In this report, we have included the disclosed VC rounds that have been made public before the end of the 2Q 2021 or provided by our VC & startup community. It does not include grants and transactions below €50k. Additionally, although we’re always happy to see startups operating in CEE, we have decided to focus only on companies that originate from CEE, self-identify as CEE companies or there is a significant presence of the CEE founder. Please also be informed that the report is focused on the standard understanding of the CEE region (e.g. Turkey is not included).
Sources: Vestbee VC & startup community, startup press releases, web & social media monitoring, Crunchbase, PFR (Polish Development Fund).
Startup investment rounds in CEE in 2Q 2021
> Number of funding rounds: 194
> The biggest disclosed investment round: Vinted - Series F - €250M, Rohlik - Series C - €100M, Uncapped - Series B - €66M, Productboard - Series C - €60.5M, Veriff - Series B - €58M.
>Total value of funding closed in CEE: over €900M*
> Countries with the majority of funding rounds: Poland - 118 rounds, Estonia - 21 rounds
> The most active VC fund: Next Road Ventures, Fil Rouge Capital, Smok Ventures, Knowledge Hub, Accel, Early Game Ventures, Lighthouse Ventures.
> The most appreciated industries: Ecommerce, Fintech, Analytics, Cyber Security, Automotive, AI, Big Data, Media.
*15 rounds undisclosed in terms of transaction value
In the 2nd quarter of 2021, 194 investment rounds were closed in Central and Eastern Europe, while only 110 were fully disclosed in terms of amount, month, participating investors and company details. According to fully disclosed data, 38 funding rounds took place in April, 35 in May and 37 in June. The number of investments each month remained at a similar level throughout the whole quarter, however, May was much more abundant in terms of amounts of investments that reached the value of over €380M mainly thanks to the outstanding round of Lithuanian first unicorn - Vinted (Series F, €250M). In April and June startups raised over €205M and €287M respectively, while the total value of investments in 2Q 2021 reached over €900M. Apart from Vinted, we cannot ignore the contribution of Czech Rohlik, whose latest funding round in the amount of €100M, made it achieve unicorn status.
The most active countries in terms of the majority of funding rounds in Q2 were Poland and Estonia, which secured 118 and 21 rounds respectively. Poland was leading in terms of the number of secured funding rounds, but it was Lithuania where the amount of investment was the highest (€286M) - mainly thanks to a huge contribution of well-recognized Vinted (Series D of €250). The Czech Republic was another country that raised a significant level of funding (over €180M) and among other countries worth mentioning are Estonia, Romania and Croatia.
When it comes to the most popular sectors, in the second quarter funds were mainly invested into Ecommerce, Fintech, Analytics, Cyber Security, Automotive, AI, Big Data and Mediatech, while the most active investors were Next Road Ventures, Fil Rouge Capital, Smok Ventures, Knowledge Hub, Accel, Early Game Ventures, Lighthouse Ventures.
Take a look at CEE startup and VC market analysis from 2Q 2021.
Now let’s move to an overview of monthly analysis. The summary was prepared based on fully disclosed investment rounds (startup name, month of investment closure, amount, participating investors).
Investment rounds in June
> Number of funding rounds: 37
> The biggest investment rounds: Rohlik - Series C - €100M, MaintainX - Series B - €32.7M, Skeleton Technologies - Series D - €29M
> Total value of funding secured in CEE: over €280M
> Countries with the majority of funding rounds: Poland - 13 rounds, Estonia - 7, Romania - 7
> The most active VC fund: Next Road Ventures, Fil Rouge Capital, Smok Ventures.
> The most appreciated industries: Delivery services, Artificial Intelligence, E-commerce, Healthcare.
In June the amount of financing obtained by CEE startups exceeded the value of €280M secured in 37 rounds. Poland took the leader’s position with 13 rounds, followed by Estonia with 7 rounds. The biggest investment rounds were secured by Czech Rohlik (Series C of €100M), Romanian-USA MaintainX (Series B of €32.7M), and Estonian Skeleton Technologies (Series D of €29M). Among the most active VC funds were Polish Next Road Ventures and Smok Ventures, and Croatian Fil Rouge Capital, whereas among the top areas that attracted investors’ attention were Artificial Intelligence, E-commerce, Healthcare, and Delivery Services.
