The summer is officially upon us! And even with the holiday season approaching, the last month of June was not lacking in exciting and fresh news from the startup and VC ecosystem. If you are packing for your long-planned vacations, waiting at the airport, or maybe only decided to take your office outside and enjoy the sun as you work - let’s use these moments and recap what was going on in the market of startups, accelerators, VC funds and more. We present also some June startup calls that are still open - so if you were hesitating before, don’t miss your chance to apply and grow your business!
So without further ado, here is an overview of the most notable startup industry news from the last month!
VC Funds
- Alven, VC Fund based in Paris, closed its sixth €350M fund to back European early-stage startups. They will consider funding business solutions from any sector or industry, with the proposed amount ranging from €100k to €15M.
- Polish AIP Seed raised a €25M fund and will back startups from the CEE region, across all sectors and industries. The firm plans to support around 30 companies each year, investing up to €250k.
- All Iron with the aim to support European VC funds managers closed its first-ever fund-of-funds. The €30M firm plans to back around 15 established managers across the continent.
- RebelVentures is a venture arm of a Romanian software house Rebeldot, that was kickstarted last month. They will dedicate additional product teams to back their portfolio startups in a ‘tech-for-equity’ model
- Amsterdam-based Acrobator Ventures emerged with a new €30M early-stage fund. The firm is interested in B2B/B2C seed and pre-seed startups from CEE and CIS. The average ticket size of their investment will vary between €0.2M - €1.5M
- German Project A Ventures closed its next $375M fund to support early-stage startups across Europe. The firm plans to invest in fintech, commerce, enterprise software, data infrastructure, supply chain, and climate tech.
- Phoenix Court Group is a new name of a London-based Local Globe, that recently brought $500M in a new fundraise. The firm will mainly focus on European pre-seed to seed startups.
- Paris-based Breega raised a new €250M fund to back European startups. The firm plans to support around 20 founders of Series A startups, across sectors and industries.
CEE Startup Funding Rounds & Acquisitions
- Hunch, a Serbian creative ads platform secured a €4M round to expand its revenue team and scale in Europe and the US. The round was led by Catalyst Romania and joined by Euroventures, North Base Media, SeedBlink and South Central Ventures
- Yope (Salo) - a startup based in Belarus and Ukraine, picked a $2M bridge round from Horizon Capital, TA Ventures, iClub, Kolos Ventures, Geek Ventures, Vesna VC and hi5 Ventures. With the raised funds, company is able to launch the app.
- The thin film battery startup - The Batteries is now able to kickstart mass production of their product thanks to a 35M PLN round. The investment was led by Aper Ventures and followed by JR Holding ASI S.A. , EIT InnoEnergy and UAB Electronics System
- Airslate - a workflow automation startup and the sixth unicorn from Ukraine picked up $51.5M at $1.25bn valuation. The round was led by the G Squared and joined by the recently unveiled UiPath’s venture arm.
- In order to facilitate its expansion into a DACH market - Polish Grupa Pracuj acquired a German TA platform softgarden in a transaction worth $125M.
- $26M Series A was raised by NFTPort - Estonian NFT infrastructure and API platform. The round was led by Taavet + Sten, Atomico and Protocol Labs and saw participation from Sparkle Ventures, IDEO CoLab Ventures and a number of angel investors.
- A search engine analytics platform for podcasts Hintech gets a 1M PLN investment to further develop its product. The investment was made by the SpeedUP Venture Capital.
- A platform for marketing skills assessments Heroify raised 1.7M PLN in a pre-seed round. The round was led by SMOK VC and Movens Capital with participation from a number of angels.
- Future Fund, a micro investment startup from Poland, raised $3,8M in a round from an undisclosed group of private investors to build up its first MVP.
Open Calls for Startups
- Startups from Bulgaria and Romania, developing solutions from the clmatech sector are welcome to apply to a 2022 edition of Black Sea ClimAccelerator. Selected teams will receive up to €300k in grants as well as mentorship, access to experts’ network and more. The applications are open until the 24th of July.
- AWS FinTech Accelerator, launched by AWS in partnership with Vestbee, is dedicated to fintech startups from UKIR or those planning to expand there. The applications are open till the 22nd of July.
- Polish oil refiner and retailer Orlen launched the 5th edition of its accelerator program. Startups from all around the world, working on solutions complementary to the group’s activities are welcome to apply until the 1st of August.
Other:
- EU recently launched a €20M initiative that will support Ukraine’s deep tech startups disbursed through the European Innovation Council. The program will support around 200 companies, giving up to €60k in grants to each of the supported startups.
Related Posts:
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, June 25-July 1, 2022 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, June 18-24, 2022 (by Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
VC & Startup Weekly News From CEE, June 11-17, 2022 (Ilya Mikhalchyk-Kananenka, Community Builder, Vestbee)
