New Venture Funds:
- European edtech VC firm, Brighteye Ventures, closes €100M second fund, doubling its initial size. New investors include EIF, Jacobs Foundation, Partners in Equity, and family offices from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
- TDK Ventures, the venture capital arm of Japanese electronics company TDK, has opened its first European office in London. With a new $150 million cleantech fund, the firm aims to expand its presence in Europe and invest in climate-focused startups.
- Boost Capital Partners, a London-based VC fund, has achieved the first close of its debut fund at $35 million. The fund backs startups in sectors like health, wellness, education, sustainability, entertainment, and finance, with investments ranging from $300K to $750K.
- Robin Haak, a tech industry veteran, has launched Robin Capital, a solo GP venture capital fund. With a first close of €3 million and a target of €10-20 million, the fund will focus on angel, pre-seed, and seed funding rounds for software subscription businesses in Europe, Israel, and the U.S.
- French deep tech investor Supernova Invest makes the first €75M closing of its €100M fund to invest in European startups.
- Dropbox debuts a $50M AI fund to invest in early-stage startups powering the future of work.
- Planeteer Capital kickstarts climate impact VC. The firm will invest globally in both software and hardware at the seed / pre-seed stages.
Startup Funding Rounds & Acquisitions:
- Warsaw game developer Klabater secures €125,000 funding in a new round led by Pure Alpha Investments.
- Perfect.Live, a Tallinn-based luxury concierge company, raised €600,000 in funding from a consortium of Baltic investors. Key investors include Eduard Zolotuhins, Sergei Verbitski, Igor Mölder, and Andrei Doktorov
- Bucharest-based fitness subscription startup, ESX, secures €2 million investment from Catalyst Romania Fund II to scale its platform. The app offers subscriptions to approximately 500 sports centers and fitness facilities in Romania.
- Budapest University spinout, Turbine AI, raises €5.5 million in Series A funding, reaching a total of €25.5 million in funding . MassMutual Ventures led the round, with participation from previous investors Accel, Mercia, MSD Global Health Innovation Fund, Merck, and Bayer.
- Ljubljana-based healthtech company MESI raises €18M in funding led by German investor SHS. MESI focuses on digitizing diagnostic workflows and offers innovative medical assessment products.
- Estonian greentech startup 1MT Nation raises €1M from investors Margus Kohava and Warmeston OÜ. The funding will support their mission of revitalizing idle or degraded land in East Africa through bamboo planting.
- Polish medtech FindAir secures $1.7M in seed funding from 4growth VC fund and NCBR Investment Fund. FindAir specializes in smart inhalers and will allocate the investment towards product development, as well as scaling sales efforts in the US.
- Krakow-based startup WIDMO Spectral Technologies has secured €5.5 million from the EU's EIC Accelerator program. The funds will be used to develop WIDMO Cities, a solution for subsurface scanning of cities.
- Bucharest-based fintech company Finqware raises €2M from a Luxembourg investment fund. The company plans to expand internationally, particularly in the Benelux region.
- Polish text-to-speech and voice cloning startup ElevenLabs raises $19M series A to accelerate its product development. The round was led GitHub's former CEO Nat Friedman, Y Combinator's former Head of AI Daniel Gross, and Andreessen Horowitz, joined by Credo Ventures, Concept Ventures, and Storytel.
- Slovak co-found transcription platform for legal / insurance industries Parrot raises $11M series A to reinvest in product development. The round was co-led by Amplify Partners and XYZ Venture Capital.
- Polish behavioral analytics platform Braight Technologies gets acquired by the Canadian gambling company Kings Entertainment Group to build up its AI capabilities. The size of the transaction remains undisclosed.
- Polish Orlen VC invests in a German lithium battery reuse/recycling software Circunomics. The size of the transaction remains unannounced.
- Polish smart inhaler and asthma monitoring solution FindAir raises 7M PLN seed round to expand across the US. The round was co-led by 4growth VC and NCBR Investment Fund.
- Serbian co-found construction project management platform buildbuild secures $1.25M seed round. The investment was made by Lvl Group SARL.
- Estonian carbon removal project developer 1MT Nation receives €1M investment to rejuvenate damaged environments through a buildup of bamboo plantations across Africa. The investment was made by Margus Kohava and Warmeston OÜ.
- Polish e-commerce for football enthusiasts R-GOL receives investment to expand throughout Europe. The round was led by Innova Capital.
- Lithuanian VC 70V joins a €1M investment round into the Danish diploma-verification solution Diplomasafe.
- Latvian data discovery platform for the health industry Longenesis reaches 2nd place in the EIT Health Catapult finals and wins €20k grant.
Startup Calls:
- Call for Bulgarian startups in the idea stage till the end of June 2023. Join the Innovation Starter Accelerator, an educational program powered by the first Bulgarian innovation agency. Program focuses on key sectors like healthcare, education, transport, and more. The goal is to fostering cooperation with established companies and innovation leaders.
- EIT InnoEnergy is calling for early stage startups operating in the EnergyTech sector. Startups from CEE countries are welcome to apply for financial support of €60k+ for innovative ideas in energy for transport, renewable energy, energy storage, smart cities, circular economy, energy efficiency, or smart electric grid. Deadline till 30 June 2023.
- 2 days until The Webit Festival in Sofia that will bring together tech innovators, industry leaders, and representatives from over 190 countries. With 100,000+ virtual attendees, Webit hosted summits on issues ranging from branding and marketing, smart cities and mobility, fintech, cyber security, and defense and space.
- ORLEN Social Lab announces the first batch of its participants and makes a call for applications. The program will spread up to 500k PLN in grants, 60 hours of training and consultations. The applications are open till the 30th of June.
- Investment and Development Agency of Latvia makes a call for companies and associations requiring grant funding to digitize their business processes. The program will provide up to €100k grant and its possible to apply until 30th of June. To do so, one should contact the IT Cluster to take an assessment and receive a roadmap for digital transformationan, then register on the business development platform at:
Business.gov.lv - EY & GPW are hosting the next fireside chat with corporate innovation heads from Alior Bank, Orange Polska and Grupa Maspex. The event will occur on the 27th of June at 10:00 and you can sign-up on this page.
- Flashpoint Venture Capital has published a summary of the SummerSaaS 2023 event : https://lnkd.in/dVbGD5xt
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