New VC Funds
- NY and London-based Left Lane announces a close of a $1.4B growth capital fund. The firm will consider opportunities within consumer and internet tech spaces across the globe.
- MassMutual Ventures starts a 3rd $300M fund to back early-stage startups from Europe and Asia. Their verticals of interest include digital health, fintech, enterprise SaaS, and cybersecurity.
- Madrid-based Mundi Ventures starts its second €250M insurtech fund. The firm will invest anywhere from €5M to €10M in series A-B startups from Europe.
- January Ventures unveils a second $21M fund to support founders of underrepresented backgrounds. The fund will invest anywhere from $250k to $750k across “everything from future of work to fintech and digital health”.
- SF-based Dragonfly Capital closes up its new $650M vehicle. The firm will focus on crypto startups across the globe.
CEE Startup Funding Rounds & Acquisitions
- Estonian cross-border shipping compliance platform Eurora Solutions picks up a €40M in its series A funding to scale globally. The round was led by Connected Capital and joined by Change Ventures, Equity United, as well as the founder of Eurora Marko Lastik
- Romanian beauty marketplace MERO acquires an all-in-one salon management platform Logbox to integrate its B2B solutions onto the platform.
- Latvian robotic wind turbine maintenance and management startup Aerones picks up a $9M seed round. The round was led by Future Positive Capital and joined by the first investor Change Ventures.
Aerones raises $9m to take a slice of the $30bn wind turbine maintenance market - Warsaw-based payroll automation startup Symmetrical.ai takes $18.5M to expand in Europe and the US. Their series A was led by Target Global and followed by Global Founders Capital, Market One Capital, Inovo Venture Partners, Finch Capital, and Partech.
- Lithuanian logistics management SaaS GoRamp raises €1.5M in funding to expand throughout Western Europe and the US. The round was largely spread between angel investors from UPS, Shopify, and Infoscout (acuqired by Numerator).
- AI-based document processing platform from Wrocław- Alphamoon gets €2.1M in funding to further develop the product and grow globally. The round was led by Sunfish Partners and saw participation from Satus Starter.
- Estonian vehicle verification and inspection startup DriveX nabs $1M to grow throughout Europe and beyond. The round was led by DEPO Ventures and saw participation from Plug and Play Ventures and 37 angel investors.
- Polish cloud communication platform Vercom acquires a Lithuanian marketing automation platform MailerLite in a $90M deal.
- Salary-on-demand fintech Flexee picks up 13M PLN in a seed round. The round was led by JR Holding.
- Polish sports club/federation engagement and management startup Sportigo raises an undisclosed funding round. The round saw participation from WP2 Investments, Verestro, and Zbigniew Jagiełło.
- Telemedicine startup Doctor One offering doctor-as-a-subscription service gets €2.1M to expand in Western Europe. The round was led by Movens Capital.
- Estonian fintech platform Tuum nabs a €1M investment from LVH group.
- Ukrainian IT consulting company Miratech receives undisclosed funding to expand globally. The company was funded by Horizon Capital.
- Polish open source startup for data visualisation and analysis- Enso gets out of stealth mode with $16.5M in funding. The investment was made by SignalFire, Khosla Ventures and Innovation Nest.
- Czech open-banking aggregation platform Finbricks offering access to financial data and banking products, gets an undisclosed funding amount. The investment was made by Komerční banka.
- Ergonomic safety platform Soter Analytics gets $12M in funding to further develop its wearable technology and expansion through Western Europe and the US. The round was led by AV8 Ventures and was joined by OTB Ventures, btov, Verve Ventures and Startup Wise Guys.
- Ukrainian SID Venture Partners goes on a funding spree investing in instant virtual card provider The Credit Thing and meet-new-people over The Breakfast startup.
Startup Calls & Events
- One of the biggest names in the venture ecosystem, A16z launches a startup accelerator for founders from the earliest stages of development. The program will be run remotely and consider startups all across the globe if they work on American Dynamism, Consumer, Enterprise, and Fintech ideas.
- One of the most active and well-known startup accelerators in Europe Startup Wise Guys is gathering applications for its fintech accelerator. To be eligible, you must be building a B2B or B2B2C, an MVP and some traction, along with more than 2 co-founders on board. The applications are open till the 9th of June.
- Second-largest Polish Bank Pekao is searching for ESG projects for its innovation lab. All applications from CEE are open and can be directed to lab@pekao.com.pl .
- Yet another initiative from Startup Wise Guys and Google is gathering applications for an entrepreneurial upskilling program catered to CEE’s aspiring founders. Brainstorm ideas, develop an MVP in a 48-hour hackathon go through the pre-accelerator. The first part of the event will occur on May 10th, and it's undisclosed when the applications are closing…
Other CEE Ecosystem News
European Union agrees on the final version of the Digital Services Act, setting out legal framework for content moderation, privacy and beyond. To find out more you can go to The Verge's article on the issue.
Related Posts:
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, April 16-22, 2022 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, April 9-15, 2022 (Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup News From CEE, April, 2-8 2022 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
