In a nutshell
- Romanian Early Game Ventures launches its second investment fund, with the total value of €60M.
- EGV Fund II will invest in technology startups from Romania and the region.
Their background story
Early Game Ventures (EGV), founded in 2018, primary focus is on startups in emerging markets in Europe.
According to their data, the first EGV fund invested in 28 Romanian technology companies in various fields such as AI, cyber security, enterprise software, EduTech, or consumer apps. EGV Fund I has announced 4 exits, with an internal rate of return of 45%.
Get the details
The new fund will invest in 25-30 early-stage technology startups, continuing the thesis of the first Early Game fund. It will focus on areas such as cyber security, enterprise software, and AI applications. 60-70% of the investments will be in Romanian startups, with the rest in Europe or further. Their ticket is up to €6M.
The fund benefits from an investment of €30M from the Recovery Equity Fund, managed by the European Investment Fund and financed by the National Plan for Recovery and Resilience within the Next Generation EU. This makes up 50% of the fund, the other 50% coming from private money.
According to the partners, the fund is already well on its investment path, having signed a term sheet with a Polish cybersecurity startup and a Romanian AI app. The deals will be soon announced.
Another important mention of Cristian Munteanu, Managing Partner, is that “December was a surprisingly good month when many startups from the ecosystem had great results.”
In their own words
“We are grateful to all the investors who believed in us and chose to join us in continuing our mission to find and invest in the best tech startups in Romania and CEE. It is an important confirmation of our work that, in a difficult economic context, we managed to attract the necessary private financing and that, in a very short time, we will sign the final closing at the size of €60M,” said Cristian Munteanu, Managing Partner EGV.
“We are looking for founders who live in the future, and we focus our efforts on giving them fuel to achieve their goals. Fuel means not only money but also networking, support, guidance to avoid mistakes, asking the right questions, finding clients, and raising the next round of investments,” shared Dan Călugăreanu, EGV Partner.
“We are particularly happy that we will be able to support more young entrepreneurs who aspire to build businesses on a global scale starting from Romania. Especially since we can do this with Romanian capital and capital attracted to Romania. We are also adding a regional component to the new fund, managing to attract private capital from outside the country that we want to use by investing in startups in the region,” added Florin Vișa, Partner EGV.
