The Sofia-based BrightCap Ventures has announced the first close of its second fund, targeting €60 million. The new capital will be invested in founders from Southeastern Europe to help them scale into Western European and US markets. The ticket size will be between €400,000 to €3 million, focusing at pre-seed and seed stages.

  • Launched in 2018, BrightCap Ventures is an early-stage and accelerator VC fund based in Sofia. It invests in global founders who leverage local engineering talent, helping them by providing with entrepreneurial experience and extensive global network. BrightCap Venture has investment activities across the US, Israel, and EMEA.
Photo by BrightCap Ventures:
BrightCap’s managing team
  • BrightCap’s Fund I portfolio has achieved 5 successful exits out of 22 investments. It has raised over $150M in follow-on capital. Among its investments are storage collaboration platform LucidLink, which recently raised a $75 million in a Series C round and an enterprise orchestration platform Pliant, which was recently acquired by IBM.
US-Bulgarian startup LucidLink raises $75M in Series C funding

About BrightCap Fund II

  • With Fund II, BrightCap aims to invest in globally scalable and impactful tech companies from SEE across three priority verticals – Future of Work, Digital Health and Fintech. The majority of initial investment tickets will be aimed at the pre-seed and seed stages and in the €400,000 to €3 million range.
  • The fund combines public capital from the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF), managed by the EIF, as well as more than 30% private capital from new and existing individual and corporate investors. Additionally, BrightCap II is a VC with a female majority among its General Partners. Diana Stefanova joins the team as a full time partner after 16 years at VMware.

The tech industry is facing a pivotal moment. With BrightCap II, we have the opportunity to capture the next generation of category-defining companies from our region and nurture them to success. I look forward to bringing my tech enterprise experience in support of SEE startups to scale their businesses and reach global markets,

Diana Stefanova, General Partner at BrightCap.

BrightCap II is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU with the financial backing of the Government of Bulgaria under the Bulgaria Recovery and Resilience Plan, and with the financial backing of the Government of Romania under the Romania Recovery Equity Fund