New Venture Funds:
- Japanese Mars Growth Capital kickstarts a $250-M big European growth capital fund to provide non-dilutive funding to European startups.
- UK's insurance group Aviva kickstarts a £150M Aviva Ventures fund. The firm will make strategic investments in customer wellbeing, mobility, sustainability, and the "opportunities created by new technology developments like Artificial Intelligence".
- Swedish VC Pale Blue Dot closes a €93M to invest in European and US startups. The firm will focus on pre-seed and seed stage climate tech,food, industry, agtech, mobility and fintech ventures, investing €500k to €2M into each opportunity.
- Polish Spire Capital Partners announces its first €57M closing of a €100M fund. The firm will invest in tech-enabled services, software, and e-commerce in companies €7M-20M equity investments in companies with > €1M EBITDA.
- European Innovation Council dedicated €20M to support Ukrainian deep tech startups through a Warsaw-based FundingBox Accelerator.
- Croatian SQ Capital announces a €5M closing of its €10M fund to invest in local startups. The firm will put up to €300k into each opportunity.
Startup Funding Rounds & Acquisitions:
- Satellite-as-a-service startup EnduroSat raises $10M series A to support its growth targets. The round was led by CEECAT Capital and joined by Freigeist Capital.
- Polish horizontal portal Wirtualna Polska acquires e-commerce marketing automation platform Samito to improve the WP Ads platform.
- BaltCap acquires a 70% stake in a Latvian B2B automation service company Hansab. The size of transaction remains undisclosed.
- Estonian home workout platform FitQ acquires producer of gym and cardio workout tracker Gymwolf. The merge occurred through an exchange of shares.
- An Estonian space-based risk assesment/monitoring insurtech Value.Space announces a €2.1M round to further scale up the business. The round was joined by Specialist VC, Superangel, Lemonade Stand, Inventure, BADideas.fund and Amalfi Capital Management.
- Czech user onboarding platform Product Fruits closes a €1.6M seed round to reinvest in growth and product development. The round was co-led by LeverageVC and Venture to Future Fund, joined by Lighthouse Ventures.
- Polish capsule-based endoscopy producer BioCam raises 2M PLN to further conduct clinical trials and invest in product development. The investment was made by Level2 Ventures.
- Latvian high precision laser weeding WeedBot raises €425k to fund the production of its first machine. The round was led by Overkill Ventures and joined by Accelerace together with a couple of undisclosed business angels.
- Polish TV ad platform INSBUY obtains an investment from SPINAKER Alfa. The size of the investment remains undisclosed.
Startup Calls:
- Ministry of SMEs and Startups of South Korea invites foreign startups to apply for the K-Startup Grand Challenge. The program will provide a 3.5-month acceleration program in Pangyo Techno valley and an opportunity to attain funding after the demo day. The program is open to startups from all over the globe and the applications are accepted until the 18th of May.
- 4 days left to apply for one of Vivatech Startup Challenges. The main event will occur on 14-17 of June in Paris and more details can be found on the website.
- Ukrainian defence tech accelerator D3 kickstarts its operations. The accelerator will invest $125k and help connect and scale the product throughout the globe.
- Aula Polska is hosting a meeting on Warsaw Google Campus to talk more about startup laws. The event will occur on the 17th of May 18:00.
Related Posts:
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, April 29 - May 5, 2023 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, April 22 - 28, 2023 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, April 15 - 21, 2023 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, April 8 - 14, 2023 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
