Solo investor Air Street raises $232mn to chase hot AI bets
London-based Nathan Benaich’s approach uses speed and focus to find a foothold and deliver returns
A sizeable new fund raised by a solo UK-based venture capitalist highlights a shift in the AI investment boom, as specialist investors seek to challenge multibillion-dollar firms for the sector’s hottest deals.
London-based Air Street Capital has raised $232mn for a new fund, bringing assets under management to about $400mn and making it Europe’s largest one-person VC.
Founded in 2018 by Nathan Benaich, Air Street invests exclusively in AI groups and reflects a broader bet that speed and focus can deliver returns as the cost of backing leading start-ups rises sharply.
Air Street has backed Germany’s Black Forest Labs and UK-based groups Synthesia and ElevenLabs. Its new fund is almost twice the size of its previous $121mn raising in 2023.
“One of the reasons to go bigger now is the opportunity set has accelerated dramatically,” he told the FT. “Companies want to raise faster and raise larger rounds, so you need to adapt the model for the game that’s being played.”
Total European venture capital investment rose 5 per cent to €66bn in 2025, a post-pandemic high, according to PitchBook. Those gains were driven by big deals for the continent’s top AI and defence companies.
The fast-paced funding environment favours one-person funds that can move quickly, he said, without needing the approval of other partners.
But top Silicon Valley groups such as OpenAI and Anthropic are raising tens of billions of dollars in a single round. Start-ups such as Thinking Machines, Safe Superintelligence, Reflection AI and AMI Labs have raised more than $1bn before launching a product.
The escalating cost of access to the top AI companies has driven the biggest VC firms such as Thrive Capital, Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz to raise far larger multibillion-dollar funds than in previous eras.
This has left many smaller VC firms struggling to find a foothold in the most explosive tech boom in decades. Benaich said the trend forces smaller VC firms to focus and find ways to get noticed. Air Street publishes an annual State of AI report to raise its profile among entrepreneurs.
“If you are not in a game of investing in the massive labs, you focus a lot more pragmatically on the deployment market and vertical applications and selected infrastructure tools,” he said.
Benaich said there is particular opportunity for back AI-powered defence start-ups on the continent. Air Street has backed Delian Alliance Industries, a maritime defence start-up based in Greece which raised $14mn last year.
“The decade or two decades of rearmament has really only just begun,” he said. “Countries need to ensure their own domestic capability on defence for the attack vectors they are most likely to see.”