New VC Funds
- Luno Expeditions kickstarts an early-stage fintech and crypto VC, planning to invest in 200 to 300 companies yearly. The fund would commit between $50,000 to $250,000 in its initial check and is open to proposals across the globe.
- France’s Educapital closes its second Edtech fund with over €100M in committed capital. The firm is looking to fund seed-series B EdTech startups stationed in Europe.
- London’s Hoxton Ventures closes its new $215M fund to support European startups. The firm would invest from $500k to $5M across various sectors and industries.
- Anderton SICAV launches an open Challenger Impact Fund in Poland. The firm plans to invest in country’s biotechnology, medicine, diagnostics, cybersecurity, supply chains sectors. "mobilityhttps://mamstartup.pl/do-polski-wszedl-fundusz-anderton-sicav-plc-zainwestuje-w-projekty-z-zakresu-cyberbezpieczenstwa-i-healthtechu/
CEE Startup Funding Rounds
- Latvian cleantech startup Naco raises €1.5M to democratize the production of hydrogen to speed up Europe’s transition to renewables. The investment was led by the Untitled Ventures and Buildit Accelerator.
- Content-intelligence startup Smartocto helping journalists and writers better understand their audiences' lands undisclosed post-seed funding from HR Capital, North Base Media (NBS), Eleven Capital, NEVEQ and business angels. The team plans to use financing to improve the product, bring it onto the market through injecting more capital in their sales and marketing efforts.
- Polish Bluekey building a platform for VR escape rooms nabs 5,65M PLN from YouNickMint. The investment will be used to fund the development and launch of a fully functional product.
- Polish OTB Ventures partakes in Silent Eight’s $40M series B round. In the nearest future, Singaporean regtech aims to further invest in product development while expanding to new locations.
- Romania-based, Booksy’s competitor, Stailer raises a bridge €1M round led by Cosmin Tirvuloiu. With the new capital injection, the marketplace for the beauty industry aims to further expand in Turkey and Hungary.
- Romanian-founded EdTech startup Alphacruncher picks up a €1.45M to help accelerate data-intensive academic research. The round was led by Alpine Equity.
- SpeedUp Energy Innovation invests €1M into German solar optimization startup Solytic. The company aims to increase its share of solar PVs on its platform as well as strengthen its positions in the EU and US.
Open Calls For Startups
- CEE Startup Challenge by Vestbee is calling for regional startups. Participants get a chance to win 1M EUR investment from Next Road Ventures; get startup credits & discounts on business tools such as up to $25k startup credits from AWS, $50k from Mixpanel, up to $150k from Microsoft for Startups, up to €100k from OVHcloud, and more from Notion, Stripe and Loom; access wide network of leading VC funds a.o. Credo Ventures, Eleven Ventures, 212, OTB Ventures, Revo Capital, PKO VC; land media coverage, tickets to leading conferences and discounts for legal and EU grants services from B2RLaw and Cresco Innovation. Applications are open till April 14.
- European-wide 5G routes project has started accepting applications for innovative CAM trials across Latvia-Estonia-Finland. The applications are open from the 15th of March and the first trials are planned for May 1-15.
- Warsaw-based Alpha Wolves Summit invites series A-E scaleups and investors in the respective stages to join its hybrid 2-day forum to connect with people from the ecosystem. The ticket sale has already started and the event is planned for the 7-8th of April.
- Level2 Ventures launches a Program D4S for startups to help them develop operational skills in sales, marketing strategy, product development, and more.
- 3-month long Green Manufacturing Accelerator is open for greentech startups. The one will have a chance to partake in mentoring sessions, demo day, and a fast track to investment from either EIT Digital (up to€100k) or Buidlit (up to€50k). The applications are open till 31st of March.
Other CEE Ecosystem News
- Ukraine’s president is about to sign the parliament’s recent crypto legislation to help startups in the industry become regulated and escape the legal grey area. Find out more here.
- The Council of the EU advances the representation of women in EU-located public companies: the new rules will require publicly listed companies to have 40% of their non-executive director positions to be held by women and 33% for companies that include both executive and non-executive positions. Find out more here.
Related Posts:
VC & Startup News, March 5-11, 2022 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, February 26- March 4, 2022 (Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup News February, 12-18 2022 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
