GapMinder, a venture capital firm targeting IT software and services startups in Romania and Central Eastern Europe, has announced the launch of its second, €80 million fund. It will support Romanian tech startup with initial ticket size of €2.5 million.
- GapMinder VC is a Romanian venture capital firm focused on seed and Series A investments into local and regional startups that have the potential for global expansion in IT software and service-related sectors.
- The investment strategy of the fund is to support deeptech startups at seed and late seed stages, making first investments of up to €2.5 million, with significant follow-on capabilities. The fund became active on February 14th after its first closing and will shortly announce its first transaction.
- It was raised with the support of the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The capital injection consists of two parts:
- EIF supported GapMinder Fund II with an aggregate of €30 million via two initiatives, namely the European Union program InvestEU and the Recovery Equity Fund, part of The National Recovery and Resilience Plan co-financed by EU via Next GenerationEU.
- EBRD invested €10 million in this fund. This is the first investment of EBRD in a fund launched by a team of Romanian partners.
- According to the fund, it aims to support startups from Romania, Moldova, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bulgaria, operating in the fintech, cybersecurity, enterprise automation, and data/analytics verticals.
