Early Game Ventures launches second, EUR 60 million fund

Early Game Ventures (EGV) has officially launched its second investment fund, EGV Fund II, two months after being approved by the EIF Board.

EGV Fund II is a EUR 60 million fund that will invest in early-stage technology startups from Romania and the region. It will focus on areas such as cyber security, enterprise software, and AI applications.

The funds from which EGV II will invest come from institutional partners, private individuals who also invested in the first EGV fund, and new investors.

The fund benefits from an investment of EUR 30 million 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. The final approval for this investment was received less than two months ago, at the end of February 2024.

The first EGV fund invested in 28 technology companies in fields such as AI, cyber security, enterprise software, edutech, or consumer apps. To date, EGV Fund I has announced four exits, with an internal rate of return of 45%.

Recently, the Early Game team also announced a new exit from EGV Fund I, the American PDQ software asset management company acquiring CODA Intelligence, a company specialized in cybersecurity solutions and one of Early Game's first investments.

"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 EUR 60 million. Not many managers can boast of oversubscribed VC funds during this period. We also thank all Fund I investors who have supported us since 2018 in this process. We are convinced that, in the next five years, we will be able to identify and accelerate the development of the region's most promising technological companies," Cristian Munteanu, Managing Partner EGV, said.

"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. I'm sure we will find them," Dan Călugăreanu, EGV Partner, said.

"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," Florin Vișa, Partner EGV, said.