• Founded in 2018 by Andreas Tsetinis and Sasan Hashemi, Tset offers cloud-based SaaS solutions that provide real-time insights into product costs and emissions. This technology helps businesses optimize their processes from development to production, improving margins and transparency regarding carbon emissions.

• The startup claims its software uses secondary data to deliver accurate analyses, minimizing the need for primary data. The platform is used across various industries, including automotive and aerospace, and has a team of 100 members.

Investment details

The fresh round was led by a number of prominent DACH investors. The lists includes:

• Brose Ventures, a corporate VC from Germany, specializing in mechatronics and manufacturing systems for vehicle doors, lids, and seats, as well as electric motors for various applications.
• Ingenics Holding, an international firm focusing on operational and digital transformation.
• Carbon Removal Partners, a Zurich-based VC firm dedicated to the Carbon Removal industry.

With this investment, Tset aims to enhance its technological offerings and expand its reach, driving innovation in cost and carbon management for the manufacturing sector.

• ecop is a high-tech company that manufactures rotation heat pumps for industrial use. The company claims that it supports companies in recovering energy, protecting the environment, and saving costs, with direct output temperatures up to 200 °C.
• The design is based on a rotating system that uses a 100 percent climate friendly, non-toxic and non-flammable working medium and can change speed to accommodate different heat source temperatures, enabling a high degree of flexibility in operation, according to the company’s data.
• ecop is located in Vienna and in Neuhofen an der Krems. The development centre is located in Vienna, while production takes place in Upper Austria.

“The EU’s innovation ecosystem has been an integral source of support as ecop has developed our technology and our business. 

This funding will enable us to finalise the development of our new rotor design and take the next step in scaling up, making our heat pump solution more broadly available, and ultimately enabling more companies and municipalities to generate affordable and CO2-free heat to sustainably power their operations,”

Fabian Sacharowitz, CEO of ecop, commented.

The fresh funding includes €2.5 million in grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator, as well as up to €6 million in equity investment. EIC Accelerator awards grants of up to €2.5 million, alongside equity investments, to deep-tech start-ups and small companies in a highly competitive process.

The company will spend the freshly acquired funding to increase the production capacity of its rotation heat pump.

About Phyron

• Founded in 2019, Swedish video tech pioneer Phyron is developing the world’s first fully automated AI-enhanced video solution. Using Artificial Intelligence, the software identifies the best and most relevant selling points of each individual car and combines still images from a data feed, facts and figures about the car, brand imagery and retailer services into relevant, highly effective videos.

• Phyron currently counts over 3,000 car dealers as customers across 30 countries. Just last month the company set up new offices in Brighton, UK, in addition to its existing HQ in Stockholm, Sweden.

Investment details

Round2 Capital provided both an additional revenue-based financing investment as well as an equity investment as part of the company’s Series B. The automotive retail giant Peter Vardy and existing shareholders also joined the funding round.

“Since we met the Phyron team and decided to make our first investment, the company’s development has been very positive. We value the relationship we have built and look forward to supporting the next phase of the company’s growth. We believe that Phyron is planning the right next steps to take advantage of opportunities in a dynamic market environment,”

Jan Hillered, co-founder and managing partner of Round2 Capital, commented on the investment.

This is not the first time the fund invested in the company. In June 2023, Round2 made an undisclosed seven-figure investment in the Stockholm-based AI-powered video content creation platform. At the time, the investment was directed towards technology development and team growth.

The Series B funding will enable Phyron to accelerate development of its AI and automation technology, grow the team with top industry talent, and expand its operations in new markets – namely the United States.

About FoxEducation

• Founded in Vienna in 2016, FoxEducation offers digital solutions to simplify communication and administrative tasks in the education sector. In addition to the SchoolFox app for schools, the company later introduced the KidsFox platform for daycare centers and kindergartens, and TeamFox for clubs. According to the company, today, over 9,000 institutions in the DACH region use FoxApps.

• In the summer of 2021, FoxEducation became part of the Austrian company GoStudent. After the deal, it grew by over 70 percent while several apps were continuously developed since then — including the innovative payment management tool FoxPay. FoxEducation has been part of the Sdui Group since July 2024.

Acquisition details

With the acquisition of FoxEducation, the Sdui Group intends to establish itself as a market-leading edtech provider in the field of communication and messaging for schools and daycare centers in German-speaking countries.

Following the acquisition of FoxEducation, the Sdui Group serves a customer base of 22,000 educational institutions across Europe.

“The acquisition of FoxEducation by the Sdui Group is a significant win for our customers. We are delighted to join forces to further improve everyday life in schools and daycare centers. Our combined expertise will create an even stronger foundation for innovative educational solutions. This partnership will ensure that our customers receive the best possible tools for their educational needs. By combining our resources, we will offer even more comprehensive and effective solutions than before, from which students, teachers, and parents will benefit equally,”

Philipp Fendt, Co-CEO of FoxEducation, shared.

At the same time, Sdui received an additional €21 million from investors, raising a total of €46 million in a Series A round. Summiteer and HV Capital are the lead investors, joined by new and existing investors like Haniel, Brighteye, Michael Hinderer, and HTGF. The company is investing part of this sum in the acquisition of FoxEducation.

• planqc was founded in 2022 by scientists from MPQ and Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Alexander Glätzle and Sebastian Blast. It develops an industry-relevant quantum computers. Today, planqc is already using quantum machine learning to work on climate simulations or more efficient batteries for electric vehicles.
• Recently, the company has been commissioned to deploy a 1,000-qubit quantum computer at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre by the German Government. Moreover, planqc received a European tender to develop a quantum computer for the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Unlike most other companies, including Big Tech, we use individual atoms – confined in crystals of light – as qubits. This approach is the fast track to scaling the number of qubits and improving their quality, the prerequisites for being the first to deliver fault-tolerant quantum computers,

Dr. Sebastian Blatt, CTO of planqc, said.

The funding details:

• The fresh investment was led by by the European Family Office CATRON Holding and the DeepTech & Climate Fonds (DTCF). Additional financial support is provided by Bayern Kapital, the Max-Planck Foundation, further private investors.
• Existing investors UVC is a Munich- and Berlin-based early-stage venture capital firm investing in European B2B startups in the fields of deeptech, climate tech, enterprise software and mobility, and Speedinvest, a venture capital fund with more than €1 billion to invest in pre-seed, seed, and early-stage tech startups across Europe. In May this year, Speedinvest also led a €1.3 million pre-seed round for hexafarms, a German agritech.
• The financing also includes a non-dilutive grant from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Fresh financing will be used to establish a quantum computing cloud service and to develop quantum software for applications in industries such as chemistry, healthcare, climate tech, automotive, and finance.

About Vertus Energy

• Founded in 2019, Vertus Energy develops BRIO, a biogas technology that generates biomethane up to 3 times faster than currently possible and boosts energy production by up to 60% from the same amount of waste. The startup claims its flexibility provides the potential to service the entire industry, at every scale. It easily retrofits into existing anaerobic digestion plants, controlling existing bacteria rather than by introducing new bacteria, enabling the potential to utilize any waste stream.

Vertus Energy is determined to radically improve access to sustainable energy and help Europe meet its renewable energy objectives. We’ve already established relationships with global players, who have recognised how the technology can help them to meet their renewable energy goals and are genuinely excited by what we can deliver,

Benjamin Howard, co-founder and COO, said.

Investment details

• Energy Capital Ventures, the US-based early-stage VC fund specializing in the ESG imperatives and digital transformation of the natural gas industry, is the lead investor in the current round.
• Blackbird, a venture capital fund based in Australia and New Zealand, the Amadeus APEX Technology, a fund located in London and will invest in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and Aussie Angels, a group of investors from Sydney, alongside all the existing investors, also participated in the financing.

