Oakley Capital Acquires Majority Stake in Graphwise

Oakley Capital Fund VI has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Graphwise, the enterprise AI data company formed through the 2024 merger of Bulgaria’s Ontotext and Austria’s Semantic Web Company. The investment is intended to accelerate Graphwise’s commercial and international expansion and support further acquisitions. The financial terms—including the purchase price, valuation, and exact size of the stake—remain undisclosed.

The deal at a glance

Oakley is acquiring control from an investor consortium led by Integral Capital Group and including Portfolion Capital Partners, Carpathian Partners, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The transaction is more than a new funding round: it represents an exit for the consortium that built Graphwise through the combination of two established semantic-technology businesses. Portfolion described the outcome as the realization of its investment in the company, following the merger-led strategy that brought Ontotext and Semantic Web Company together.

Oakley will partner with Graphwise’s founders and management team to strengthen the company’s commercial capabilities and go-to-market strategy, expand its presence in international markets, and pursue selective strategic acquisitions.

How Graphwise was created

Graphwise emerged in 2024 when Sofia-based Ontotext and Vienna-based Semantic Web Company combined under a single company. The merger brought together two businesses focused on semantic technologies, knowledge graphs, and connected enterprise data.

Ontotext was founded by Atanas Kiryakov, who now serves as Graphwise’s president and co-founder. His background includes work in semantic databases, knowledge graphs, reasoning, text mining, and related technologies.

The combination gave Graphwise a broader platform for selling graph and semantic-data technology to organizations that need AI systems to work with structured, governed information rather than disconnected data sources.

What Graphwise sells

Graphwise provides RDF knowledge-graph and semantic-layer technology for enterprise AI. In practical terms, its software connects data points and describes the relationships between them, adding context and meaning that conventional databases may not capture as directly.

That semantic layer is designed to sit over enterprise data and help AI applications retrieve and use more reliable information. It can support systems that need traceable relationships, consistent terminology, and stronger governance—especially in settings where inaccurate or unauditable outputs create material risks.

Graphwise says it has achieved more than 30% annual organic ARR growth and serves more than 200 blue-chip customers. Its reported focus industries include financial services, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, and the public sector—sectors with complex data environments and significant regulatory requirements.

Why the transaction matters

It reflects rising demand for trusted AI data

The deal highlights a part of the enterprise AI stack that sits beneath the visible applications: the systems used to organize, connect, and govern the data that AI models rely on.

Large language models can produce fluent answers without consistently providing factual, explainable, or current results. Graph and semantic technologies are intended to give those applications a more structured factual foundation, helping enterprises improve reliability, auditability, and control.

It is a major European software exit

Technology publications have characterized the transaction as one of Bulgaria’s largest software exits and one of the more significant enterprise AI exits in Central and Eastern Europe. Those descriptions reflect Graphwise’s Bulgarian roots, its cross-border corporate structure, and the strategic value attached to enterprise data infrastructure as AI adoption expands.

The deal also gives visibility to a regional company built through cross-border consolidation rather than a single-market software story. Ontotext’s Sofia base and Semantic Web Company’s Vienna base became the foundation for a company targeting international enterprise customers.

It validates a buy-and-build approach

The consortium’s strategy was to combine complementary companies and create a larger platform in a fragmented semantic-data market. Oakley’s investment extends that approach: in addition to supporting organic growth, the new majority investor has identified acquisitions as part of Graphwise’s next phase.

For investors, the outcome offers a clear example of how specialist data-technology businesses can be consolidated and repositioned around enterprise AI. For Graphwise, it provides a larger financial and operational partner while leaving the founders and management involved in the company’s growth plans.

What is known—and not known—about the financials

The parties have not disclosed the transaction’s total value, Graphwise’s valuation, or the precise percentage acquired beyond describing it as a majority stake.

Oakley Capital Investments said its indirect contribution through Fund VI could be up to approximately £20 million. That figure describes the investment vehicle’s potential contribution and should not be interpreted as Graphwise’s total transaction value or valuation.

What comes next for Graphwise

The immediate priorities are commercial execution, international expansion, and selective M&A. Oakley’s backing is intended to help Graphwise strengthen its go-to-market organization and reach more customers that need governed semantic data for enterprise AI applications.

The central test will be whether Graphwise can turn strong reported growth, a base of more than 200 blue-chip customers, and the capabilities of its merged businesses into sustained international scale. The available announcements establish the strategic direction, but they do not provide enough financial detail to assess the acquisition’s valuation or expected returns.