(Bloomberg) -- A venture capital firm with notable hits in eastern Europe and Turkey has rebranded as Bek Ventures and raised a $250 million fund to invest in the region. 

In its first two funds, the firm cut early checks into Peak, a Turkish gaming startup that sold to Zynga Inc. for $1.8 billion, and UiPath Inc., a Romanian software company that listed in New York in 2021.

With its new vehicle, Bek Ventures, formerly known as Earlybird Digital East, plans to remain focused on early-stage businesses in markets often overlooked by technology investors. The firm’s managers said they turned down interest in increasing their capital pool.

“Funds are getting bigger and going multi-stage, and that hurts performance,” said Cem Sertoglu, a Bek Ventures managing partner who splits his time between Istanbul and New York.

Venture investing has slowed dramatically from its pandemic-era peak. Europe, in particular, continues to lag behind the US in venture financing, startup deals and exits. 

Most startup funding there has flowed west. Venture funds in central and eastern Europe accounted for less than 5% the capital raised on the continent and Israel this year, according to PitchBook data from October. 

Bek Ventures pitches itself as a successful outlier. “Given the success the team has had, it would have been easy for them to raise capital,” said Sean Montesi, a partner with Gerber Taylor, an asset management firm that invested in Bek Ventures. “We prefer fund size discipline.”

A major part of the firm’s success came from investing in UiPath with its first fund, backing one of the rare initial public offerings to emerge from eastern Europe. Bek Ventures said that fund, formed in 2013, generated a 20.4 times multiple on invested capital.

However, the investor heavily involved with the UiPath deal, Dan Lupu, chose not to join Bek Ventures when it split from Earlybird, a venture firm based in Germany. Bek Ventures previously shared a brand licensing deal with Earlybird but ended that relationship in August.

Mehmet Atici, another Bek Ventures managing partner, said the firm expects more acquisitions for its startups given the dearth of IPOs. “We are keeping our fund size in check so we don’t have to depend on the grace of the public market,” he said. “Even mid-sized exits can deliver large chunks of return.”

The partners said they are cautiously optimistic about artificial intelligence and have deployed some capital in the field. So far, the new fund has invested in Proofs, an AI software developer in Poland, and Zeta Labs, an AI startup founded by former Meta Platforms Inc. engineers. 

Bek Ventures plans to invest in companies based in its target markets as well as those founded by people raised there. Entrepreneurs from the region “have less entitlement,” Sertoglu said. “They know the value of a dollar.”

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