As the only venture capital fund solely dedicated to green molecules™, we have devoted the last several years to analyzing technologies and start-ups in biogas, biomethanation and renewable natural gas.  It was abundantly clear from our exhaustive due diligence that Vertus Energy’s technology, commercial progress and team were far superior to anything in the market.  We backed Vertus Energy because they have a fantastic team, clearly demonstrative technology and verifiable results that vastly surpass competitive options,

Vic Pascucci, Managing General Partner and co-founder of Energy Capital Ventures, commented.

The new funding will accelerate the adoption of the BRIO technology in commercial units across various applications, from full-scale wastewater treatment plants to large-scale biogas plants.

About Prewave

• Established in 2017, Prewave provides users with a dynamic supplier risk score, derived from big data supply chain analysis. It allows companies to monitor their entire supply chain and equip users with the ability to execute corrective and preventive measures, minimizing risk, and enhancing individual supplier performance.

• The company claims that the platform is capable of identifying and helping businesses manage 140 risk types on a global scale. This includes issues affecting resilience and causing disruption (natural disasters, financial stress, cyber risks, accidents and legal issues), risks around sustainability and ESG, and compliance with a growing number of national and international regulations.
• To date, Prewave has achieved 3x annual revenue growth in 2023. Prewave’s AI driven supply chain risk intelligence platform is used by over 200 companies, including Lufthansa, Toyota, Ferrari and Dr Oetker, to minimize supply chain risk and build resilient operations despite ever-growing complexity in supply chains.

We founded Prewave because we are convinced that data and AI can play a major role in making supply chains more transparent, resilient and sustainable – and help to power the vital currents of global economic progress. We believe that in the face of rapidly accelerating regulatory complexity, businesses shouldn’t be aiming to take a tick-box approach, but to use regulatory compliance as a vehicle to become more resilient,

Harald Nitschinger, co-founder and Managing Director at Prewave, said.

Investment details

The global investment firm Hedosophia is the lead investor during the fresh round. Existing investors including Creandum, Ventech, Kompas, Speedinvest, and Working Capital Fund, also joined the financing.

A little over a year ago, in May 2023, Prewave closed its Series A+ funding round at €18 million. Creandum was the lead investor at the time, with most of the current investors also participating.

The fresh funding round will fuel Prewave’s global expansion and support further product R&D, in addition to supporting its rapid growth in Europe.

About Storyblok

• Storyblok was founded in 2017 by Dominik Angerer and Alexander Feiglstorfer. The startup develops a content management system (CMS), that empowers developers and marketers to create better content experiences across any digital channel.
• According to the company, over 200,000 developers and marketers such as Adidas, T-Mobile, Renault, and Oatly use the platform. Its fully-remote team includes 240 people across 45 countries. Almost 2 years ago, the startup raised its $47 million Series B funding led by Mubadala Capital and HV Capital.

Investment details

• Brighton Park Capital is the lead investor in the Series C round. It is a Greenwich-based growth equity investment firm that specializes in software, healthcare, and technology-enabled services.

With a highly differentiated, easy-to-use platform, Storyblok is a leader in the CMS space, helping both marketers and developers to create content experiences across multiple channels quickly and efficiently,

Kevin Magan, Partner at Brighton Park Capital, said.

Several existing investors also participated. The list includes:

• HV Capital, a German early-stage and growth investor.
• Mubadala Capital, a global asset management firm.
• 3VC, a Vienna-based venture capital fund that invests in companies from DACH, CEE and the Baltics, focusing on Series A.
• firstminute capital, UK’s $400 million AUM seed fund.

With this new funding, we will invest in building AI and automation tools to help teams get value from their content even faster throughout the entire content lifecycle,

Dominik Angerer, CEO and co-founder of Storyblok, said.

The new funding will further accelerate Storyblok’s growth in the US and Europe, enabling the company to fulfill its vision of building the first end-to-end content platform, powered by AI and automation.

About Zen Educate

• Zen Educate was co-founded by Oren Cohen and Slava Kremerman in 2017, as an online platform that connects schools directly with teachers and teaching assistants, with the main goal to help teachers earn more while saving schools money. The company aims to change the world of education recruitment.
• It is headquartered in London and has offices in three other UK cities and two in the US. Since its launch, the company has tripled in size year-on-year and is approaching nearly two million hours of cover booked on its platform in the last 12 months.

Investment details

• Round2 Capital is the lead investor during the round. It is a pan-European growth investment firm with 180 million under management, investing since 2017. Based in London and Vienna, the firm is a partner for European scale-ups and companies with digital and sustainable business models. To date, Round2 Capital has invested in 36 different software and technology scale-ups across 9 jurisdictions.

Zen Educate has been successful in solving a significant challenge faced by educational facilities on a daily basis. The team’s deep understanding of the edtech landscape is evident, and their remarkable growth, nearly fivefold over the last 24 months, is a testament to their effectiveness,

Christian Czernich, co-founder and CEO of Round2 Capital, said.

• The existing investors Adjuvo, Brighteye Ventures, FJ Labs, Ascension Ventures, and business angels, including Octopus’ founder and CEO Simon Rogerson, also joined the round. Additionally, the fresh investment marks the largest rounds in European edtech this year.

The funding will help Zen Educate to complete several additional acquisitions in the UK and the US and further expand its operations in both markets. It also will facilitate the scaling of the company’s new school workforce management software, which includes SaaS products for credentialing, compliance, and absence management.

• Silana was co-founded by Anton Wohlgemuth (CTO), Michael Mayr (COO), and Michael Hofmannrichter (CEO) in 2022. Silana develops sewing robots to fully automate the production process in the fashion industry. Each manufacturing step with its robot is performed by dedicated subsystems in individual robot cells within minutes.

• Since its launch, the team has grown to eight members. According to Silana, its main goal is to revolutionize the textile industry. The company also claims that nearly 200 machines have already been pre-ordered by renowned producers worldwide, enabling the production of 30 million T-shirts per year with Silana’s SiBot. The company is planning to expand the production lines with polo shirts and other items in the coming years.

We work with the most common materials and can also process materials made from sustainable viscose from Lenzing AG. Our team developed the first functioning prototype and has already convinced several well-known clothing manufacturers to make down payments. In Austria, for example, the sportswear manufacturer Löffler was among our clients,

Michael Hofmannrichter, CEO and co-founder of Silana, claims.

• The fresh round was led by SOSV, a global multi-stage, deep tech VC operating the pre-seed programs HAX, IndieBio, and Orbit.
• OÖ HightechFonds, an Austrian venture capital fund invests in startups and technology-oriented expansion projects of SMEs, as well as the tech investor Material V, the waterdrop founders Martin & Henry Murray, the sustainability expert in the textile industry Yoobin Jung, and Sequoia Scout and former N26 CGO Alexander Weber, also participated in the investment.

Silana will use the additional capital to accelerate its development, with the aim of delivering the first machines next year.

• enspired is a service provider for the commercial optimization of flexible power assets. The company offers trading services for those who own, operate, or aggregate flexible power assets. The assets can range from renewables and flexible demand to pumped storage.
• The company claims it is the biggest independent optimizer in continental Europe, having 300MW of flexibility in its portfolio. Its clients include utilities, operators of renewables and batteries or consumption assets across Europe.

In the last year alone, we enabled over one million tons of emission savings, and this is only the beginning,

Jürgen Mayerhofer, CEO and co-founder of enspired, said.

• The fresh round was led by Zouk Capital, a London-based fund manager focused on investments of infrastructure, technology and sustainability.
• PUSH VC, Banpu NEXT, Vopak Ventures and Presidio Ventures, Emerald Technology Ventures, Helen Ventures, 360 Capital, and EnBW New Ventures also participated in the financing.

The company’s plans to expand its operations into Asia and the US after “solidifying” operations across Europe. The company has prepared its product by integrating adaptability to new markets, use cases and revenue streams within its trading platform. The startup also claims that its trading infrastructure is on track to enable 50 GW of flexibility by 2035.

