Do female VCs have a different approach?

Of course, the female-founded and led ventures in Bulgaria are not only in the sustainability domain.

For example, Propy – a blockchain platform for real estate that has attracted over $15M venture capital in the US, was founded by Tatyana Karayaneva. Tatyana Mitkova co-founded ClaimCompass, a platform that helps people claim compensations in cases of delayed or canceled flights, while she was a student in Berlin. The startup was later invited in TechStars accelerator in the US and received ＄475K investments. Elena Nikolova is co-founder and CEO of Escreo, a company that turns walls into whiteboards through an innovative paint. Svetla Simidchieva and Ekaterina Mihaylova founded Maj.io, which develops AI solutions for talent acquisition in the IT sector.

Yana Vlatchkova co-founded Swipes, which first developed a task management software and has recently launched a collaboration tool for tech product teams in the US. After a long career in hospitality, Elitsa Stoilova came back to Bulgaria in 2017 and started a chatbot company called Umni.co and attracted its first investment from a Canadian fund. After a career in politics and NGOs Pavlina Dzhartova, joined AI developer HyperAsect, shortly after it was founded, and leads its business development and product line.

Difficult to say whether male and female VC invest differently. We make our investment decisions at BrightCap unanimously (we have two female and two male partners) and I haven’t noticed a gender division. Maybe we pay more attention to the soft side”, says Elina Halatcheva from one of the newest funds in Bulgaria BrightCap. The other female partner is Diana Stefanova, also known as the Managing Director of VMware Bulgaria. All her previous roles in investment banking, research of e-commerce and technology start-ups, private equity, led her to initiate the new fund. Halatcheva shares she doesn’t pay attention to the fact that she is women in a male-dominated sphere and has chosen to focus on “building skills and competencies rather than fighting ghosts”.

“I think it’s important to promote the investment culture among women”, says Sasha Bezuhanova. She moved on to diverse activities supporting the innovation and digital economy after a long international corporate career in HP. Bezuhanova is an active mentor, angel investor in seven startups, a limited partner in four funds, member of a European female business angels network and founder of the Bulgarian Center for Women in Technology. She believes female entrepreneurs should be supported from a young age and has initiated Entrepregirl- a contest for young entrepreneurs between 16 and 25. Bezuhanova is cautious in drawing lines between male and female VCs, but also observes some trends: “First of all, women investors put more effort into mentoring on corporate culture and working environment. When reviewing companies they also value the social impact of a company higher than men who are traditionally looking rather at the numbers”.

Indeed, there are not many female investors in Bulgaria. One of the first publicly visible figures was Zlatolina Mukova, who joined one of the first local funds NEVEQ as managing partner in 2012. Prior to that Mukova has taken C-level corporate roles in the IT and financial sector. There’s a potential that one new fund called Innovation Accelerator Bulgaria, led by design thinking coach Leona Aslanova  and consultant Venetsia Netsova, emerges soon.  Some months ago, we also spotted Dessy Kovatcheva, who backed the local waste management startup CozZo, as an angel investor. To be honest, we haven’t heard of other female investors. Maria Marinova, even though not an investor herself, is leading the Bulgarian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.