BlackPeak Capital completes 1st closing of SEE growth equity fund at 68.5 mln euro

Bulgaria-based investment fund BlackPeak Capital said that it successfully completed first closing at 68.5 million euro of its target 120 million euro BlackPeak Southeast Europe Growth Equity Fund - with a partial focus on business services.
"Southeast Europe (SEE) is already home to entrepreneurs who have built global or European leaders in specific niches and we are very excited about the opportunity to be able to partner with some of them and help them grow both organically and via add-on acquisitions," said Rossen Ivanov and Ivailo Gospodinov, co-founders of BlackPeak Capital.

The BlackPeak Southeast Europe Growth Equity Fund targets investments of 5-10 million euro in dynamic small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. The fund has a generalist sector approach with strong preference for IT/software, niche manufacturing, business services, healthcare, and consumer sectors, according to the statement.

The investment fund will operate from offices in Sofia, Bucharest, Ljubljana, and Vienna.
Niklas Pichler, managing partner at BlackPeak Capital, noted that the fund provides investors with an opportunity to tap into a largely underserved market where demand for growth equity far outstrips available supply. "The regional economy has a combined gross domestic product of more than 420 billion euro, is likely to grow faster than the rest of the EU, is dominated by SMEs, and yet there are only a few private equity funds providing growth equity in our target ticket size,” Pichler noted.
BlackPeak Southeast Europe Growth Equity Fund is backed by the European Investment Fund under the COSME and JEREMIE programmes for small and medium-sized enterprises, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Finance Corporation, and other European private institutional investors, according to the statement.