• fynk was founded in April 2022 by Constantin Wintoniak, Dominik Hackl, and Markus Presle. fynk is a contract management software for creating, checking, drawing, and analyzing large numbers of contracts. The official market launch took place in mid-May 2024.
• Currently, the SaaS company employs 10 people in Vienna. The team will be expanded by five more people by the middle of 2024.

• The investors list includes such business angels as Johann “Hansi” Hansmann (The Hans(wo)men Group), the family office CoastCap of Finanzcheck founder Moritz Thiele, Andreas Burike (AnyDesk), Personio co-founder Ignaz Forstmeier, PlanRadar founder Domagoj Dolinsek, Latido founder Stefanspeiser, Alexander Brix (Head of Operations Europe, Canva), Kai Romberg, and business lawyer Manuel Mofidian with his DeepTech incubator.
• In addition, the company secured the FFG Österreichische Forschungsfördersgesellschaft mbH funding via grant.

The majority of companies with 10 to 500 employees still use word processing programs to create, coordinate and manage their contracts. So far, they have not had a suitable solution for switching to modern software, either technologically or in terms of costs. It is precisely these organizations that we are addressing with fynk in order to increase productivity, accuracy and cost efficiency in the management of contracts and to streamline the associated administration and coordination processes,

Constantin Wintoniak, CEO and co-founder of fynk, said.

The fresh funding round will be applied as the growth capital for the “public launch” of fynk’s SaaS solution.

About Hexafarms

• hexafarms was launched in 2021 by David Ahmed, Felix Kirschstein, and Huijo Kim. The startup is offering an AI-driven SaaS solution to facilitate optimized food production in commercial greenhouses. Serving large-scale facilities, hexafarms leverages diverse data from its proprietary cameras and sensors to yield meaningful insights, enabling a 30% increase in seasonal harvest for high-end crops.
• The startup´s team claims that its app serves as the window into production by providing growers with accurate, tailored information regarding harvest time as well as highlighting issues that can be addressed to optimize plant biology in the production process.

Investment details

• The frsh round was led by Speedinvest, a leading European VC fund with over 40 investment managers across the continent and offices in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, and, mainly, in Vienna. In addition, the fund has built the seed stage investment team in Europe across six dedicated vertical teams: Climate Tech & Industrial Tech, DeepTech, Fintech, Health & Biotech, Marketplaces & Consumer, and SaaS & Infrastructure. 

The agricultural sector is in urgent need of innovative solutions to address the pressure from climate change on commercial food production process and food insecurity. We have strong confidence in hexafarms and cannot wait to see them further develop their AI and machine learning capabilities and expand their team of experts. We are convinced that their app will transform commercial food production through optimization and digitalization,

Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, Partner in Speedinvest Climate Tech & Industrial Tech investment team, says.

• Mudcake, a Stockholm-based microfund that invests globally in founders shaping the way we produce, distribute, and consume food, and Techstars, an American pre-seed investor having invested in more than 3,800 companies, also joined the investment round.

With the fresh capital, hexafarms will further develop its AI and machine learning capabilities as well as expand its research and development teams.

• Kuva Space builds a microsatellite constellation equipped with a hyperspectral camera that can distinguish nearly any material on Earth and its condition through its distinct spectral signature. The company can monitor crop types, plant health and biomass, biodiversity, soil conditions, seaweed growth, algae blooms, and marine chemical pollutants to solve such pressing issues as climate change, food security, safety, and security.
• In November 2023, Kuva Space announced €16.6 million in a Series A round. The investment was backed by Voima Ventures, Nordic Foodtech VC, Earth VC, Springvest, and Business Finland.

Details of the ESA contract

• Within the 3-year R&D program, Kuva Space will test and develop on-board hyperspectral data processing, Sat-to-Sat, and Sat-to-IoT mobile communication, demonstrated with a field study with the Finnish authorities, dedicated to enhancing border surveillance by detecting and rediscovering illegal along the Baltic Sea area between Finland, Estonia, and Sweden.
• Austria, Belgium, Finland, Portugal, and Switzerland under ESA have contributed funding to create SMART-CONNECT, a consortium of various technology actors led by Austrian company Geoville. Under SMART-CONNECT, such companies as Kuva Space, Epic Blue, INOV, Klepsydra, neXat, Sistema and VITO will put their effort to revolutionize crisis communication for swift data exchange and timely provision of actionable information in emergency situations.

Kuva Space’s future plans

Together with the Finnish authorities, Kuva Space will launch the automatic detection of marine vessels using hyperspectral imaging, creating an alert in case of no Automatic Identification Systems signal from the vessel. In addition, Kuva Space will develop calibrated and analytics data products on board to automatically detect wildfires and landslide scarps, as well as provide their coordinates to civil security platforms to the ground station through SMART-CONNECT.

Kuva Space will also launch two hyperspectral satellites and its initial services in 2024. The first one, Hyperfield-1, is scheduled to launch in July 2024, and will consist of up to 100 satellites by 2030.

• The Berlin-based B2B SaaS company, roclub develops a teleoperation platform for medtech, enabling remote MRI/CT scans and support for radiographers. The company claims its digital solution can improve access to care, increase the efficiency in the operation of medical technology as well as secure business continuity for healthcare organizations at any location at any time for any examination.
• The connectivity of any medtech device to the platform is done “plug&play”. Additionally, the financing follows a pre-seed financing round of €2.5 million. 
• The fresh investment was co-led by the Austrian venture capital fund Speedinvest, which closed its fourth fund of €350 million to support early-stage startups in January 2024. The second leading investor is a New York-based FJ Labs, which focuses on marketplaces and network effect businesses. better ventures and several business angels also joined the round.

We are pioneering a platform that has the potential to disrupt the operation of medtech. Our vision: Better access to care for patients, more flexibility and business opportunities for medical technical staff and business continuity for healthcare providers worldwide,

André Glardon, co-founder & Managing Director of roclub, said.

With the fresh capital, roclub will expand its activities from the DACH region to the rest of Europe and the USA, further develop its marketplace for remote services and expand its international team. As a B2B SaaS company, roclub aims to change with its digital product the operation of medical technology.

• WeAreDevelopers is Europe’s community for developers dedicated to empowering tech talents and accelerating their careers. Founded in 2017 by Sead Ahmetović, the company’s career platform provides tech content, job opportunities, and events to support the professional and personal growth of developers.
• Several global brands such as Volkswagen, Red Hat, GitHub, Vodafone, ING, Dynatrace, Bosch, Canva, and Hugo Boss, have already used its services. The company achieved global recognition through hosting the WeAreDevelopers World Congress, the event for developers, bringing together over 15,000 participants and 500 speakers.

We are excited to back WeAreDevelopers as they extend their reach into the Netherlands and the UK. Their development in the DACH region underscores their potential for success on the international stage. With software being core to our investment strategy, we believe in their vision for building a strong community and ecosystem in the development space, and are excited to be a part of the next phase of growth,

Stefan Nagel, Managing Partner at Round2 Capital, commented on the investment.

• Round2 Capital is a European investment firm with €160 million under management. Based in Vienna and London, the firm is a partner for European scale-ups and companies with digital and sustainable business models.
• Since its foundation in 2017, Round2 focuses on Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the Nordic countries. To date, Round2 Capital has invested in 34 different software and technology scale-ups across 9 jurisdictions.

The exact amount of funding is undisclosed, but it will be used to catalyze the growth of the platform in the Netherlands and the UK.

About Syntropic Medical

• Founded in 2023 by Mark Caffrey, Jack O’Keeffe, Dr. Alessandro Venturino, and Prof. Sandra Siegert as a spin-out of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Syntropic Medical develops a light based brain stimulation device is based on a light stimulation protocol, discovered by the Siegert Group at ISTA.
• The protocol’s brain stimulation promotes microglia-mediated neuroplasticity, and allows to discover new ways for treatment of a range of mental health disorders, such as Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

• Syntropic’s team claims that the main aim of the treatment is to improve cognitive capacity in patients and to provide a new treatment option for those who have failed to achieve an adequate response from traditional pharmaceutical therapies. Currently, the device is in a pre-clinical stage with prototypes undergoing testing.

