Horia Manda

Horia Dragoș Manda is the Managing Partner of Axxess Capital, one of the most active private equity managers in the Romanian and Southeast European markets. Over a career spanning more than 25 years in regional private equity, he has personally overseen equity investments exceeding €200 million across a wide range of industries, with a particular concentration in the financial-services sector. He has served as Chairman or Board Director of numerous portfolio companies and of several regional funds, including the Romanian-American Enterprise Fund (RAEF), the Balkan Accession Fund (BAF), and the Emerging Europe Accession Fund (EEAF), all of which Axxess Capital advises or manages.

Axxess Capital itself was founded in the mid-1990s and focuses on lower-mid-market deals (roughly €5M–€15M) in Romania and neighboring Southeast European countries, having invested well over €250 million in equity over its history. Its investor base for the EEAF (a ~€70M fund established in 2010) has included the EBRD, the European Investment Fund (EIF), Germany's DEG, and the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB).

Manda holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Paris VII, France (1993), an MBA (summa cum laude) from the Romanian-Canadian MBA Program (a joint program of McGill University, the University of Quebec–Montreal, and the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, 1996), and an M.Sc. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Bucharest (1984).

Beyond Axxess Capital, Manda is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Patria Bank, a Romanian bank built by Axxess-managed funds through the merger of Nextebank and Banca Comercială Carpatica in 2014–2016. He also serves as a non-executive independent member of the Board of Directors of One United Properties (appointed April 2019). He was President of ROPEA, the Romanian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, a role he handed over to Andrei Gemeneanu in April 2025.

• Invests through private equity funds (RAEF, BAF, EEAF and successors) rather than as an angel — targeting established, mid-size private companies, not seed-stage startups.
• Check size ~€5M–€15M per company, in lower-mid-market businesses, with a typical 3–7 year holding period.
• Sector emphasis on financial services (his personal specialty and the source of his strongest track record), alongside IT/technology, retail, energy, and manufacturing.
• Willing to pursue control and platform-building strategies — e.g., assembling Patria Bank via consecutive bank acquisitions — as well as significant minority growth stakes (e.g., Bitdefender).
• Focus on companies in Romania and the wider Southeast European region, backed by development-finance-institution LPs (EBRD, EIF, DEG, BSTDB), which shapes a governance-driven, value-creation approach.