Dear all,
We hope you are keeping well as we’re getting to the end of this (short) month!
We are just about to launch a series of 3 articles on AI for Corporates. At the moment we are digging into AI for Hiring, AI for Training and AI for Enhancing Productivity. We can’t wait to share the findings with you in the coming weeks! There will even be a Launch event in London to talk through it all, more on that below 👇🏽.
Right, we have a LOT of other info and updates to share, so let’s jump straight in. This Newsletter includes:
Selected News from the Portfolio – Ornikar reaches €100M Revenue Milestone
Insights – Bridging the Education <-> Employment Gap
Events – AI in L&D Sessions and an Amsterdam Breakfast next week
Happy Thursday - enjoy!
Best, 🧤 The Brighteye Team
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📣 SELECTED NEWS FROM THE PORTFOLIO
🚘 Ornikar reaches €100M in annual turnover
A big congrats to our French portfolio company Ornikar as they reach €100M in annual turnover for 2024. Great news for the online driver training school and marketplace, on a mission to make driving a positive and safe experience for everyone – at a lower cost. Bring on (the rest of) 2025!
📰 Read the full coverage on Les Echos (in 🇫🇷)
🚀 3x Portcos on Spanish Fast 50 list
It’s ace to discover three of our portfolio companies as we scroll down the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list of the fastest-growing companies in Spain for 2024. Brilliant achievement by Twenix at #7, Shakers at #18 and Genially at #41 – keep building, teams!!
✅ CE Class IIa Certification for UpHill
We’re proud to learn that our portco UpHill is among the first software companies in Europe to earn the CE Class IIa Medical Device Certification - for its care orchestration platform. Unlike self-declared Class I certifications, the Class IIa distinction is only awarded to companies that undergo rigorous evaluation by independent international auditors. This game-changing milestone cements the Portuguese company’s leadership in healthcare as the go-to solution with hospital-grade compliance!
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🔎 INSIGHTS
🌉 Bridging the Education <-> Employment Gap
In our recent paper “Post-16 Pathways: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Employment,” we look at how, despite increased access to higher education, a significant gap remains between academic achievement and workforce readiness.
❓ Given these challenges, it is worth questioning whether the traditional education system is effectively equipping students for today’s job market❓
We explored: 🔸 How alternative models might better align with the evolving needs of businesses and industries 🔸 Which opportunities startups could address in this space 🗺️ and created a Market Map!
📍 Prove your product!
We launched our Sidekick resource hub at the end of last year, and in our first guest article, Libby Hills (Jacobs Foundation, host of Ed-Technical Podcast) breaks down why investing in evidence isn’t just good practice - it’s good business.
🔍 The numbers speak for themselves: ✅ K-12 Edtech companies with evidence had 50-70% higher MOICs than those without. ✅ 87% of teachers now demand clear proof of effectiveness before adoption. ✅ Investors are actively prioritising evidence-backed products, such as our friends at Learn, Reach Capital, Owl Ventures and A-Street.
🚀 Our key takeaway? Building an evidence base isn’t just an academic exercise - it’s a commercial imperative.
🎬 The European Edtech Funding Report 2025 Launch Recording
Finally (on insights), at the end of last month, we hosted a Launch event to celebrate the publication of our annual Brighteye European Edtech Funding Report.
It covers a short presentation of the results, and an update on the evolution in our Brighteye thesis that we introduce briefly in Part 2 of the report, which considers the data for deals in this space.
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🎪 EVENTS
Get your diaries out, please, there is a lot going on….
🥑 Investor & Founder Breakfast - Amsterdam
We’re off to Amsterdam 🇳🇱 next week, where we have teamed up to co-host an Investor & Founder Breakfast with our friends at Rubio Impact Ventures, and in partnership with DFF Ventures (Dutch Founders Fund), Dutch Edtech, Endeit Capital, Peak, and No Such Ventures.
Please join us ☀️ bright and early on Wednesday 5 March for an excellent opportunity to connect with fellow investors and entrepreneurs focused on the learning and future of work space.
📤 AI for Corporates Series Launch event – London
As mentioned in the intro above, we are working on our AI for Corporates Series. Please join us on the evening of Wednesday 19 March as we dive into our research on the use of AI for Corporates and hear from some of the experts commenting on the content, followed by some great conversations and networking with colleagues interested in this space.
Please register your interest now, here!
We will present findings from the three papers on:
🔹 AI for Hiring
🔹 AI for Training
🔹 AI for Enhancing Productivity
They cover:
🔎 What AI for Corporates looks like in these spaces
🔎 What value it provides for companies
🔎 Use cases
🗺️ Market maps
Hear - in person - from:
🎤 Olivia Elf, Senior Director of Ops and UK Office Lead at Sana
🎤 Ian Walker, Senior Director Global L&D at Salesforce
🎤 Members of the Brighteye team
🛠️ Practical Sessions on AI for L&D and People Leaders
More AI on the agenda (of course)… We are excited to host a “bootcamp-like” series of online working events on AI for L&D and People leaders in March-April. Join our 4 online sessions to understand and get practical learnings from our experts on how to integrate and make the most of AI within your organisation’s Learning & Development function.
🔎 For full details on Speakers, Learning Objectives, expected Key Takeaways – and Registration:
🧩 Product for Learning Evening - London On Tuesday 18 March, we have teamed up with Product Market Fit expert Matt Walton, who is bringing Geoff Stead in for an evening focused on “Product for Learning.” Geoff is Chief Product Officer, ex MyTutor and Babbel. Geoff will be talking about creating healthy habits and product-led growth for learning, with no doubt a dash of AI wisdom. As well as the chance to quiz Geoff, there will be the opportunity to get to know others building new learning products in breakout discussions.
❗️ Full details and registration here ❗️
💪🏾 Fantastic Female VCs In what’s already happened, we were buzzing yesterday, Wednesday 26 February, as we kicked the day off by getting a ground floor full of talented female investors together at our Notting Hill office to explore the VC Career Path, co-hosted with Notion Capital, HSBC Innovation Banking.It was great to connect and hear Namratha Kothapalli from Speedinvest and Stephanie Opdam, CFA at Notion Capital sharing key insights from their career journeys – moderated by Sophie Winwood from unlock VC (previously WVC:E).
🙏🏻 Thanks to all who joined this second Female VC Breakfast – we will be back!
☀️ Cambridge Connections Last week we had a great day out visiting Cambridge 🇬🇧. Isabella Vahdati & Rhys Spence had a busy trip exploring 🔎 the ecosystem and meeting people at organisations such as Cambridge Enterprise, Digital Education Futures Initiative (DEFI), Cambridge, Cutec, Cambridge Angels and Raspberry Pi Foundation. Lots of opportunities to follow up... See you again soon, Cambridge!!
🇸🇪 Stockholm Snapshot Finally, we enjoyed spending the back end of last week in Stockholm, joining Techarena and catching up with the tech community at several side events and networking opportunities. We met with inspiring Founders and Investors in our updated Edtech 2.0 space and got a glimpse of big names like Sanna Marin, Steven Bartlett and Richard Branson. Some shots to relive the experience:
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