Find out more: TOP CEE Funding Rounds Closed in June
Investment rounds in May
> Number of funding rounds: 35
> The biggest investment round: Vinted - Series F - €250M, Uncapped - Series B - €66.2M, Interactio - Series A - €24.4M
> Total value of funding secured this in CEE: over €380M
> Countries with the majority of funding rounds: Poland - 8 rounds, Estonia - 5 rounds, Lithuania - 5 rounds
> The most active VC fund: Fil Rouge Capital - in terms of the number of financing rounds, Accel, Burda Principal Investments, EQT, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sprints Capital - in terms of participating in the biggest investment round (Vinted’s).
> The most appreciated industries: E-commerce, Artificial Intelligence, Analytics, Marketing.
May was very similar to June in terms of the number of funding rounds secured, however, May was the month when startups raised the most money - over €380M. The biggest funding rounds were secured by Lithuanian Vinted (Series F of €250M), Polish Uncapped (Series B of €66.2M), and Lithuanian Interactio (Series A of €24.4M). Once again, Poland was leading in terms of the majority of funding rounds by landing 8 out of 35 funding rounds, but it was Lithuania that (thanks to the impressive round of its unicorn - Vinted) secured over €280M in total. The most active VC fund in terms of the number of rounds was Fil Rouge Capital, however, Accel, Burda Principal Investments, EQT, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Sprints Capital should be singled out as the contributors of the biggest round this month. Among the most appreciated industries were E-commerce, Artificial Intelligence, Analytics, and Marketing.
Find out more: TOP CEE Funding Rounds Closed in May
Investment rounds in April
> Number of funding rounds: 38
> The biggest investment round: Productboard - Series C - €60.5M, Veriff - Series B - €58M, FintechOS - Series B** - €51M, Payhawk - Series A - €16.8M
**according to data from investors, the round will be finalised in Q3
> Total value of funding secured in CEE: over €250M
> Countries with the majority of funding rounds: Poland - 10, Estonia - 9 rounds
> The most active VC fund: Startup Wise Guys, Fil Rouge Capital in terms of the number of funding rounds and Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkin, Index Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners due to participating in the biggest round of the month - Productboard.
> The most appreciated industries: AI, Cyber-security, Analytics, Advertising.
April, the first month of 2Q 2021, was the most active month in terms of the number of investment rounds (38), but the funding volume secured this month was the lowest in the whole quarter - it slightly exceeded €250M. Polish and Estonian ecosystems were leading in terms of the number of secured funding rounds by landing 10 and 9 rounds respectively, and top investment rounds were allocated to Czech Productboard (Series C of €60.5M), Estonian Veriff (Series B of €58M), Romanian FintechOS (Series B of €51M) and Bulgarian Payhawk (Series A round of €16.8M). Taking a look at industries, AI, FinTech, Advertising, E-commerce, and Legal Tech were the most popular courses of investments in April. Among the most active investors were Startup Wise Guys & FRC (in terms of funding rounds), and Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkin, Index Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners due to participating in the biggest round of the month - Productboard.
Find out more: TOP CEE Funding Rounds Closed in April
Want to explore funded startups? Let’s take a look at a quick overview of Top 50 CEE startups that had their funding rounds closed between April and June!
Top 50 CEE startup funding rounds closed in 2Q 2021:
- Rohlik - Czech online supermarket with the fastest delivery in the city is well-known for good service and high customers’ satisfaction.
- Vinted - Lithuanian online marketplace and community for second hand clothes.
- Uncapped - Polish-UK provider of revenue-based financing that enables founders to raise growth capital without interest or equity.
- Veriff - Estonian online identity verification company focused on protecting businesses and their clients from online identity fraud.
- MaintainX - Romanian-USA workflow management platform that allows factory frontline teams to know what they need to do and how to do it.
- Productboard - Czech product management system that helps organizations get the right products to market faster.
- Skeleton Technologies - Estonian manufacturer and developer of high energy and power density ultracapacitors.