Investment details

The round was backed by xista science ventures, an Austrian venture fund investing in early-stage life science and deep tech startups across Europe, and AWS, the promotional bank of the Austrian federal government. The exact amount of seven-figure investment was undisclosed.

By developing a neuromodulation-based approach for mental health disorders Syntropic Medical is addressing a market with a pressing need and significant potential. We are excited to partner with this ambitious team in commercializing the promising and innovative discoveries made at the Siegert Lab at ISTA,

Florian Resch, Managing Partner at xista science ventures, commented.

Syntropic Medical will spend the fresh capital injection into further development of its non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical treatment for mental health disorders. 

This year, eight CEE companies, hailing from Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Finland, and Czechia made it to the list. AIN shares the details on the soonicorns.

The list of CEE’s next unicorns

• Bitrise is a Hungarian mobile DevOps platform built to adress mobile’s challenges, empowering mobile teams to deliver their best work.
• Brainly is a Polish web-based learning platform where kids and parents seek homework and study assistance from peers and professionals. In 2020, the company raised $80 million in Series D funding.
• Headway is a Ukrainian EdTech startup that creates microlearning products, helping 80M+ private and corporate users worldwide achieve their goals. In June 2023, the edtech company secured a place in Top 50 European startups, nearing its unicorn status.
• Mews is a Czech-founded cloud-based hotel property management system that helps simplify hotel operations so properties can focus on their guests. Only recently, the company managed to raise $110 million in funding, indeed becoming Czechia’s third unicorn.
• PlanRadar is an Austrian company offering a SaaS solution for documentation and communication in construction and real estate projects.
• Preply is a Ukrainian online tutoring platform, aiming to help students achieve their learning goals and prepare them to speak confidently. Throughout 2023, the scale-up managed to secure a $70 million investment, open US office, and undergo a redesign.
• SEON is a Hungarian online fraud prevention platform that detects and stops fraud in real-time through transactional data analysis. In 2023, the company acquired Complytron, an AML/KYC screening tools provider.
• Supermetrics is a Finnish B2B software company that pulls data from various sources to use for web analytics, social media, and online marketing. In September 2020, the company raised a $47 million funding round.

Methodology

The list was compiled in partnership with investment bank GP Bullhound and through contributions from four global investment funds: Accel, Eurazeo, NorthZone and Partech.

The list is based on the following criteria:

• Current and potential growth;
• Total amount of involved investments;
• Increase in the number of personnel;
• Geographic distribution;
• Positive impact on society.

About Necture

• Formerly known as Ubiq, Necture was founded by Christian Adelsberger. The startup develops a predictive SaaS-based platform providing data to help fleet managers make vehicle-specific recommendations for operational tasks like rebalancing and charging.
• Necture’s platform is used by car sharing and rental fleets to manage their use as well as the transition to electric vehicles. Currently, Necture operates in 20 cities in Europe, North America, and South America with 15,000 vehicles under management. Among its clients are MILES, ELOOP, and Awto.

It’s not enough to just provide a socket for someone to charge. That doesn’t solve the problem of the fleet with a thousand vehicles, you actually need to manage the operations of which car should be first charging where and when, because it’s going to be utilized tomorrow at 9 a.m. in the morning,

Christian Adelsberger, CEO and founder of Necture, said.

• The round was led by Smart Energy Innovationsfonds, a Zurich-based fund that invests in Northern Europe and Western Europe and targets investments in the energy equipment and cleantech sectors.
• Verbund X Ventures, a Vienna-based corporate venture capital firm, also participated in the funding along with the existing investors Speedinvest and smartworks innovation.

Necture will use the investment to expand the company’s offering into corporate fleets and grow its market footprints in both regions.

• CycloTech provides the aviation Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) market with a 360° thrust vector control system as a main or auxiliary propulsion technology. The company claims that CycloRotors are compact and allow precise manoeuvrability and a stable transition from hover to flight even in harsher weather conditions.
• Since its inception in 2016, the company has developed six generations of CycloRotors. The current version has been undergoing flight test operations since 2021. This rotor technology enables the industry to create aircraft, especially for UAV, UAM, and individual air mobility (IAM) applications.
• In addition, Cyclotech explores a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine design with the Cyclogyro principle as the underlying technology.

• The startup is backed by Breeze Invest, an Austrian based private investment boutique providing smart money to startups and SMEs with a clear growth strategy, and Konos Holdings. In total, the startup targets to raise €53 million of investment capital in 2024.

Our commitment to CycloTech reflects our strong confidence in the potential of urban air mobility. We are convinced that CycloTech’s unique technology will revolutionize how we move from A to B in the long term,

Maximilian Schönfeldt, Managing Director of Breeze Invest, commented.

• The fresh capital will be used to prepare the CycloRotor for certification by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). This latest financing round thus lays the foundation for CycloTech’s plan to develop a marketable product by 2030.

• 3TS Capital Partners, a technology-focused growth capital firm providing expansion capital primarily across the TMT sectors including Technology & Internet, Media & Communications, and Technology-Enabled Services.
• The firm’s team consists of 18 people across eight nationalities based in Finland, Austria, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, and the US. 3TS has made more than 50 investments and over 30 exits, including LogMeIn, H88, Systinet, Avangate, SolveDirect, Tresorit, and SalesManago.
• The current and past 3TS funds totaled at over €450 million. The LPs included EIF, Tesi, SZTA, Erste, Cisco, OTP, EBRD, AWS, Sitra, KfW, and 3i among others. 

About the new Fund IV

• The new fund has already invested in five companies: (TosiBox, Autenti, Boksi, Spectrm, and Jentis). 3TS focuses on investment across ICT and tech-enabled service sectors with the amount of €5-20 million. With the new Fund IV, 3TS focus will remain on backing companies with roots in Engineering Europe.

We are delighted and thankful for the increased capital commitments in our new Fund IV from existing and new investors. We are still in the early phases of digital adoption and the key trends driving our focus sectors stronger than ever. Tremendous opportunities will continue to exist for innovative companies. We look forward to supporting a new generation of management teams building local leaders, regional champions and global challengers,

Pekka Mäki, Managing Partner of 3TS, commented on the fresh deal.

Several groups of institutional investors including European Investment Fund, Tesi, SZTA, a venture capital firm headquartered in Budapest, Erste Asset Management, an international asset management company, as well as several family offices and former portfolio company executives, supported the final closing of the fund.

• Co-founded in Vienna in 2022 by American husband-and-wife team Tara Więckowska-Merrigan and Alexandre Paris, Proofcheck creates an AI-powered software platform that centralizes fragmented content workflows. According to te startup, it enables creators to efficiently prepare and perfect high-stakes content like books, white papers, and corporate reports.
• Proofcheck’s platform uses an ensemble of custom-trained open-source models and proprietary algorithms and its document parser to quickly identify designed content’s constituent parts, like body text, titles, and footnotes. The startup has already serves about a dozen book publishers in North America and Europe, including some of commercial publishers in Germany and the United States.

Our platform not only establishes a high-quality editorial baseline that streamlines designed content workflows but also meticulously maintains an audit trail of work. By consolidating and automating disparate tedious tasks, Proofcheck ensures a substantial return on investment through unparalleled efficiency gains and time savings,

CEO of Proofcheck, Tara Więckowska-Merrigan says.

• The round was led by the early-stage German-Swiss 5502 Fund of BackBone Ventures. Other round participants included the European super angel fund Angel Invest, overseen by partner Mara Larson-Richard; Austrian entrepreneur and business angel Gernot Singer; and American technologist Kyle Kosic.

Proofcheck will use the pre-seed funding to accelerate the development of its AI-powered platform and expand its functionality to service the entire corporate content creation lifecycle, including the editing and design phases.

