Dear Friends,
We hope it’s a Happy Thursday!
Spring is in the air across Europe, the surest sign of it being that the event season is in full bloom. We’ve got loads going on, why not just jump straight in❓
This update includes:
Investment Update - Reinvestment in Shakers
Selected News from the Portfolio – New Podcast from Tandem
Insights – Introducing 2 New Content Collections
Events – SXSW London, South Summit Madrid, London Tech Week, VivaTech Paris, London Edtech Week etc….
And much more – we hope you’ll enjoy!
Best,
The Brighteye Team ☀️
💰 INVESTMENT UPDATES
🔁 Reinvestment - Shakers - €14M Series A
Shakers just announced their €14M Series A funding round! We are very proud to continue our support for the Spanish scaleup “building the infrastructure for the future of work, making it simpler for companies to connect with independent talent - fast, flexible, and friction-free.”
Led by Partech, with participation from Kfund, Athos Capital, Wayra and us, this investment will be used to keep 🧱 expanding across Europe and launching new tools that empower freelancers, from onboarding to delivery, changing the way people work.
When we first invested in the impressive Shakers team in 2023, it was clear that Héctor, Nico, Jaime, Adrian and the team were creating a movement in Spain around "freeworking," addressing a critical pain point for traditional companies.
Our Partner David Guérin said:
❝The connection was immediate. They had everything we look for: strong market pull, a team of talented and complementary founders, a healthy balance of ambition and humility, and exceptional technical expertise paired with deep market insights.❞
📰 The news secured some great media coverage, too – check out the stories on Tech.eu, EU-Startups, Tech Funding News, Tech Startups, Startup Rise, FinSMEs, Startups Magazine
📣 SELECTED NEWS FROM THE PORTFOLIO
👏 Shakers on VivaTech Top 100 Rising Startups
Speaking of Shakers, you can catch them at Viva Technology – where they have been named in the Top 100 Rising Startups and will present in front of the Paris crowd at the 11-14 June event. Keep it coming, team!
🎧 Tandem Launches New Podcast
Interested in all things languages, travel 🧳 and culture? We can recommend the new “Connected By Language" Podcast from our portfolio company Tandem, the platform helping you “master any language by chatting with real people”! Hosted by Michele Paroli, each episode will explore a new country and shine a light on what makes their culture so special and interview some of the most dedicated language learners out there. Tune in now!
🔎 INSIGHTS
🗂️ Two New Content Collections – Impact and Finance
We keep launching new content on the Brighteye Sidekick resource hub, and in the past month we have added two new series of articles – on Impact and Finance.
Impact
In this Collection, we share content to help you understand, measure, build on and communicate your Impact, including:
🔸 What is Impact?
🔸 The startup case for impact
🔸 Designing for impact
🔸 Measuring what matters
🔸 Communicating impact
With thanks to our wonderful Impact Mentors, Jennifer Coogan and Professor Natalia Kucirkova, for the reviews and comments!
Natalia followed up with a Mentor Article, discussing the importance of showing evidence of Impact in Edtech. She argues that tables are starting to turn, with momentum, both funding and growth, building on companies actively demonstrating impact made on the learning.
Please also check out the short soundbites we recorded with Jenny, covering: What is Impact, Why think of Impact from the beginning, What Makes good Impact Metrics.
Finance
In this series of articles, our Head of Finance, Mattheus Dias, shares useful guidance on your approach to finance matters in your startup. The content will support you as you begin working with finance professionals. It covers:
🔹 Management & Financial Accounting
🔹 Cash flow
🔹 Reporting
🔹 Budgeting
✒️ Rethinking the ARR-to-CSM Ratio
Our Customer Success Mentor Andrea Spillmann-Gajek looks closely at ARR:CSM (Customer Success Management) ratios in this blog post she penned for us.
The article includes:
💡 Factors that indicate whether your ARR:CSM ratio is in the right ballpark
💡 Setting realistic ratios and building to scale
💡 Recognising when your ratio is too low or too high
💡 Alternative metrics you can consider
Click image 👇🏽 for the full blog post:
⚙️ Edtech is Core Infrastructure for the AI Economy
In a recent blog post, we present the Brighteye take on "Why Edtech is core infrastructure for the AI economy." Edtech is the most overlooked lever in 🗝️ unlocking AI’s true societal and economic value, writes Rhys Spence, our Head of Platform and Research. We point to Sana’s partnership with Swedish government and YC’s latest call for startups as evidence.
