working in Japan and across EMEA while investing in companies including Wise and helping portfolio companies expand into Asia. She was later a founding member and Principal at Impact X Capital, leading its seed investment in Marshmallow, then a Partner at Phoenix Court, home of LocalGlobe and Latitude, where she backed Moove. She has raised well above the typical first-time fund at a time when fundraising for solo GPs has become increasingly difficult: 67% of new VC funds launched in 2024 targeted under £7.5 million.
Over the past decade, I've backed founders who went on to build billion-dollar companies, and almost none of them looked obvious at the start. The ones I'm drawn to understand a problem deeply, often from lived experience, and have the conviction and discipline to build around it. They don't always fit a familiar pattern, but their insight gives them an edge others can't yet see. The best moment to invest is before the market has proof. That belief has shaped Evertrue. We make concentrated, early bets and give founders the capital, access and support to build companies of consequence.
Yvonne was our first cheque and backed us from day zero. Her conviction in us as founders was clear from the start and she immediately got to work, helping us find top talent and opening doors across the UK and US to industry leaders and investors ahead of our Seed round.
Yvonne saw what we were building before it was easy to explain, back when training data was still an afterthought to most investors. That early belief gave us the confidence to go after the partnerships that mattered.