About Speedinvest 4

• The fourth fund was dedicated to new early-stage investments. The first close of Speedinvest 4 was held in December 2022 at €300 million. An additional €250 million was also raised in 2022 for selective follow-on co-investments in Speedinvest portfolio companies. The total assets raised for the fourth fund is more than €600 million.
• Several new LPs joined the final close of Speedinvest 4 including, Aviva, PwC Germany, Bitburger, ODDO BHF, and Abeille Assurances Ventures. Long-term investors, the European Investment Fund (EIF), and first-time investors, Generali, joined the first close alongside other globally recognized government funds, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, and large family offices.

This incremental capital gives us even more firepower to support our courageous, innovative entrepreneurs in their journey to global success as we stay consistent with our target portfolio size. In times where access to capital in our industry has been the scarcest in the last ten or more years, reaching this milestone is an amazing testament to how investors share our vision of creating a pioneering, pan-European investment platform, which is both scalable and highly impactful for our portfolio companies, our LPs, and the wider European ecosystem,

 Oliver Holle, Speedinves’t CEO and Managing Partner said.

Among several investments via Speedinvest 4, are:

• a €4.1 million round for French fintech startup finres;
• a $3 million seed round for French traveltech startup Fairlyne
• a €9.2 million seed round for Berlin-based Mercanis.

A majority of these companies have already raised successful follow-on rounds from tier-one VCs.

Speedinvest has over 40 investment managers across the continent and offices in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, and Vienna. In addition, the fund has built the seed stage investment team in Europe across six dedicated vertical teams: Climate Tech & Industrial Tech, Deep Tech, Fintech, Health & TechBio, Marketplaces & Consumer, and SaaS & Infrastructure. 

• Founded in 2022, tibo energy develops energy management software powered by machine learning. It gives commercial and industrial customers companies control of smart energy networks, allows them to de-risk their energy supply, and transforms it into a sustainable operating model.
• In addition, thanks to the software, complex modelling, simulation, and control become much simpler, allowing companies to create digital versions of their network to simulate scenarios and visualize a smarter grid.

The investment details:

• Amsterdam-based SET Ventures led the current round. The firm invests in digital technology for a carbon-free energy system by supporting founders with capital, community, and insights.
• Speedinvest, an early-stage venture capital firm with more than €1 billion AuM and over 40 investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, and Vienna, also joined the round.

Since the soft product launch in 2023, the strong demand for tibo’s product underscores the pressing need for tackling grid congestion and (em)powering smarter grids. We’ve been very impressed by Remco Eikhout and the team’s entrepreneurial, energy, and technical backgrounds. Coupled with their unique market insights, the company is positioned as a key player in advancing toward a more resilient and sustainable future of energy,

Namratha Kothapalli, Principal at Speedinvest, says.

• tibo energy will use the funds to expand its sales, marketing, and development teams in order to enhance the product and drive national and international growth.

• Founded 2016 in Vienna, HYDROGRID provides production planning solution that combines machine learning algorithms for inflow and power price forecasting with intelligent optimization across the short-, medium- and long-term horizon for run-of-river, pondage, storage, and cascade hydro-assets. This enables hydro power operators to react in real time to weather events, minimize water losses and maximize their power market revenues while ensuring environmental and operational safety and compliance.

“Despite the important role hydropower has to play as a green battery to the grid, hydro is often viewed as the sleeping giant of the energy transition. This is because a significant part of its potential is currently underutilized due to a lack of digitalisation or due to complex regulation. And that’s what we aim to change.”

Janice Goodenough, CEO of HYDROGRID added.

• The startup operators in 7 countries has grown by more than 3X in two years. HYDROGRID aims to save more than 50 million tonnes of CO2 by 2033 and to make hydro a power for the future.
• The investment was led by Czech Inven Capital, Tallinn-based Karma VC, with participation from existing investors CNB Capital and SET Ventures. It will enable HYDROGRID to accelerate even further on its rapid growth path over the last years, expand into new markets and enable a transition towards a zero-carbon future.

• Founded in 2014, Telemedi is a provider of a digital healthcare platform combined with in-house doctors and a network of physical clinics. The company’s clients are both private individuals, large corporates, and insurance companies. Its team cosists of 100 non-medical staff and over 700 in-house doctors. Additionally, the company has an integrated network of 2300 clinics and laboratories.
• Telemedi provides a medical platform that includes telemedicine, in-person visits, imaging diagnostics, and laboratory tests, and operates in 13 languages. In 2017, Black Pearls joined a pre-seed, and then also a €5.5 million Series A round for Telemedi.

“I am pleased that with Mavie we have a partner to strengthen our base, offer new services and bring our know-how to other markets. I would also like to thank my investors and partners helping me build the company. Aleksander and the team of Black Pearls VC were always there whenever I needed to look at something from a different angle or challenge an idea. At the same time, I always felt they trusted my decisions, which is very important for a founder.”

Paweł Sieczkiewicz, CEO of Telemedi.

• Black Pearls VC is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on tech companies from the Baltic Sea region. It invests are pre-seed and seed with a typical ticket of €100,000-€1 million. According to Black Pearls, it achieved a 15,2x Cash on Cash return on its initial pre-seed investment in Telemedi. With an overall return of 3,5x (incl. follow on investments).
• Its partner responsible for the deal was Aleksander Dobrzyniecki, who also joined the company Board of Directors most recently serving as Chairman. In September this year, Black Pearls VC announced exit from Solwit with 3.16x return on investment.

• Since 2020, Mavie develops, establishes, and drives new business models and solutions in the health care sector. Mavie focuses on prevention and rehabilitation for B2C and B2B clients. The fresh deal marks its sixth exit since 2021.
• Mavie and Telemedi plan to work together to achieve sustainable growth providing accessible healthcare to their customers in CEE. They will focus on expanding the portfolio and exploring new markets.

• Launched by Marcel Wasserer, Johannes Stumtner, and Clemens Wasner in 2017, EnliteAI provides AI-based solutions specialized in Reinforcement Learning and Computer Vision/geoAI – from AI Strategy to Prototyping and Project Delivery. The copmany offers AI Strategy & Transformation, AI Lab and Prototyping & Project Delivery services for medium-sized and large enterprises from the DACH region.
• EnliteAI is an active member of ELISE – European Learning and Intelligent Systems Excellence. Its team consists of 15 people.

“In 2020, just when the first Сovid wave hit, we decided to do a hard-pivot into product development and doubled down on detekt, our geospatial AI solution, and reinforcement learning for power grid optimization. What followed were 3 years of turning the company into a fully fledged SaaS startup, hiring many new colleagues and started raising funds.”

Clemens Wasner, one of the co-founders commented.

• The investment was co-led by Breeze Invest, Austrian based private investment boutique providing smart money to start-ups and SMEs with a clear growth strategy, Vienna-based Speedinvest and American real estate investment firm Floyd Ventures. It will help the startup to build the next generation of AI SaaS companies.

• Founded in 2019 by Tomas Malovec and Zenon Sliwka, Born Digital provides an AI omni‑channel platform that helps companies transform and revolutionize their contact centers. With a team of 45 people, the startup has built digital personas for the state administration, healthcare, and the police of the Czech Republic, but also banks, insurance companies, travel agencies, petrol stations, e-shops, and shopping centers.
• Currently, Born Digital has more than 100 B2B clients in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary. The startup also claims its virtual assistants have already processed more than 9,500,000 interactions.

“The digital persona is not meant to replace humans, but it is here to relieve them of manual and repetitive tasks with low added value while keeping the human touch for the users. This opens a tremendous amount of potential use cases in various fields.”

Tomáš Malovec, CEO and co-founder of Born Digital, added.

• The fresh investment was backed by Seed Starter of Česká spořitelna, the biggest Czech bank measured by the number of clients, Erste Group, Vienna-based financial institute. J&T Ventures, an early-stage Prague-based VC fund, which invests in startups from the CEE and SEE region, also joined the round.
• Born Digital will spend the costs to furhter expansion its platform outside of the region. In addition the startup plans to raise a Series A within the next 18 months.

