Jeroen Doornik

Jeroen van Doornik is the Founder & Managing Partner of Pacenotes, an Amsterdam-based venture platform that backs venture funds and co-invests directly in breakout portfolio companies. Pacenotes describes itself as investing in “outlier founders and venture funds, across the globe” and “partnering from pre-seed to growth.” Its LinkedIn profile says the firm has backed 25+ funds and operates two strategies: Pacenotes Core for established managers, typically Fund IV and later, plus direct investments from Series A onward; and Pacenotes Breakout for emerging, micro, and solo GPs, typically before Fund III.

Before Pacenotes, van Doornik was a partner and then managing partner at Rabo Frontier Ventures, Rabobank’s strategic venture arm. Global Corporate Venturing reported that he joined RFV as partner in January 2018 and was promoted to managing partner in March 2020. RFV invested globally in fintech, agtech, food/agriculture technology, and related technology companies, and also committed to venture funds including Northzone, Speedinvest, Valar Ventures, Holtzbrinck, and Greyhound Capital.

Earlier in his career, van Doornik was an investment director at StartGreen Capital, where Global Corporate Venturing reported he managed a €250 million venture fund providing equity, debt, and project finance. He also held investing roles in growth-stage technology across energy, mobility, and software, founded a motorsports startup, and worked at Accenture. Global Corporate Venturing reports that he holds an MSc in public administration with a focus on financial management from Leiden University and has guest lectured at universities in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Amsterdam’s MSc venture capital classes.

• Pacenotes’ core thesis is a hybrid LP/VC model: invest in top-tier venture funds and use that access, data, and relationships to co-invest in the strongest breakout companies from those funds’ portfolios.
• Pacenotes states it backs “outlier founders and venture funds, across the globe.”
• EUVC summarized Pacenotes’ strategy as “investing in top tier funds and co-investing in the winners of their portfolio to generate strong risk-adjusted returns.”
• The fund-of-funds portion is intended to create diversified access to high-quality managers; EUVC reported that 75% of the fund was dedicated to fund investments and up to 25% to direct co-investments.
• Direct co-investments are not lead-led by Pacenotes; EUVC reported that Pacenotes “will never lead a deal” and positions itself as a co-investor alongside existing VC managers.
• Van Doornik told Emerce that Pacenotes does not wait for fund managers to bring deals: “We kijken allereerst naar macrotrends, vervolgens naar segmenten en combineren deze gegevens met data en inzichten uit ons fondsennetwerk.”
• He also told Emerce that founders should be precise about fit: know what a VC does, which deals it has done, and whether the company is relevant to that VC.
• At Rabo Frontier Ventures, his focus was fintech and agtech companies that could disrupt or influence Rabobank’s business, especially early-growth-stage companies and leading technology funds.