Back in 1998 when Michael Szalontay and Alexander Konoplyasty were university students in international finance, they set on a journey to give more freedom to their professional creativity by founding Flashpoint – the international VC that aims at SaaS companies founded by CEE, Baltic, and Israeli tech entrepreneurs.
Fast-forward to 2021, Flashpoint already consists of a team of more than 30 people and has offices in 5 countries, including Romania, Poland, and Lithuania. The 16th of February marks the announcement of the launch of its new secondary fund, which will target $200M and has $70M already closed. The new fund will focus on later-stage tech startups and will provide liquidity for early-stage shareholders, allow them to consolidate their cap tables, and provide them with mentorship from Flashpoint’s team.
Strategy, criteria, and more…
The new fund will be independent of the existing late-seed and Series A stage Venture Capital and Series B+ Venture Debt funds of Flashpoint and will be managed by a team led by Szalontay and Chris Baxter who had been the Head of Investment Banking and CEO of Principal Investments at Renaissance Capital. The Secondary Fund will invest in later-stage SaaS companies that are at the same time gaining significant revenue from international markets and are keeping their presence in the local markets of origin.
The initial check size of Flashpoint’s Secondary Fund ranges between $5M and $15M with a potential to increase to $30M over the life of the investment. When it comes to the selection criteria, the partners will pay attention to the growth potential of the market and the prospect of the company’s clear path to future liquidity.
Learning by doing: a strong track record of investments
Flashpoint aims at supporting the growth of B2C and B2B SaaS startups by providing them with access to a network of 500 experts from over 100 international companies from all kinds of industries. Tech entrepreneurs are also aided with expert HR, Corporate finance, Marketing, and IT advice and hands-on support. Since launching in 2012, Flashpoint has made investments in twenty-nine tech companies and exited eight companies.
The SEE tech companies in the portfolio of Flashpoint Venture Capital include the Greek travel tech Welcome Pickups that provides travelers with an enjoyable and informative transfer experience from and to the airport, and the Bulgarian property management software for coworking and shared office spaces OfficeRnD. Another regional representative, which raised $18M in Series A in August 2020, is the Romanian startup Chili Piper that develops a meeting automation platform for revenue teams to help them connect with buyers at all stages of their customer lifecycle.
