VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, March 11 - 17, 2023

New Venture Funds:

Simon Capital (fka Bitburger Ventures) raises a €105M fund. The firm will focus on consumer, food/biotech while further expanding into topics around wellbeing and productivity.
Slovenian pharmaceutical corporation Labena launches a €100M Labena Ventures accelerator. The firm will target biotech and healthtech startups throughout CEE.
Terman VC Rethink Ventures kickstarts a €50M funds to invest in early-stage startups across mobility, automotive and logistics sectors. The firm's ticket sizes range from €500K to €2M.

Lithuanian-American cloud optimization startup Cast AI raises $20M to fuel the company's further expansion. The round was led by Creandum.
Ukrainian-found virtual fashion startup DressX gets a $15M investment to develop the product and business development. The round was led by Greenfield Capital, Slow Ventures, Warner Music, The Artemis Fund and Red DAO.
Polish VC bValue sells out a majority stake in a local apartment management platform for landlord Renters.pl. The size of the reported size of the transaction is €19M.
Latvian modular home producer MYCABIN raises a €1.55M round to business development. The round was led by Merito Partners.
Polish superfood brand SUPERSONIC FOOD raises 7M PLN to reinvest in the startup's expansion. The round was led by YouNick Mint, KnowledgeHub Starter and several business angels.
Ukrainian design platform Awesomic raises $800K to scale up the platform. The round was made possible by Pioneer Fund, Flyer One Ventures, and Red Rooster Ventures, together with Y Combinator's Michael Seibel and Jared Friedman.
Tartu sTARTUp Day 2023 awards €200K to a soil monitoring platform Paul-Tech.
FIRSTPICK announces the first batch for its accelerator program. The full list of the participants can be found on LinkedIn.
Romanian Innovation Labs 2023 announces the list of winners accepted into the 3-month-long mentorship program. To find the list of participants you can read this LinkedIn post.

EIT Food program is seeking agritech/foodtech innovators to join in the next batch. During the program, the participants will have a chance of validating their business and technological idea in the earliest stages of their development. The applications are open till the 26th of March.
The US Department of State calls for applications for its Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative Fellowship Program. The program will be especially helpful for those seeking to gain ground in the US, growing their network throughout both sides of the Atlantic and impacting their local communities. Applications for the program close on the 24th of March.

VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, March 4 - 10, 2023 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)