Oakley Capital takes majority stake in Graphwise in one of Bulgaria’s largest software exits

Private equity investor Oakley Capital has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Graphwise, an enterprise AI data and knowledge graph platform, in a deal Tech.eu describes as one of the largest software sales in Bulgaria's history. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Through the deal, Portfolion Capital Partners exits a stake it acquired in 2022 as part of an investment consortium that also included Integral Capital Group and Carpathian Partners. Oakley Capital, in cooperation with Graphwise's management team, plans to use the transaction as a platform for accelerated international expansion and further acquisitions, per Tech.eu.

Graphwise was formed in 2024 through the merger of two semantic technology companies: Ontotext, founded in Sofia in 2000 by Atanas Kiryakov, and Vienna-based Semantic Web Company, founded in 2004 by Andreas Blumauer and Martin Kaltenböck. The combined company has positioned itself as a leader in RDF (Resource Description Framework) knowledge graph and semantic layer technology. It serves over 200 international blue-chip clients across financial services, pharmaceuticals, and the public sector, and has delivered organic ARR growth of over 30 per cent per year, according to Tech.eu.

Jenő Nieder, Deputy CEO and Partner at Portfolion Capital Partners, said in a statement that the deal demonstrates regional private equity can compete in global deep tech markets. "Through the international buy-and-build strategy implemented together with Integral Capital Group and Carpathian Partners, we successfully built an internationally dominant platform out of two regional pioneers, avoiding short-term AI hypes and creating genuine, commercially sustainable value," Nieder said.

Atanas Kiryakov, President and Co-founder of Graphwise, cited Oakley's history with founder-led software businesses as a factor in the partnership. "Oakley has an outstanding track record of transforming founder-led software businesses into unicorns. Together, we look forward to expanding our platform and supporting more organisations to adopt AI with confidence," Kiryakov said, per Tech.eu.

The transaction is one of the more notable exits in Central and Eastern European enterprise software, reflecting growing investor interest in AI data infrastructure companies that underpin large-scale machine learning and knowledge management systems. Graphwise's semantic layer and knowledge graph technology has found traction in data-intensive industries where structured, interoperable data is critical for AI deployment.

Oakley Capital's stated priorities post-acquisition are international growth and bolt-on acquisitions, though no specific targets or timelines were named in the sources available.