• RYVER.AI was founded by trio from the Technical University of Munich and ETH Zurich, Kathrin Khadra, Simona Santamaria, and Jonas Ils in 2022. The startup develops generative models that enable medical AI developers to generate diverse sets of synthetic test and training data in minutes and at substantially reduced cost. In addition, the solution protects patient privacy as the synthetic data is not linked directly to any real-world patient. The technology is available to a range of companies, from specialized startups to large medtech and pharmaceutical firms.

“Our generative AI understands the characteristics of radiological images and the subtle differences between patient groups, scanners and pathologies. Based on this understanding, a large number of completely new images can be generated. As the synthetic data is basically fictitious and not directly linked to a real patient, this is one of the most secure approaches of data anonymization. To check both data quality and data protection in detail, we combine complex mathematical methods with the expert opinion of radiologists.”

Kathrin Khadra, co-founder and CTO added.

• The fresh round was led by Spanish Nina Capital, an international venture capital firm specializing in healthcare technologies. Other investors include BayernKapital from Germany and Vienna-based female-focuced Fund F .
• It will be used to grow the AI Engineering team and finance the computational cost required to build advanced generative models that can ensure the image quality.

• Founded in 2020 by Ahmad Haj Mosa and Borisav Parmakovic, Digicust develops ML and AI-based systems to digitalize and automate customs document processing. The startup’s proprietary solution is the virtual customs robot Dexter IDP, which builds on companies’ own IT infrastructures without any major changes.
• Dexter intends to take care of the entire process from submitting customs documents to filling out the finished customs declarations, thereby making the work of companies that spend a lot of time and effort with customs easier.

“In principle, our investment round would have been completed after the first two investments this year, but after intensive discussions we decided to accept the offer from a Swiss private investor. We now want to use the fresh capital to roll out our solutions globally and tap into new markets,”

says Borisav Parmakovic, CEO and co-founder of Digicust.

• In addition to the first two investors and the state funding, the largest investment was made by a Swiss private individual, but the name is not disclosed. In addition, the financier doesn’t yet appear in the company register.

• The startup was co-founded in 2021 by Stefan Beisl, Martin Miltner, and Angela Miltner, as a TU Wien (Vienna University of Technology) spin-off. Lignovations develops and manufactures high-performance biomaterials from lignin that can replace traditional, fossil-based materials in industries such as cosmetics, coatings and packaging.
• Lignovations also claims that it is the first company that commercially produce Colloidal Lignin Particles, a high-performance, multifunctional alternative to many synthetic chemicals in cosmetics, coatings, packaging, adhesives, and other applications.

„We make use of 500 million years of evolution in nature. Lignin protects plants from sunlight, oxidation, and other negative environmental influences. Through our patented technology, we can make these protective properties of lignin useable in consumer products.“

said Stefan Beisl, Head of R&D of Lignovations.

• The fresh round was led by Norwegian Borregaard, that produces environmentally friendly biochemicals that can replace oil-based products in agriculture and aquaculture, construction, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, foodstuffs, batteries, and biofuels. Additional financing is provided by Valnon Holding, and non-dilutive public grants from aws and FFG.
• This partnership will help Lignovations to expand research and development efforts, scale up production capabilities, and bring its biomaterial solutions to a broader spectrum of industries.

• Founded by Idriss Al Rifai in 2022, Flow48 enables SME growth by transforming future revenues into up-front capital under flexible terms with a focus on minority and women-led businesses. The startup is from UAE and now also based in London.
• The round saw participation from Vienna-based Speedinvest (that has backed London-based autone, Purpose, a German renewable energy startup, and Hamburg-based Resourcify, the waste management and recycling platform). Daphni, 212, Blockchain Founders Fund, Unpopular Ventures, Endeavor Catalyst, and TLG, as well as angel investors, also joined.

“What Flow48 is bringing to the table is not just innovative, it’s essential for SME growth in the region’s economic landscape. As we look ahead, the potential for Flow48 to expand beyond Revenue Based Financing is very exciting. The team is on track to become a full-service fintech solution for SMEs and expand their offerings to insurance, payments, and other financial services.”

Enrique Martinez Hausmann, Principal at Speedinvest, commented.

• Flow48 will use the investmnt to and expand its offerings to insurance, payments, and other financial services. Now, the startup is strategically venturing into South Africa.

• Hololight was founded in 2015 by Florian Haspinger, Alexander Werlberger, Susanne Haspinger, and Luis Bollinger. The company develops a pioneering XR streaming platform, Hololight Hub, which revolutionizes the XR experience by amplifying quality, access, and security of immersive content while simplifying management and deployment.
• The company currently serves more than 150 customers, including major companies such as BMW, Nokia, and Engie, as well as several global aerospace and defense clients. Hololight is also a partner to key industry players like Amazon Web Services, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Verizon.
• The fresh funds will help Hololight to grow and expand the platform, as well as accelerate the onboarding of customers across its key verticals automotive, aerospace, mechanical engineering, etc.

Who invested

• European growth equity investor Flatz Hoffmann is the lead investor in Hololight. The equity firm backs experienced management teams that harness business and technology solutions to drive substantial environmental impact. 
• German-based venture capital firms EnBW New Ventures, Bayern Kapital, and Future Energy Ventures participated in the round as existing investors.

• JENTIS was founded in 2020 by a team of data analytics and web tracking specialists around CEO Thomas Tauchner. The company develops a data capture platform, empowering businesses to own and control their web data capture independently of third parties. 
• The technology enables radically improved data accuracy for business insights while complying with privacy regulations worldwide. According to the company, its customers report significant performance improvements with data uplifts of up to 30%, data correction rates of up to 60%, and significantly faster web page load times.

JENTIS will utilize the new investment to accelerate its geographic growth in key European and US markets and enhance its product development efforts.

Who are the investors?

• Bright Pixel Capital, Former Sonae IM, is the lead investor this round. It is a Portugal-based VC company with a global aim, financially driven and oriented to make businesses prosper.
• 3TS Capital Partners, a Finland-based private equity and venture capital firm, also joined the round as a new investor.
• Pragmatech Ventures, a Kyiv-based VC firm, participated in the round as one of the existing investors. The firm is targeting a B2B SaaS and marketplace companies, as well as enterprise software, HR tech, marketplaces, biotech, martech, market networks, and prop tech sectors.

In September 2023, Pragmatech invested  $400,000 in Ukrainian startup Pluspoint.

• Kiteworks, a US-based cybersecurity platform provider, was founded in 1999, offers file sharing, managed file transfer, and email data communications with a focus on meeting compliance standards. 
• Established in 2012, DRACOON is a German software provider for secure data and file exchange on local infrastructure. Currently, the company has over 500,000 users worldwide, including major companies such as Deutsche Bahn, Telekom, and Thyssenkrupp.
• Round2 Capital is a fast-growing European investment firm with 140 million under management. Since its foundation in 2017, Round2 Capital has been pioneering revenue-based finance in Europe and is active in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the Nordic countries. Round2 Capital emerged as a major shareholder in DRACOON through its investment from the fund and a co-investment with Round2 LP.

“With Kiteworks we have found a great new “home” for DRACOON and its team. We congratulate the DRACOON leadership team on the recognition as a leader in its home markets and look forward to seeing the company flourish in the future.”

says Stefan Nagel, Managing Partner of Round2 Capital.

• The acquisition marks Kiteworks’ plans of their expansion in the DACH markets.      

• Impact.AI was co-founded in September 2022 by Anna Maria Brunnhofer-Pedemonte and Justin Bercich. The startup provides an automated AI Governance and QA tool, that identifies key business success metrics: product changes, customer segments, and go-to-market actions. 
• The company claims that its solution helps to:
  • Oversee and optimize every aspect of AI products with features tailored to individual needs.
  • De-risk AI through automated compliance with legislations, standards and principles for responsible development.
  • Leverage AI insights to rapidly enhance and align products using evaluation, benchmarking and user feedback.

