Bulgarian-based and focused Vitosha Venture Partners launches early and growth stage €26 million fund

Bulgaria has a new early and growth-stage fund in Vitosha Venture Partners. Based in Sofia, the €26 million fund aims to support companies that are based in, or related to Bulgaria. A fitting name for the firm, as Vitosha refers to the unmistakable mountain that hovers over the city of Sofia.

The firm has been operating in setup mode over the past year, with operations officially kicking off in late 2020. A team of six seasoned investors are behind Vitosha and include Erik Anderson (ex-Startup Wise Guys and Tera Ventures), Max Gurvits (ex-Eleven), Marin Iliev (ex-NEVEQ), Maris Prii (ex-Startup Wise Guys and Invest Estonia), Nikola Stojanow (ex- Aeternity Ventures), and Paul Weinberger (Austrian VC veteran). Experienced Bulgarian ecosystem venture operators Kamen Bankovski and Stoyan Nedin round out the team.

Looking to write cheques between €25,000 to €1 million, Vitosha has concluded its most recent round of investments, having backed 13 Bulgarian startups for a total of €2.7 million. Investments were made in seven companies that joined the Vitosha Accelerate programme at the beginning of this year, and six seed-stage companies.

Vitosha’s seed-stage investments:

• Petmall (as you might have guessed, pettech)
• Assen Aero (They call it last-mile mobility, your author calls it I WANT ONE!)
• Omnio (Regulation and compliance)
• Meat Me Bar (Foodtech. And shall I say, interesting(?) product name)
• TokWise (software focused on renewable energy, and no, there is no Tik involved.)
• Pellet Box (rural energy distribution - tech)

And the companies that participated in the Vitosha Accelerate programme:

• TraceTheTaste (circular economy and foodtech)
• FidU Trade (exports fintech)
• Augment (e-sports analytics)
• Bye Bye Stuttering (healthtech focused on, you guessed it, Stuttering)
• NulaBG (SME business-focused fintech)
• GridMetrics (energy analytics)
• Ecopolytech (biodegradable polymers tech)

"We're bringing a new level of early-stage experience as a fund firmly rooted in the local ecosystem, but with partners based in Sofia, Vienna, Tallinn, and California, we’re connecting the ever-growing number of successful founders and startups in Bulgaria and the region to global growth opportunities," concludes Vitosha’s Max Gurvits.