PortfoLion acquired a stake in Bulgarian Ontotext, a market leader in the field of graph databases, used to interpret and process accumulated big data assets, the Hungarian investor announced. Integral Venture Partners led the investment and was joined by Portfolion and Carpathian Partners. Following the transaction, the investors will focus on strengthening Ontotext's international presence and sales network.

The growing popularity of Big Data in previous years has resulted in the accumulation of large amounts of data assets in companies, making it a major challenge not only for data-sensitive industries to organise the ever-increasing amount of data in a simple and sustainable way. Graph databases are a new way of interpreting and processing data: graphs make it easier to interpret large amounts of textual data thanks to their visual representation. After its foundation in 2000, Ontotext quickly became a pioneer in knowledge graph solutions and has maintained its technological leadership through its unique developments in graph-based text analysis and data visualisation. Built on its own platform, the company continues to design and deliver high value-added data analytics services to some of the largest international clients.

Since 2019, the company has been part of the AI division of one of the largest IT groups listed on the Bulgarian stock exchange and has started developing and selling "out of the box" solutions based on its platform. Its 80-strong headquarters in Sofia built an active international customer base in parallel with the new product strategy, which it has been successfully serving ever since. In recent years, they have worked with global brands such as Roche, the BBC, and the Financial Times, and have also been involved in a number of research projects in Europe and the US, including NASA. Today, the majority of the company's revenues come from corporate clients in the US, the UK and other large European companies. Ontotext's solutions are used mainly by media companies with large corporate databases, financial institutions, healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies.

The transaction, which consists of an acquisition and a capital increase that has just been completed, will support the company's growth objectives and industry-specific developments, according to Atanas Kiryakov, CEO of Ontotext. Their aim is to build an international sales and marketing team around their excellent, market-recognised technology, which will enable them to become a dominant graph database player in the global market

The transaction was led by Integral Venture Partners, based in London, Budapest, and Belgrade, with the participation of international private equity fund Carpathian Partners, alongside PortfoLion, part of the OTP Group. "We are constantly looking for companies in the broader Central and Eastern European region that have the potential and motivation to become a global player, not just regionally. Bulgaria is also a great destination for European investors, and Ontotext has outstanding expertise and technology, so we were delighted to participate in the transaction with a proven partner, Integral." - Jenő Nieder, Deputy CEO of PortfoLion, said of the investment.

The parties said that the transaction was closed in August 2022, exact financial details of the deal were not disclosed by the parties.