New Venture Funds:
- The Bulgarian Fund of Funds directs €272M towards the VC/PE fund managers throughout the country. The investments will be directed at enhancing the scientific/research initiatives, digitization and competitiveness of the local SMB segment.
- Polish VC JR HOLDING raises an additional 24M PLN to make new investments.
- French VC Neo Founders announces plans to raise €15/20M funds to invest in European pre-seed and seed-stage startups. The firm will wire up to €500K into startups they're backing.
Startup Funding rounds & acquisitions:
- Czech space company TRL SPACE obtains €100M in funding for its moon exploration project.
- Polish e-commerce frontend platform Vue Storfront raises €20M series A extension. The round was led by Felix Capita, CEO of Mirakl Philippe Corrot, Mirakl's engineering head Nagi Letaifa, and joined by its previous investors - Creandum, Earlybird Digital East, and SquareOne.
- Polish producer of sustainable rubber/plastic Contec raises 50M PLN to modernize its plant and invest in further R&D. The round was co-led by Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego and the Warsaw Equity Group.
- Lithuanian marketplace for agri-finance/loan platform HeavyFinance gets €3M in seed funding to reinvest in expansion and company growth. The round was led by Practica Capital.
- Czech producer of packaging-waste solutions MIWA announces a €2.7M to scale up its operations across Europe. The round was led by EIC.
- Croatian gaming service marketplace GameBoost raises €2M to expand its operations. The round was co-led by Fil Rouge Capital and Feelsgood Capital.
- Polish platform for team augmentation Epinote obtains 6.5M PLN in pre-seed funding to invest in the platform's development. The round was co-led by Movens Capita, Kogito Ventures, and Next Road Ventures, joined by Corvus Ventures, and several business angels.
- German scrap/recycled metal marketplace METYCLE gets €1.5M during the pre-seed round to reinvest in product development. The round was co-led by Market One Capital and DFF, followed by several business angels.
- Polish-American construction monitoring platform AI Clearing raises $1M to back up its growth plans. The round was led by JR HOLDING.
- Polish hemp brand builder Green Lanes raises 3.5M PLN to invest in its portfolio companies.
- Romanian marketplace integrations SaaS easySales raises €600K to scale up the platform. The round was led by Fortech Investments and joined by an undisclosed business angel.
- Belarusian AI platform for film editing Filmustage raises $550K to scale up its platform throughout the globe. The round was funded by Flyer One Ventures, Vesna.Capital, Geek Ventures and Imaguru.
- Bulgarian VC Eleven Ventures announces 4 participants of its Eleven Alpha program: Slovak wellness platform Perfeqt, Greek sport club ecosystem MyTeam, Bulgarian e-commerce insights platform True Insights and a Bulgarian housing-as-a-service platform FlatAway. All startups joining the platform will receive €300K in funding and access to the Eleven Alpha program.
- Romanian video platform for fitness content Hyperhuman gets €200K grant to further develop its product. The grant was provided by EEA Grants.
- Ukrainian mobile platform for website/ad building Zeely obtains $120K investment to finance its growth. The funding was provided by ZAS Ventures.
- Estonian Tehnopol spreads €260K towards several pilot AI projects: LightCode Photonics, Marduk Technologies, Elcogen, RAIKU Packaging and Robus Athletic.
- Nordic-Baltic fintech program Mastercard Lighthouse announces its next class. To learn more you can read the program's announcement.
- Ukrainian Fintech Awards 2023 announces the list of this year's nominees. To read more you can go to the event's page.
- Romanian Rubik Garage Accelerator announces its next spring 2023 cohort. To find out more about the participants and the program you can check out the announcement on the accelerator's blog.
Startup Calls:
- Vestbee launches Hello CleanTech Startup Challenge. The program is open to cleantech startups throughout several select verticals. The winners of the challenge will obtain up to 200K PLN worth of prizes, free credits and mentorship/expert support, as well as the ability to pilot their solutions across several corporate partners. The applications for the challenge run until the 14th of April.
- Inovo and Google for Startups invite aspiring entrepreneurs for the next month's "Founder Wannabes". During the event, attendees will have a chance of hearing a presentation on how to scale a startup from 0 to 1 by Jakub Zakrzewski - a person behind Revolut's launch in Singapore and a former GM of Kraken. Additionally, the visitors will have a chance to pitch their product/idea as well as meet with other founders or find co-founders. The event will occur on the 11th of April in Warsaw and to secure a spot one should fill in this short form before the 1st of April.
- A joint NEON initiative by PKN Orlen and Polish National Centre for Research and Development calls for applications in the field of corrosion protection/management. The winners of the challenge will obtain an 8M PLN grant and an opportunity to validate the solution with the program's experts. The applications for the program run until the 31st of March.
Related Posts:
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, March 11 - 17, 2023 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, March 4 - 10, 2023 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, February 25 - March 3, 2023 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
