Investment Stage

Focus Areas

About Investor

Cem Sertoglu is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Bek Ventures (formerly Earlybird Digital East Fund), a global early-stage venture capital firm focused on technology companies founded by entrepreneurs from "Dynamic Europe" — Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey — with global ambitions. The firm rebranded from Earlybird Digital East to Bek Ventures in November 2024, raising a new $250M Fund III (3x oversubscribed), bringing total AUM to ~$600M. Bek invests $500K–$10M from pre-seed to Series B, primarily at Seed and Series A, across AI, cybersecurity, SaaS, enterprise software, DevTools, FinTech, and cloud infrastructure. With offices in Istanbul, London, New York, and Luxembourg, roughly half the portfolio builds from the US. Notable investments include UiPath (IPO at $36B, Romania's first unicorn), Peak Games (acquired by Zynga for $1.8B), Payhawk, Picus, Midas, Upstash, and Lace AI. The firm is recognized as the top-performing VC globally since 2010 by the HEC Paris-Dow Jones ranking, with $2.4B in realized returns. Previously, Cem was Managing Partner at Earlybird Digital East Fund (2013–2024). Earlier, he was Managing Partner at Young Turk Ventures and Partner at iLab Ventures (2008–2009). He founded SelectMinds (CEO 1999–2005), a social talent sourcing platform acquired by Oracle in 2012. He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Texas.