Mina Mutafchieva

Mina Mutafchieva grew up in Bulgaria during the post-communist transition of the 1990s and 2000s, and left home at 17 on a scholarship to study in the United Kingdom. She earned a BSc in International Relations (First Class Honours) from the London School of Economics and later an MBA from Harvard Business School. Before venture capital she spent roughly five years as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and around four years in growth private equity at the London-based fund Palamon Capital Partners.

She joined Dawn Capital — Europe's largest B2B-software-focused fund — as a (Senior) Principal in September 2019, and was promoted to Partner in July 2021, becoming one of the firm's few female partners (after Evgenia Plotnikova). At Dawn she led B2B fintech and "future of work" deals across Europe, managed the firm's VC and founder relationships in the Nordic markets, helped shape market-coverage strategy and recruiting, and worked on fundraising for Dawn's fourth fund (a ~$400M / €338M vehicle, then the largest early-stage B2B fund in Europe). She has cited leading over €75M of investments during her Dawn tenure.

In early 2025 she moved to HV Capital — the Munich-founded, multi-stage European VC formerly known as Holtzbrinck Ventures — as a Partner on the Growth team (from March 2025), helping open and build out the firm's new London office. Bloomberg reported that she and a co-hire became the first two female partners in HV Capital's roughly 25-year history, part of the firm's push into the UK and broader European market. At HV she focuses on enterprise software, fintech and AI, drawing on more than a decade of growth-stage experience with companies such as LeanIX, Fonoa, Lokalise, AccessFintech and Showpad.

• B2B software conviction: She backs business software for its scalability, rapid innovation, and the resilience of business customers (high switching costs, strong net dollar retention). Particular interest in disrupting outdated tech stacks serving SMEs, plus B2B fintech and e-commerce infrastructure.
• Stage & checks: Late-seed/Series A–B and growth, with tickets historically in the ~$5M–$20M range (around $10M sweet spot).
• What makes her say yes — the core question: founders need "a killer answer to the question 'Why does your product deserve to win?'"
• Favorite metric: net dollar retention, which she says "encapsulates so much of what you need to get right in a successful SaaS company."
• On founders/CEOs: her "number 1 criteria for CEO evaluation is how good they are at attracting amazing talent."
• Sectors today (at HV): enterprise software, fintech, and AI; historically also data analytics and future of work.