Ninepointfive (aka 9.5 Ventures)

Ninepointfive, also trading as 9.5 Ventures, is a corporate-backed venture capital firm founded in 2019 and headquartered in Antwerp, Belgium. It claims to be Europe's first VC firm investing exclusively alongside corporate partners — a model where every investment is co-sponsored by a strategic corporate that contributes industry expertise, market insight, and customer access in addition to the firm's capital. The firm was co-founded by Founding Partner Paul van Emmerick, who brings 20-plus years as a CEO across corporates, consultancies, and investment firms, and Pieter Van de Velde. Corporate partners and co-investors include Beiersdorf, Telenet, and Agfa. Ninepointfive operates two flagship fund strategies with combined AUM of approximately EUR 35 million. 'One' accelerates the digitisation of Europe's industrial value chain, while 'Tidal' focuses on the energy transition across maritime, ports, and offshore shipping. The firm writes pre-seed to Series A checks of EUR 500,000 to EUR 3 million-plus, with sector coverage spanning B2B SaaS, cleantech, energy, hardware and robotics, and digital transformation. Public portfolio highlights include MakerVerse, an on-demand manufacturing marketplace that raised a EUR 9.4 million Series A with Ninepointfive participating; Eccocar, a B2B SaaS digitising car rental operations; Lissi, a self-sovereign identity and verifiable credentials platform; and Heylog, a logistics communication SaaS that raised a EUR 3 million pre-seed in June 2022 with KUBIKx and Ninepointfive. The total portfolio spans approximately 20 companies. The corporate co-investment model gives Ninepointfive's portfolio companies a practical advantage that extends well beyond capital: immediate access to enterprise buyers, pilot opportunities, and procurement relationships that independent VCs rarely control.