Notable funding rounds across Europe:
- French Challenger AI startup Mistral has raised a €600 million. Investors include General Catalyst, Lightspeed, Andreessen Horowitz, Bpifrance, and BNP Paribas.
- Dublin-based AccountsIQ has secured a €60 million Series C round for its cloud-based accounting platform. The capital came from Axiom Equity.
- Belgian energy tech company Gorilla has raised a €23 million Series B led by venture capital firm Headline, with participation from Beringea and PMV.
- French Continuity, a software provider that provides risk intelligence for professional and commercial P&C insurers, has raised a €10 million Series A round.
- Paris-based SaaS Zeliq has raised $10 million in a round led by Exor Ventures. The proceeds will be used to expand the startup’s operations into the US.
- Munich-based defence tech company ARX Robotics has raised €9 million in a seed funding round co-led by NIF, Discovery Ventures, and Project A.
- Dublin-based digital payments startup CleverCards has raised €8 million in funding from French company Pluxee, and existing investors, including Delta Partners.
- London-based platform Visibly, built for the blue- and green-collar industries, has secured $7.5 million from Creandum, Seedcamp, Brighteye Ventures, and Triple Point.
- UK Rendesco, the developer and operator of clean heat networks, has raised £6 million co-led by the Clean Growth Fund, Eurazeo’s Smart City Fund, and Aviva Ventures.
- Paris-based climate tech startup Kelvin, which develops an AI-based software platform, has raised €5 million to accelerate home energy renovations.
- Berlin-based EV marketplace Cardino has raised €4 million in a seed round led by German venture capital fund Point Nine.
- Zurich-based cloud-based platform for healthcare industry, Rivia, has raised €3 million in a seed round led by Austrian Speedinvest.
CEE startup funding rounds & acquisitions:
- Estonian-founded and Cambridge-based biotech ExpressionEdits raises $13 million in a seed funding round co-led by Octopus Ventures and redalpine.
- Warsaw-based fintech Wealthon that offers financing and business tools to support entrepreneurs has raised €11.5 million in debt from CVI Dom Maklerski.
- Warsaw-based AI platform CampusAI has secured €9.2 million in pre-seed funding to build a virtual campus for AI training and expand abroad.
- Ukrainian startup that supports sellers' operational streamlining, Portal.ai, has raised $5 million in a pre-seed round.
- Slovenian visual CPQ platform SaleSqueze has raised $1.5 million in a round led by Underline Ventures.
- Founded by Ukrainians, Bluedot, a developer of AI Chrome Extension for Google Meet, has raised €560,000 in angel investment to continue its growth.
New venture capital funds and VCs’ news:
- Munich-based Vsquared Ventures has closed its second fund of €214 million to invest in early-stage deeptech startups across Europe. The LPs include Novo Holdings and the NATO Innovation Fund.
- Milan-based VC Italian Founders Fund has launched a €50 million fund to invest in Italian seed and pre-seed startups. IFF plans to execute 25 transactions within its investment period, with initial investments ranging from €500,000 to €1.5 million.
Startup calls & Events:
- SIBB Incubator
SIBB Incubator is a 10-month program that offers up to €88,000 in equity-free funding for startups that want to pursue their idea full-time. The program is funded by the City of Berlin and the ESF. Successful startups from SIBB have secured funding rounds of over €1 million in the past and have been featured in mainstream media and by the World Economic Forum.
If you would like to be part of the next SIBB cohort, please visit the incubator's application page: http://www.sibb.de/incubator-apply. Applications are open until July 11, 2024.
- CYBERSEC CEE EXPO & FORUM 2024
CYBERSEC CEE EXPO & FORUM 2024 will be held on 19-20 June in Cracow. The event is a combination of debates on the most critical strategic challenges of cybersecurity and, an EXPO dedicated to the development of cyber industry and new technologies.
CYBERSEC CEE EXPO & FORUM 2024 will feature high-level speakers, including the Polish Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Digital Affairs, and will cover a range of topics from building European cybersecurity unicorns to AI’s role in digital defence and cybersecurity, with side events on VC investments, NIS2 implementation, and Ukraine's digital reconstruction. To know more and participate, check out the event’s website.
