BrightCap Ventures Fund I: 4 Successful Years Marked by 4 Exits

A little over 4 years ago, BrightCap Ventures raised €25 million for its first fund, to be deployed in pre-seed/ seed tech companies. Our thesis was that we can support the development of the Bulgarian startup ecosystem and inspire global founders to leverage local R&D talent and scale exponentially.

Fast forward to today, we have made 19 investments and our portfolio has already created significant value across sectors such as digital health, future of work, and fintech.

4 successful exits in the short period since the launch of Fund I validated our ability to select standout companies and generate liquidity to our LPs. The enterprise value of our investments has grown to $600+ million after having founders fundraise more than $60 million in follow-on rounds. Portfolio companies now count over 600 people in their teams, including many stellar engineers hired in Bulgaria.

Last but not least, we had the opportunity to co-invest and partner with top-tier VCs and corporates in the US and Europe – Bain Capital Ventures, Adobe, Crosslink Capital, Headline, Boeing, and many others.

Investment Strategy: How We Did It

Our mission is to identify and invest early in the tech success stories born out of our rising region. One of the ways we achieve this is through our proprietary deal flow which has brought over 60% of our investments. We don’t just wait for deals to come to us, we find them through our extensive network of contacts, partners, and entrepreneurs. This allows us to identify the most promising and disruptive startups before they become widely known.

We obsess with good tech. Our investment focus is on commercial deep tech and defensible b2b technology, which we believe is a competitive advantage in the SEE region. When evaluating start-ups to partner with, we emphasize the product uniqueness and the quality of the team necessary to build a truly standout company.

We are always on the lookout for execution-focused founders who have a vision for global markets, especially those from Southeast Europe. We believe that this region has a wealth of untapped potential, and we are committed to helping these founders succeed on a global scale.

After all, the historically limited capital around here has pushed local founders to create value ~5x more efficiently than their US counterparts, according to data from McKinsey.

Some Of Our Success Stories

Cloudpipes

The very first exit of BrightCap Ventures Fund I back in 2019, Cloudpipes was acquired by Vista-owned Quickbase, one of the world’s leading no-code platforms, counting clients like Amazon, P&G, AT&T.

As part of the deal, Quickbase announced it will grow the former Cloudpipes engineering team in Bulgaria tenfold and turn it into a major global R&D office. Today, the company employs more than 100 people in Sofia and continues to grow.

FITE

Following the streaming of 5,000+ events, over 10 million users, and becoming the world’s top-grossing mobile app, Sofia-based FITE was acquired by TrillerNet  at the start of 2021.

Subsequently, TrillerNet secured $310 million in equity capital, attracted investors such as the legendary rock band Metallica, and are currently preparing for a public offering debut on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Enview

After having its digital twin technology deployed for Fortune 500 utility companies, insurance providers, and US government agencies, Enview was acquired by the global spatial analytics leader of the built world, Matterport, in early 2022.

Matterport currently has a market capitalization of $1 billion and, according to analysts, is set out for significant future growth due to Enview’s vertical integration and added powerful data analytics capabilities.

Woom

Finally (for now), our portfolio company Woom, an AI fertility app, merged with Europe’s first virtual fertility clinic Apricity.

Together, they raised a €17 million Series B round to be used for expanding into the largest EU markets – UK and Spain, followed by Germany and Italy. Through the acquisition of Woom, Apricity will accelerate its pathway to becoming a comprehensive one-stop-shop for all fertility-related challenges.

Lessons Learned

“Being constrained by the size and the need for diversification in Fund I, we were sometimes not able to take bigger initial tickets or follow on investments in winning companies. We also missed some promising regional opportunities that didn’t meet the local set-up requirements. With Fund II, we plan to address both of these challenges” shares Elina Halatcheva, Managing Partner at BrightCap Ventures.

BrightCap Ventures is here to help able and ambitious founders deliver strong results with vision, diligence and adaptability.