Brighteye Ventures is Europe's most active dedicated edtech investor — and it is now widening its aperture. Founded in 2017 with offices in London and Paris (funds domiciled in Luxembourg), the firm has funded 55+ companies from pre-seed to Series A across learning and work.
In September 2026 Brighteye announced the first close of its third fund at $72 million, bringing total assets under management to $245 million. The close also came with a rebrand and the launch of a new investment thesis the firm calls "HumanOS".
Thesis
Fund III pivots from classical edtech software to "HumanOS" — technology that helps people learn, work and adapt, with AI that augments rather than replaces human capability. Founding partner Ben Wirz has framed the defining opportunity of the AI era as expanding what humans can do with machines. The fund targets AI-driven and productivity-enhancing tools across healthcare, education, infrastructure, cybersecurity and climate, and expects to make up to 35 investments. It is actively looking to back founders at the intersection of AI, learning, productivity and labour infrastructure — with one of its first Fund III investments being imagi, a tool that helps schools build structured fluency in AI.
The people
The firm is led by founding partners Ben Wirz and Alex Latsis. Recent promotions brought David Guérin to partner, Isabella Vahdati to principal and Rhys Spence to head of platform and research. The team is evenly split between investment and platform, based between London and Paris, and new investors in Fund III include the Lumina Foundation, Zanichelli Venture and PI Impact, alongside existing LPs the European Investment Fund and Jacobs Foundation and several European family offices.
Portfolio
Brighteye's portfolio spans the learning lifecycle: Hack The Box (cybersecurity training), Zen Educate (job-matching for educators), Ornikar (online driving school), Sdui, Skiller Whale (live micro-coaching for developers — Brighteye led its £2.15 million seed round), YouSchool and Seven Education. Notably, portfolio company TeachFX, an AI instructional-coaching platform, was recently acquired by McGraw Hill. The firm also runs a widely read newsletter and podcast with 13,600+ readers and listeners covering the future of learning and work, and accepts pitch decks directly through its website.
Why it matters for founders
If you are building anything where AI meets how people learn, work or adapt — from classrooms to corporate upskilling to labour infrastructure — Brighteye is the most specialised seed-to-Series-A fund in Europe for your category. Its "HumanOS" pivot also means founders in health, infrastructure, cybersecurity and climate with a learning-or-productivity angle now qualify. And with a platform team built for portfolio support plus direct pitch submissions on its site, it is unusually accessible for a sector specialist.