🇬🇧 Our Comments on PISCES
The UK is pioneering a new era for private markets with the launch of PISCES - the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System. This government-backed initiative introduces a regulated platform for private companies to facilitate controlled, periodic share trading events. Check out Rhys’ article commenting on this UK bet on founder- and employee-friendly capital markets.
Why this matters:
💰 Liquidity for Founders & Employees: Enables early stakeholders to realise gains without waiting for an IPO or acquisition
🤝 Investor Opportunities: Opens avenues for investors (and others...!) to engage with high-growth private companies
🌎 Global Competitiveness: Positions the UK as a leading hub for startups seeking flexible capital solutions
🎪 EVENTS
The Spring-Summer 25 Event Season has kicked off, and we’re excited to be involved in a lot of the action. Some recaps of what’s already happened at the end - and here’s what we’ve got coming up - hosting and where to find us:
🇬🇧 Monday 2 June: Build. Scale. Adapt. Exit.
Co-Hosted by Cooley, EDT & Partners, Oppenheimer and us during the week of SXSW London, we’ll dive into the highs, lows, and wild pivots that come with building something great. Whether you’re just sketching out your big idea or scaling up to new heights, this event is all about sharing real experience, fresh strategies, and connecting with the community of Founders, Funders and operators in this space.
🇬🇧 Thursday 12 June: Aspiring Female Partners Summer Mixer
During London Tech Week, our Izzy Vahdati & Notion Capital’s Kirsten Meehan have teamed up with Unlock VC and Cooley to host the next edition of our Aspiring Female Partners event series. If you are a Female VC, please register your interest now to join us for an evening of invaluable insights from a leading female founder in the tech industry (to be announced soon!), followed by the opportunity to connect with like-minded females in the venture-capital and tech space over some drinks & canapés!
🇬🇧 16-20 June: London Edtech Week
We will be busy as always during London Edtech Week – hosting the, now traditional, Official Opening Reception alongside Cooley on Monday 16 June.
On Thursday, 19 June, we are partnering with Matt Walton to offer an in-person workshop to explore the four dimensions that you need to crack to find Product-Market Fit and the common stages that you need to work through and what to focus on when. We'll bring these dimensions and stages to life with case studies of where people have done it successfully.
And later the same day we are again joining forces with Cooley, Oppenheimer and EDT & Partners to co-host an afternoon of panels and conversations around building and growing in the Future of Learning and Work landscape - registrations to open soon.
👋🏽 Meet us at:
You can also Meet Us at several events across Europe in the coming weeks:
🗓️ 27-28 May – Founding Partner Ben attending Mashup in Malmö, Sweden 🇸🇪
🗓️ 3-6 June – Ben, David, Izzy, Ghita and Hege will be in Madrid during South Summit, including Ben and Izzy on Stage and Ghita hosting an oversubscribed Young VC Dinner 🇪🇸
🗓️ 11-14 June – Our Paris team will be around for Viva Technologies 🇫🇷
👀 Looking Back
It’s always fun to have people over, and there’s been a lot of activity in our London office lately. So far in May, we’ve been hosting and co-hosting 3 lovely events.
🍀 Female Founders & Funders Fun
We had the pleasure of welcoming a fab group of Female Founders and Investors in the 🔮 Future of Learning and Work space. Inspiring stories shared from both sides, leading to great connections and future partnerships. Well done 👏 for getting such an amazing crowd together, Isabella Vahdati (Brighteye) and Valérie Aelbrecht (AlbionVC & JV Investment Network)!
🍭 Investor Evening
We hosted a baby vc 🇬🇧 London dinner, enjoying the company of 25 young investors from Eurazeo, Creandum, Forestay Capital, Lakestar, True., Mouro Capital, Salica Investments, BlackFin Capital Partners, Inovia Capital & many more.
🏡 Founder Evening
Our Ground Floor was filled with Founders, as we partnered with Novabook on co-hosting an Exits Fireside Chat 🎙️ and networking evening! Pulling in the crowds was Stephen Wilks, in conversation with our Isabella Vahdati, on Founding, building and exiting, with 15M users, Seneca Learning to GoStudent, and starting again as the Founder and CEO of Novabook.
