Fil Rouge Capital actively pursuing opportunities in Romania

Fil Rouge Capital (FRC) is actively looking at opportunities in the country, Matei Dumitrescu, Venture Partner Romania with FRC, explains.

Fil Rouge recently announced a EUR 300,000 pre-seed funding for the European social media platform eYou, which launched publicly this week in Bucharest.

Its local portfolio also includes OptiComm.ai, a Romanian AI startup focused on predictive commerce. The platform, developed through an initial self-funded investment of more than EUR 300,000, uses artificial intelligence to predict customer needs and optimize inventory and sales. Fil Rouge and a syndicate of investors from TechAngels Romania backed OptiComm.ai with a EUR 500,000 investment, announced at the end of last year.

With a large part of local founders lacking business experience, getting funded by a VC is not that easy, Matei Dumitrescu says. “Perhaps they could see some angel investors first, develop, go through an accelerator, and when they are a bit better prepared, they can come to us.”

“There is a lot of talent in Romania, people want to do things, they are ambitious, smart, well prepared on the technical side, but less so on the product side, on thinking from the client’s perspective when building a business, but with education and in time, this gap between us and Western startup ecosystems will narrow.”

The VC is also active in the acceleration area, where it provides smaller funding for early-stage startups. “We’re looking for bold, crazy startups, with ideas that can change the world.”

FRC entered the local market last year, when it announced it was interested in backing software start-ups, particularly those using AI to transform B2B markets, supply chains, and SME operations.

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