“Impact AI is transforming the way AI teams work, making it simpler for AI Product Managers to understand and improve their LLM based products. They can automatically and continuously analyze metrics of their chatbots, like hallucinations, accuracy, fairness or even empathy. This observability boosts confidence in deployment and means a significant step forward in developing AI applications.”

the team of Impact.AI added.

• The fresh investment was led by several individual investors, Austrian VC fund 4u-ventures, Vienna-based investment organization mpoweru GmbH Ali Rezaei Ashtiani, and funding agencies Austria Wirtschaftsservice and FFG Austrian Research Promotion Agency

• The company was founded by Michael Lukesch and is based in the xista science park in Klosterneuburg. It specializes in the precise production of defined protein-drug conjugates for the pharmaceutical industry. That allows the company’s synthetic amino acids to be incorporated into any protein at freely selectable positions in multiple copies.
• VALANX claims it uses techniques from synthetic biology to offer fresh solutions to a previously intractable problem for customers in the pharmaceutical industry and beyond. This opens new avenues for drug development.

“Since our foundation in 2017, we have been working on a technology that will help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to produce protein drugs faster and more reliably. Our process allows protein conjugates to be precisely defined in terms of their molecular composition, which offers a significant advantage in terms of both production and drug safety.”

Michael Lukesch, founder and CEO of VALANX Biotech, added.

• In spring 2020, the company received a six-figure seed investment. The lead investor this time is SkyGene from Lower Austria. The existing investors xista science ventures (formerly IST cube), tecnet equity, and SOSV have also participated in this financing round.
• VALANX will use the funds to develop its protein conjugation platform, which is expected to have broad applications in drug development, diagnostics, and biosensor technology.

• The company develops fully automated food-waste monitoring sensors. The sensors provide complete visibility into food waste, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions that help to reduce a significant amount of waste and save costs. Positive Carbon also provides reporting dashboards where kitchen staff, operation teams, and management can review daily, weekly, and monthly waste reports.
• Positive Carbon claims the deployment of its system has led to a 50% reduction in food waste, amounting to over 4,000 tonnes of potential waste diverted from landfills.
• Irish BVP Investments led this round. Since 2007, BVP has raised and managed 16 BES and EIIS scheme investment funds. Berlin-based HEARTFELT, Gateway Ventures from Vienna, and Dublin-based Enterprise Ireland also participated in the investment. In addition, last year, Positive Carbon raised €277,000 from Gateway Ventures.
• Positive Carbon said it will use the fresh funds raised for research and development and scale operations across the UK and the EU.

• Refurbed was launched in 2017 in Vienna byPeter Windischhofer, Kilian Kaminski, and Jürgen Riedl. The company provides online marketplaces for refurbished tech in Europe, offering more than 18 million products, including smartphones, laptops, and tablets.
• Operating in Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, as well as Germany and Austria, Refurbed reached €1 billion in GMV (gross merchandise value) in June 2023. In addition, it has achieved profitability in its home and near-home markets of Austria and Germany in 2022.

“Our vision is to increase consumers’ trust in refurbished products. Refurbishment must become the “new normal”, and we as consumers must rethink our consumption in order to reduce the impact on the environment.”

co-founder of Refurbed, Kilian Kaminski said.

• The fresh round was backed by existing investors Helsinki-based Evli Growth Partners, a later-stage VC, investing in Series A & Series B with initial investments of 3-5 million, and C4 Ventures, a venture firm led by former Apple and Microsoft executives. Speedinvest, All Iron, and several new backers also joined.
• The Series C round brings the total investment since the foundation to $130 million, following a $2 million seed round in 2018, Series A in 2020 ($17 million), and Series B in 2021 ($54 million). With the investment, refurbed will continue to expand its platform across Europe.

• Founded in 2021, HeartBeat.bio is a biotech company building a highly scalable human organoid and AI-supported drug discovery platform for heart disease, Cardioid Drug Discovery Platform. It facilitates the transition from traditional pre-clinical development to an animal-free, human-centric drug discovery approach.
• The company’s new approach starts from target identification and validation, disease modeling, hit identification, and confirmation up to lead compound development, drug profiling, and finally clinical trials-in-a-dish. Along with high-content-imaging and AI-based software, the platform is designed to develop first-in-class drugs faster, less expensively, and with a higher clinical success rate.

“This financing round is an important validation of our Cardioid technology and will help to unlock the platform’s potential to disrupt the cardiac drug development paradigm. We are proud to have received funding from four complementary investors with the financial capacity to continue funding in our Series A venture round, which is planned for 2025,”

Michael Krebs, CEO of HeartBeat.bio, shares the future plans.

• The round was co-led by i&i Biotech Fund, a Luxembourg-based VC firm investing in Life Sciences, Invest AG, a leading Austrian private equity fund, aws Gründungsfonds II, also an Austrian VC fund with a fund volume of around € 70 million, and Tensor Ventures, a global deep tech fund based in Prague and Luxembourg.
• Including this investment, HeartBeat.bio has secured a total of €10 million in private and public funds since company foundation in 2021.

The application deadline is November 17. Startups can apply here.

• The program targets startups with highly innovative, digital, and scalable, business models that fit with the cohort’s focus. The program duration is 5 week and has two batches per year:
  • Current Cohort: SaaS (October – November 2023) with in-person networking event in Vienna 
  • Upcoming Cohort: B2B (January – February 2024) with in-person networking event in Munich

• Grow F is launched for companies with at least one female founding member with equal share and with a launched MVP. Teams that are preparing for their fundraising round and getting ready to take on Venture Capital investors are also invited.
• The acceleration program includes online workshops with VC investors and industry experts, and the in-person event at the end of the program with investors and the Female Founders community of over 74,000 members. Grow F also give an access to its fundraising toolbox, incl. key resources, a fundraising checklist, templates, etc.
• Female Founders has already completed 9 such batches. The last one was in January this year. Then the accelerator targeted early-stage companies in B2B, B2C, B2B2C, B2D, B2G. The program duration was 3 months.

About GoStudent

• GoStudent is an edtech unicorn and global leading tutoring provider that was founded in 2016 by Felix Ohswald and Gregor Müller. The company is valued at €3 billion. Since launching, GoStudent has raised more than €590 million from investors, including €13.3 million Series A round in 2020.
• At its peak, GoStudent employed just over 2,000 people and served 24 countries. In August 2023, the startup received an additional $95 million round, a mix of equity and debt capital, with plans to expand its solutions to the DACH region.

GoStudent laid off 25% of its staff over the past six months

• In 2021, GoStudent opened an office in Sweden. The next year, the office shut down. GoStudent explained the decision: “tutoring in Sweden is less common than in certain other European countries”.
• GoStudent also struggled in the US due in part to the same sluggish economy, one former employee said, as well as heavy competition in the tutoring space. Overall, the wave of layoffs affected at least 200 people, which is about 25% of GoStudent’s staff worldwide

Former employees shared negative experience of working in the company

• 28 current and former GoStudent staff and faculty said they experienced a poorly run organization with clumsy leadership, Insider writes. They also claimed that GoStudent promoted a party culture and had lax standards for vetting tutors.
• Another GoStudent’s ex-staffer added that founders initially wanted to emulate WeWork’s culture. Employees in the Vienna, London, and France offices said Fridays were seen as party days at the company.
• Two other former employees claimed that tech issues with billing and software systems that weren’t resolved during their tenure. Another former employee felt that the company did not appreciate the legal nuances of expanding across multiple states, saying that the US expansion was “handled by a dedicated team” that considered local legalities.
• In the company’s early days, some former employees described a generally positive environment inside GoStudent:

“Everybody was passionate and enjoyed what they were doing. It wasn’t an issue to work longer hours,” one said, adding that it’s typical at startups to “give 100%.”

