BrightEye is a venture capital firm prominent in the educational technology space.
Portfolio
5
companies
Hack The Box
Gamified cybersecurity training and talent assessment platform.
Oneday
Oneday provides an entrepreneurship-focused education platform and accredited MBA degree.
Skiller Whale
Skiller Whale provides live micro coaching and training for technology teams.
Visibly
Visibly provides a digital training platform for the infrastructure sector.
Zen Educate
Zen Educate connects schools with supply teachers through a digital marketplace.
Ben Wirz
Partner
Benoit Wirz
Founding Partner
Benoit brings early stage investment experience as a founding partner at Brighteye VC. He previously invested for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and held partner and strategy roles at US Global holdings.
LinkedInBen Wirz
Partner
The London-based startup secured the capital from backers including Seedcamp and Brighteye Ventures to scale its team and product offerings.
"Think of someone digging a hole (excavating). Sounds simple, but hit a high-pressure pipeline and you’ve got fatal consequences. It’s a dangerous task – so how is it taught? In a classroom, with a 20-question written assessment. This is clearly ridiculous. It’s situations like this – and their larger-scale impact – that we’ve set out to change."
The funding round was led by Round2 Capital and will support international expansion and software scaling.
"We’ve been on a mission to solve schools’ workforce challenges. This investment brings us closer to our goal of helping the education system save over $125 million annually through our fairer, more efficient recruitment model. As we enter into the next phase of our journey, we aim to reach out to more educational institutions across the UK and US."
The funding round was backed by investors including Ananda Impact Ventures and Brighteye Ventures to support the launch of a new entrepreneurial MBA.
"Following a successful fundraise of £8.25 million, we are hugely excited to launch our new MBA programme, which is just the first step in creating a broader education system around entrepreneurship."
Carlyle led the Series B financing round to support international growth and product development.
"The demands on security and IT professionals have never been greater. An industry-wide talent shortage and an exponentially growing number of cyber threats place great importance on professionals and organizations to maintain best-in-class security practices. Hack The Box is a pioneer in constantly providing fresh and curated training and upskilling content, in a fully gamified and intuitive environment, enabling individuals and organizations to tackle real-world hacking problems. We are excited for the next stage of Hack The Box’s evolution and are proud to be part of this journey."
The oversubscribed round will fund international expansion, team growth, and acquisitions.
"This significantly oversubscribed extension to our Series A validates the progress we’ve been making in our mission to change the world of temporary work in schools. We are proud to say we have saved the UK education system millions of pounds each year, which is why we are excited about our growth and expansion into the US market."
