Exclusive: Brighteye closes $72M for Fund III to back ‘HumanOS’, the layer beyond edtech

• TFN is first to report that Brighteye Ventures has secured a $72M first shut for Fund III taking Europe’s most energetic studying and work investor to $245M in AUM.

• The fund is focusing on €100M (roughly $115M) with a last shut anticipated within the first half of 2027, and marks a deliberate transfer past edtech into what the agency calls the HumanOS: know-how that helps individuals study, work and adapt.

• New LPs Lumina Basis, Zanichelli and PI Impression be a part of the European Funding Fund, Jacobs Basis and a number of other European household workplaces, as VC funding for European studying and work startups doubles to $1.85B.

Whereas defence and AI infrastructure is hoovering up Europe’s enterprise capital, edtech VC Brighteye Ventures, the London and Paris-based agency that has backed greater than 50 firms within the sector since 2017, thinks the market has been wanting on the mistaken label.

The European agency has now secured a $72M first shut for its third fund, and could be transferring past the edtech framing a bit. Fund III will put money into the ‘HumanOS’, the layer of know-how that helps individuals study, work and adapt as AI makes uncooked intelligence plentiful.

“The defining alternative of the AI period isn’t changing people with machines. It’s increasing what people can do with machines,” mentioned Benoit Wirz, founding accomplice at Brighteye. “Our conviction is that the following era of category-defining firms will use know-how to redefine human functionality.”

Similar fund measurement, earlier cheques

Fund III’s €100M goal matches Fund II precisely, double the agency’s €50M debut fund, with a last shut deliberate for the primary half of 2027. “The portfolio building is skewed barely sooner than it did earlier than as a result of I feel you’ll be able to construct extra with much less,” Wirz informed TFN in an unique interview. “If you get traction early on within the AI age, it tends to speed up a lot sooner. We’re giving ourselves just a few extra photographs on purpose.”

In follow, greater than 90% of capital goes into core cheques of $0.5M to $4M, with the rest reserved for ‘blink’ investments of $150K to $500K into idea-stage firms. Additional, Brighteye expects to make as much as 35 investments from the fund.

Brighteye’s personal European Learning and Work Funding Report discovered VC funding for the sector greater than doubled from $825M in 2024 to $1.85B in 2025, matching its highest complete since 2021, and firms have already raised $1.63B within the first half of 2026, on tempo to just about double once more. Since inception, Brighteye’s portfolio has raised over $1B in mixture, with a number of firms now producing greater than $100M in annual income.

Why the pivot? 

Wirz is candid that the thesis adopted the businesses somewhat than the opposite method spherical. He pointed to Uphill, a Fund II company that started as a studying platform for healthcare and organically grew to become a productiveness platform inside hospitals. “What they realised was that individuals didn’t want a theoretical platform to study. What they wanted was data within the move of labor,” he mentioned. “They have been capable of go to hospitals and say, sure, we’re coaching you, however really what we’re promoting you is capability.”

That shift unlocks the price range drawback that has dogged company studying for many years. “Companies have all the time paid some for coaching, however they’ve all the time been a bit bit reluctant as a result of they’re by no means fairly certain what the return on that spend is,” Wirz famous. “Now you’ll be able to say, you’re not really simply paying for studying, you’re paying for productiveness.”

The worth chain, as Wirz frames it, has three hyperlinks: use AI to study a ability, use AI to land a job that matches it, and use AI to be extra productive in that job. “It was that every of these was a separate platform. At present you’ll be able to construct a single layer, significantly inside a vertical, that does all three,” he mentioned.

Fund III’s first three investments map neatly onto that chain: imagi, which holds unique agreements with main AI app firms, together with Lovable, the $13.3B vibe-coding unicorn TFN has tracked by its report rounds, to carry their instruments into faculties in a guardrailed, curriculum-aligned method; NEX Health Intelligence, an augmented intelligence platform for hospital infection-control groups; and Gyver, a B2B labour marketplace for electricians in Italy feeding Europe’s power infrastructure build-out.

Requested which of the three business classes he would again together with his last cheque, Wirz rejected the premise. “It’s like asking me to decide on between my kids,” he mentioned. “The entire level is that this stuff are merging into one another, and plenty of the worth is within the intersections.”

The LP pitch

The primary shut brings in Lumina Basis from the US, Italian schooling writer Zanichelli and PI Impression alongside returning backers EIF and the Jacobs Basis. Wirz mentioned the pitch was the portfolio’s natural evolution plus observe report: “We satisfied them that our proper to win comes from following what we’re already seeing in our portfolio.”

Alongside the fund, Brighteye has promoted David Guérin to accomplice, Isabella Vahdati to principal and Rhys Spence to move of platform and analysis, and unveiled a brand new model developed with Justified Studio. The group stays evenly cut up between funding and platform throughout London and Paris, supported by an exterior bench of roughly 20 operator mentors. 

For founders constructing on the intersection of AI, studying, productiveness and labour infrastructure, Wirz’s filter is straightforward: “It’s extra in regards to the issues you’re attempting to resolve. Are you attempting to resolve studying? Are you attempting to resolve employment? Are you attempting to resolve productiveness? If in case you have a differentiated method that isn’t utilizing AI, we’re open to that.”

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