e2vc Fund III’s EUR 100M to Boost Global Ambition for CEE Startups

• e2vc closes its EUR 100M Fund III to support more CEE startup
• The fund continues its focus on early-stage, globally ambitious founders with strong technical teams
• The firm deepens global presence, aiding US expansion and bridging international market access
• e2vc Fund III aims to scale category leaders, reinforcing Emerging Europe’s global startup credibility

This January, e2vc (formerly known as 500 Emerging Europe), one of the most active investors in the CEE region, announced the first close of its Fund III. The EUR 100M funding comes from e2vc’s 50+ limited partners.

e2vc in a Nutshell

e2vc is an early-stage VC firm founded in 2016 and headquartered in Istanbul, with a presence in major global hubs including San Francisco, New York City, and London. Originally part of the 500 Global network under the name 500 Emerging Europe, it rebranded to e2vc in 2024 to formalize its autonomy while continuing to champion founders from the CEE region and Turkey with global ambitions.

The team has raised multiple funds — beginning with a EUR 10M Fund I and a EUR 70M Fund II — backing more than 50 companies, four of which have grown into unicorns: Billion to One, Carbon Health, fal.ai, and Insider,. Its strategy favors early bets, often around EUR 1M, on technically strong teams with a ‘global-from-day-one’ mindset, connecting them to international markets and follow-on capital from top-tier investors.

ITKeyMedia approached e2vc’s principal Basak Zorlutuna to talk about the firm’s evolved thesis, strategies and mission, as well as our local founders’ misconceptions and the new fund’s future success metrics:

How has your investment thesis for Emerging Europe evolved from Fund I through Fund III, particularly given volatile geopolitical conditions?

Basak Zorlutuna: From Fund I onward, our core belief has remained constant: founders from Emerging Europe can build globally competitive companies. What has evolved is not the thesis itself, but the precision of our selection criteria and how we assess risk.

In Fund I, founding teams were already at the center of our underwriting but we evaluated them through a broader and more multi-signal framework. At that stage of the ecosystem, we spent significant effort on cross-checking across multiple signals, including market timing, early product signals, access advantages, execution context, and the specific constraints founders faced in their home markets. We were looking for exceptional builders, but also for the right combination of momentum, wedge, and structural tailwinds.

By Fund III, our emphasis has become even more concentrated and sharper: we now prioritize founding teams with clear global ambition and the ability to scale internationally from day one. We back founders who can attract top-tier talent, sell globally early, operate across jurisdictions, and build resilient organizations in distributed environments.

This is also why we are increasingly deepening our presence in global hubs, including a stronger San Francisco focus as we open our office there, to help our companies plug directly into the Bay Area ecosystem and accelerate US expansion.

We view geopolitical volatility not as a temporary disruption but as a structural condition. War, regulatory fragmentation, and shifts in talent mobility are now directly embedded into our risk assessment. At the same time, these environments often produce founders with exceptional resilience, discipline, and urgency.

When selecting founders, which green flags and red flags matter most to you?

BZ: We typically look for one of two founder archetypes. The first is deep domain excellence founders with rare, experience-driven insight developed through years of focused work. The second is exceptional learning velocity founders who may not start as category experts but learn extremely fast, iterate quickly, and continuously upgrade their understanding through execution.

For both profiles, key green flags include fast iteration speed, early and direct customer engagement, a clearly defined problem statement, disciplined execution under resource constraints, and high transparency. We value founders who demonstrate measurable progress with limited resources and who actively seek and incorporate feedback. How founders respond under pressure is itself a strong evaluation signal.

Key red flags include slow product and iteration cycles, shallow problem understanding, inconsistency between narrative and data, purely local market thinking, resistance to feedback, and misalignment within the founding team or unclear role ownership.

What are the hardest misconceptions founders from Emerging Europe have about raising venture capital?

BZ: One of the most common misconceptions we see among Emerging Europe founders is that venture capital is primarily about securing capital, rather than building a company that can scale into a venture outcome. Many first-time founders initially approach fundraising as a transactional milestone, instead of a long-term partnership tied to ambition, speed, and global market fit.

Another frequent misconception is around what investors truly underwrite. Founders often overemphasize pitch polish, local traction, or incremental progress, while underestimating how much VC decision-making is driven by the strength of the founding team, the size of the global market, and evidence of an outsized distribution advantage.

We also see founders assume that being based outside the US or Western Europe is a structural disadvantage. In reality, many of the best companies from the region win precisely because they combine world-class technical talent with capital efficiency and resilience but they need to translate that into a globally credible narrative and go-to-market strategy.

Ultimately, our goal is to help Emerging Europe founders not just raise capital, but raise their ambition and execution level to compete on the global stage.

With your focus on global markets from day one, how do you balance a startup’s local market validation VS early international ambition?

BZ: We view local market validation as a useful starting signal, but rarely as the end market. In Emerging Europe, local traction can demonstrate execution, product quality, and early customer pull, but the strongest companies are built with global ambition from day one.

The way we balance this is by separating where a company starts from where it is ultimately going. Many of our best founders begin by proving a wedge in their home region because distribution is faster and feedback loops are tighter. But from the earliest stages, we look for teams that are designing the product, go-to-market motion, and company culture for global scalability.

What significant challenges in helping portfolio companies build initial traction in the US can you point out?

BZ: The biggest challenge for Emerging Europe startups entering the US is that early traction is less about product quality alone and more about distribution, credibility, and speed of execution in a highly competitive market.

First, founders often underestimate how relationship-driven the US ecosystem is. Selling enterprise, hiring key talent, or fundraising requires trust, proximity, and repeated exposure, networks take time to build if you are entering from outside.

This is where we actively support founders. At e2vc, we help companies bridge into the US through targeted ecosystem access, including curated investor and customer introductions, as well as founder-only events, peer sessions, and community touchpoints that allow teams to learn from one another, exchange playbooks, and build relationships with others who have gone through the same expansion journey.

We are also deepening our San Francisco presence through our new office, SF Nest, to provide founders with on-the-ground support, faster feedback loops, and a trusted platform as they expand into the Bay Area and beyond.

Ultimately, our role is to help Emerging Europe founders convert world-class talent and capital efficiency into real distribution advantage in the US market.

Looking ahead, what are the metrics and time frames to consider Fund III successful?

BZ: For Fund III, we define success across both long-term outcomes and early breakout signals. At the fund level, success driven by a concentrated set of globally scaled category leaders, means strong DPI and TVPI.

As in the earlier years of the fund, we look for clear indicators of scale: rapid growth, strong retention, repeatable go-to-market, and the ability to attract exceptional global talent. We also place significant weight on graduation rates, progression from Seed into Series A and Series B as proof that companies are breaking out into meaningful scale.

Building on the momentum of our first two funds, where we have already backed four unicorns. We are highly confident that Fund III is uniquely positioned to generate the next generation of globally scaled, category-defining leaders from Emerging Europe.

e2vc Fund III marks a landmark moment for the CEE startup ecosystem, signaling both confidence in the region’s global potential and a deepening of locally rooted venture support. By providing founders with early capital, strategic guidance, and direct access to international markets, the fund strengthens the pathway from regional innovation to global scale. Its success will not only accelerate the growth of individual companies but also reinforce Emerging Europe as a credible hub for world-class, globally ambitious startups.