- Gideon Brothers - Croatian producer of AI-powered autonomous industrial robots.
- eStoreMedia - Polish-UK software provider for fortune 500 companies.
- Booste - Polish fintech that provides revenue-based financing to e-commerce companies.
- Grid Esports - Polish-German startup analyzing e-sport data.
- Resistant AI - Czech startup protecting AI systems from targeted manipulation, adversarial machine learning attacks, and other frauds.
- Ramp - Polish startup that connects blockchain with banks using open banking APIs.
- Craft - Hungarian software company that specializes in the fields of mobile apps and productivity tools.
- Sundose - Polish direct-to-consumer personalized supplements platform allowing to order a nutrient mix tailored to each client’s individual needs.
- SpaceOS - Polish-Irish management software platform.
- Interactio - Lithuanian live translation platform used by a.o. the United Nations and the European Parliament.
- SPOKO - Polish fintech operating in the international money transfer market.
- Brolis Sensors - Lithuanian sensor technology company.
- SunRoof - Polish-Swedish start-up developing fully solar 2-in-1 roofs and facades and provides solutions supporting smart energy management.
- DappRadar - Lithuanian global app store for decentralized applications (called dapps), allowing its users to explore and track the activity of these applications.
- Omnipack - Polish provider of logistics services for medium-sized companies.
- Mercuryo - Estonian fintech focused on providing cryptocurrency payment solutions.
- SonarHome - Polish startup enabling the quick and safe sale of an apartment directly to the company.
- Formation.FI - Polish startup popularizing the smart farming 2.0 trend.
- Time is Ltd. - Czech collaboration analytics platform that improves productivity and company culture through meetings, emails and IM analytics.
- Mindgram - Polish platform and mobile app for complete mental wellness.
- QANplatform - Estonian hybrid blockchain platform for building software applications.
- Accomango - Czech marketplace for workers’ accommodation providers.
- Sky Crops - Polish startup developing fruit farm technology.
- Molecule.one - Polish AI-powered software for organic synthesis design.
- Digitoo - Czech startup working on automating accounting processes.
- Co-one - Estonian AI-based, gamification supported, crowdsourced data annotation and enrichment platform.
- inSTREAMLY - Polish streamer management platform connecting brands and streamers together.
- Bunnyshell - Romanian cloud-agnostic DevOps automation platform that deploys, scales, and optimizes applications.
- Avatao - Hungarian provider of job-related security training that generates real-life scenarios of best practices for security and development teams.
- Respo-Vision - Polish AI-powered football analytics company.
- Smabbler - Polish startup developing a horizontal language engine built to interpret, generalize and infer from unstructured text
- LumiLook - Polish Machine Learning and Computer Vision-based SaaS tool for improving the safety and quality of people's work.
- Pactum - Estonian software for automatically negotiating contracts on a massive scale.
- Payhawk - Bulgarian-UK startup offering dedicated bank accounts to its customers from which they can manage company cards, supplier payments, and reimbursements.
- Rezuro - Polish startup that develops a marketplace platform for renting rooms and apartments online.
- Nordigen - Latvian startup providing all-in-one banking data API to build powerful banking, lending and finance apps.
- Cardiomatics - Polish startup that uses artificial intelligence tools for Cardiology.
- Procesio - Romanian startup closing the gap between the need for developing products and the lack of human resources.
- AgeVolt - Slovakian energy startup that enables chargers to be installed using the existing electrical connection.
- StreamBee - Czech provider of analytics tools for streamers.
- Placeme - Polish online tool that enables predicting potential sales in a specific location.
- TAIA - Slovakian platform providing software for more efficient content translation.
- Artemis - Hungarian startup working on smart wearable clothing and app to relieve period pain for women.
*If you have some insights about the report, drop me a line!
Want to get a more detailed view on the CEE Startup & VC Scene in 2Q 2021?
Discover our monthly reports:
TOP CEE funding rounds closed in April
TOP CEE funding rounds closed in May
TOP CEE funding rounds closed in June
Sources: Vestbee VC & startup community, startup press releases, web & social media monitoring, Crunchbase, PFR (Polish Development Fund).
