📣 Brighteye Ventures - May Update
Good morning/afternoon/evening,
Happy May – we hope you are enjoying lighter days and soon barbecues!☀️🌿 At Brighteye, we are feeling optimistic about the signs of the big unlockdown🔐.
Lots of exciting things happening in the Brighteye universe over the past - and coming - weeks:
Investment Announcements
Selected Portfolio Updates
Brighteye Insights - “The EdTech Gap” and a new financial literacy report
Events - invitation and recaps
Curated Content
Enjoy!
💰INVESTMENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
🆕 Hack The Box - $10.6M Series A
New in the Brighteye portfolio, Cybersecurity training provider Hack The Box announced its Series A $10.6M round in April. Led by Paladin Capital Group and joined by Osage University Partners (OUP), ourselves and existing investors Marathon Venture Capital. We are delighted to be part of the round which will support the company as they continue to enable cybersecurity professionals and university students alike to advance their skills and careers.
🚗 Ornikar - $120M Series C
We are excited for the Ornikar team on the announcement of their $120M raise led by KKR & Co. Inc. It is a pleasure and joy to keep driving with Ornikar, and be part of this round alongside Idinvest Partners, Bpifrance Digital Venture, Elaia and H14. Not only is this a testament to all the hard work - it means that learning to drive and auto insurance will be a better & more affordable experience for a growing number of Europeans in France, Spain and beyond.
🤐 There are a few more deals in the pipeline to be announced in the coming weeks, and whilst we cannot say much more quite yet, we will share more details soon.
Please follow us on Brighteye 👋 LinkedIn and 🐦 Twitter to be the first to know all the news!
📣 SELECTED PORTFOLIO UPDATES
Litigate on Taylor Wessing podcast
Litigate recently signed a contract with leading UK Law Firm Taylor Wessing for adoption of the company's AI-powered litigation platform. TW celebrated by inviting Litigate Co-Founder and CEO Nimrod Aharon to share his views on “The impact of AI on litigation” in their “Sidebar” podcast.
🎙Listen in here!
Aula - The Covid impact on educators
Aula realised that while we have a relatively clear picture of the challenges and opportunities students have encountered so far during Covid 19, the experience of academics and staff supporting learning and teaching hasn’t been as clearly captured. It made our portfolio member team up with Wonkhe on a study to understand how the pandemic has impacted current classroom practices and to explore if and how it will shape the future of education. Some expected struggles were found. But also some very positive surprises!
👀 Check out the highlights and full findings here!
🔎 BRIGHTEYE INSIGHTS
At Brighteye we are always keen to explore, and we spend a lot of time diving into new areas connected to learning and growing. Reports, analysis and interviews – sharing it is the best part!
The EdTech Gap - explained by Citi’s Tom Singlehurst
We sat down with Tom Singlehurst, Head of European Media Equity Research and Global Head of Education Research at Citi, to discuss our shared interests in emerging education and learning trends and opportunities, to ask him about what he’s expecting post-covid and to explain to us the “EdTech Gap” referred to in Citi’s high-profile report “Education: Fast Forward to the Future”. Here’s a short teaser:
🗺️ Financial Literacy report (80+ players)
In a new market map and assessment on financial literacy we looked at provision of financial education within formal education systems 💵 (the positive and less positive bits) and how startups and scale-ups 🚀 are rising to the challenge and helping consumers improve their financial management.
Featuring: market map of 80+ players, business models, avenues of differentiation and our observations.
🌍 EVENTS - THE EUROPEAN EDTECH TOUR
🇬🇷 Is Athens the new Berlin? Wednesday 26 May
How are Greek edtech startups able to go from pre-seed to Series A🚀, seemingly under the radar? As the Brighteye European EdTech Tour arrives in Greece, our Managing Partner and Greek national Alex Spiro Latsis speaks to Co-Founder and CEO Haris Pylarinos at Hack The Box and Thanos Papangelis, Co-Founder and CEO at Epignosis,. Hack The Box recently raised $10.6M to expand their cybersecurity training offer. Epignosis was backed by leading US tech PE fund Insight Venture Partners and has 11 million learners using their solutions worldwide.
For the regional (and beyond) VC view, we are joined by Partner George Tziralis at Marathon Venture Capital and Nikitas Koutoupes, Managing Director at Insight Partners.
Register: Wednesday 26 May, 2-3pm BST.
The event is part of a European Tour 🌍 of virtual visits this spring. We visited Germany in March to discuss how to build and maintain strong learning communities & stopped in France in April to focus on disruption in higher education.
💁 CURATED CONTENT
We regularly share news and updates on our Brighteye 👋 LinkedIn and 🐦 Twitter channels and hope you want to follow us there. In addition, we have also made some curated reading & listening suggestions.
🎙 Podcasts
📑 News/Articles/Reports
🏆 What it will take for the cream of EdTech to rise to the top - Rhys Spence, our Head of Research shares some thoughts in this Global Edtech piece
Nordic EdTech News is a fortnightly newsletter we have long been fans of. Recently they added in-depth interviews with edtech profiles to their publications. This week’s conversation with Jannie Jeppesen, CEO of Swedish Edtech Industry 🇸🇪 (trade association for EdTech companies operating in Sweden) is well worth a read.
Top VC Firms Don’t Outperform the Broader Market at Seed - AngelList