Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder, in its new iteration, will continue to invest in technological projects at the pre-seed and seed stages across a wide spectrum of industries and business models. It will utilize funds from the Polish Development Fund’s Starter 2.0 program and private investors. Startups can expect to secure funding of up to PLN 5 million with the possibility of follow-on rounds.
“We have a team ready to act, already analyzing projects for the first investments of the new fund. We are pleased that we can seamlessly continue building value for the startup ecosystem in which we, as the Pathfinder group, have been operating for over a dozen years,” comments Radosław Czyrko, managing partner of Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder.
The first Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder VC fund, the predecessor of the new vehicle investing Starter program funds in 2019-2023, provided capital support to 14 startups, including Wellbee, Selmo, Multilango, and Teleradius. The Pathfinder Group also has companies such as PlumResearch and Gamivo in its portfolios, and successful exits to its credit, including the exit from Unikrn, which was bought by global bookmaking giant Entain, and the sale of RemoteMyApp to Intel Corporation, which was the first acquisition of a technology company made by this giant in Poland.
“Our adopted and tested operational model involves deep work with companies we invite to join our portfolio – both before and after the investment is made. We work extensively with founders in workshops, supporting them in refining their business model, market strategy, and product. This yields visible results in later stages of project development, including securing subsequent rounds and exits,” adds Arkadiusz Seńko, co-manager of the new fund.
The first Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder VC fund has already achieved an exit from the Wrocław-based company Primetric, bought by BigTime, a leading American provider of professional services automation (PSA) software.”At the end of 2023, we concluded the investment period for the Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder VC fund. The first investment exits, along with the exit we are currently working on, allow us to plan on returning the capital invested so far to investors before the end of this year. We still have over a dozen companies in our portfolio, several of which are developing so promisingly that the fund may ultimately bring several times the return on investment across the entire portfolio,” says Radosław Czyrko.