Problems with the verification of teachers on GoStudent’s platform

• As of 2021, GoStudent did not check tutors’ IDs in multiple markets outside the UK, current and former employees said, adding that if a tutor was kicked off the platform, they could theoretically use a fake name to sign up and be approved to join again.
• It became known that in August 2022, a 31-year-old tutor had used GoStudent to solicit nude photos from a 15-year-old Austrian boy. GoStudent acknowledged the incident and removed the tutor.
• In 2018 Anthony Canavan, a UK teacher, was banned from his classroom in 2018 after an investigation found he exchanged nudity and discussed sex with a former teenage pupil. But in 2021, he signed up for GoStudent under an assumed name. In March 2021, Canavan was appointed tutor to a 15-year-old girl. Before the first lesson, her father Googled Canavan’s name — and was shocked at the results. He emailed GoStudent, and the company removed Canavan from the platform and said they would report him to police for seeking employment with minors.
• Three such similar cases were found between 2020 and 2022, all tutors were kicked off.

What did the founders say

• GoStudent denied that the founders “have promoted and encouraged a problematic company culture related to partying and alcohol consumption.” They added that it would be fair to say that in the company’s early years it embraced a celebratory culture, however it has since rolled out a set of company values which are reflective of the company’s maturity.
• The company said that over the last 18 months it has invested in enhanced safeguarding processes, procedures and resources, including secure and trusted safeguarding software and a dedicated, trained team of Safety Officers. Furthermore, GoStudent initiated a robust background check process this year, whereby all tutors in all markets must now submit a valid criminal record check, even if this goes beyond local legal requirements.

• Launched in 2020, inoqo offers a retail solution which enables grocery retailers, food and beverage (F&B) brands, and suppliers to calculate the socio-environmental impact of their product and supply chains.
• So far, the company partnered with ODA, Norways’ leading e-grocery retailer. inoqo enabled Oda to calculate the climate impact of over 6,600 F&B products, taking the product ingredients, composition, and all production and distribution processes into account.

“More than 90% of the carbon emissions of grocery retailers originate from the thousands of F&B products they sell. Consumers, investors, their employees and regulators are requesting them to swiftly join the race to net-zero emissions. With our inoqo platform we provide them with a fly-wheel that enables them to communicate the impact of their products to consumers,”

Markus Linder, inoqo’s Founder and CEO, explains.

• After the strong pivot to a B2B business model, inoqo successfully closed a 7-figure round, with support from prominent family offices and angel investors. The list includes Christian Kaar, co-founder and former CTO of Runtastic, Heinz Hahn, former President FMCG of Mondelez, Felix and Susanne Porsche, Daniel Zech, as well as Triple Impact Ventures.
• inoqo does not disclose other details of the deal. However, the company’s founder Markus Linder is best-known for his first startup, Zoovu, which managed to raise more than €200 million over the years.

• Co-founded by Adil Bouhdadi and Harry Cheslaw in 2021, autone specialises in maximising growth for businesses through data-driven inventory optimisation. By leveraging data analytics, it helps businesses reduce stock-outs and excess inventory. 

• autone offers a comprehensive suite of services:
  • Pricing: autone ensures accurate pricing at every stage of a product’s lifecycle.
  • Buying: the data-driven buying module facilitates collaboration between merchandising and finance teams.
  • Replenishment: through automatic stock replenishment based on data insights, they prevent stockouts.
  • Reorder: by leveraging forward-looking visibility and early trend identification, businesses can proactively manage demand.
  • Insights: autone’s insights module provides stakeholders with actionable data-driven insights.
• The investment came from Vienna-based VC fund Speedinvest, Seedcamp from London, and US-based Y Combinator. The round also saw participation from new investors Motier Ventures, Financière Saint James, Kima Ventures, Purple, Better Angle, and 2100 Ventures.

“Autone provides vital insights to help retailers not only navigate the current supply chain crunch but supercharge their operations and thrive in an increasingly competitive retail market. Adil and Harry’s experiences in S&OP and Supply Chain equipped them with an in-depth understanding of the industry’s status quo and fueled their desire to build a user-friendly solution that truly serves the needs of modern retailers,” 

Tom Wilson, the managing partner of Seedcamp commented.

• This investment will help autone to expand into new strategic markets, accelerate product development, and strengthen international partnerships.

• The startup was founded in 2020 and operated under the name boomerank until 2022. Currently, Shopstory provides a no-code platform that enables online stores to automate processes that actually deliver performance.
• Via the platform customers receives ongoing individual recommendations for improved performance, which can be implemented with just a few clicks. The investment is second for Shopstory in 2023: in May it raised €1 million from two Austrian funds Hardlymountain Capital and Calm/Storm.

“Our customers love ready-to-use automations because they allow them to work extremely efficiently. The use of flows brings enormous advantages to both the e-commerce merchant and the supervising marketing agency. In addition, AI integrations will be available, which will once again significantly accelerate marketing processes,”

says Sebastian Schwelle, CEO and co-founder of Shopstory.

• The fresh round was backed by:
  • aws Gründungsfonds, Austrian venture capital fund with a fund volume of around €70 million. It is a seed investor that support startups in the B2B software, life sciences and green tech sectors.
  • Calm/Storm, Vienna-based early-stage digital health fund.
  • tecnet equity, an Austrian venture capital fund investing in innovative high-tech companies with potential for significant growth.
  • startup300 that operates as an angel investor network and business accelerator offering services to Austrian startups.
• The fresh capital will be used for further expansion in the European market and for the development of the new product, which will be launched in a few weeks. “Shopstory Flowbuilder” is already announced under the code name “Project Pulse”, will make it possible to completely automate repetitive processes in e-commerce marketing.

About Purpose

• Purpose was founded by Okitonga Memba, Lucas Christel, and Lennart J. Christel. The company develops an end-to-end solution that creates a 3D digital twin, giving owners a complete overview of the energy status of their property. 
• The company helps transform properties and portfolios into sustainable assets, providing energy-efficient upgrades, green subsidies, and financing. The solution enables lasting value, reduced environmental impact, and peace of mind for property owners and asset managers.

“This milestone is an important day for the entire Purpose team, underlining our dedication to our mission of decarbonising the built world as the green partner to the real estate industry,”

Purpose team commented.

Speedinvest and Atlantic Labs

• Austrian VC firm Speedinvest led the round. It is one of Europe’s most active early-stage investors with more than €1 billion under management and 40+ investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, and Vienna. Its most recent deals include: Resourcify, Mercanis, and Sylvera.

“Europe’s building sector is in urgent need of innovative solutions as it strives to achieve climate neutrality. We have strong confidence in Purpose Green’s team and cannot wait to see them grow and expand their business operations in Germany and beyond. We are convinced that their platform will play a pivotal role in Europe’s energy transition and become the real estate industry’s preferred partner,”

Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, Partner in Speedinvest’s Climate Tech and Industrial Tech team, says.

• Atlantic Labs is another lead investor. It is a pan-European early-stage venture capital firm, headquartered in Berlin, Germany. The fund’s focus areas include climatetech, digital health, future of work, AI & data, mobility and logistics, industrial automation, fintech, and proptech.

Purpose is looking for talent

Thanks to the fresh capital, Purpose is planning to expand its team. Currently, the startup is looking for a new Working Student in Architecture near Berlin.

• Helio was founded in 2018 by Kevin Häfeli, Christoph Buchli. It employs a real-time algorithm that improves cloud resource allocation by rerouting computing tasks to underused or renewable-energy-powered data centers.
• The startup claims its approach tackles the dual challenges of poor efficiency (currently below 20% in the industry) and high environmental impact. The company aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 200Mt by 2030.

“This funding is a watershed moment for Helio, not just in securing financial support, but also in aligning with partners who share our vision for a carbon-aware cloud. As we accelerate our mission to transform the cloud computing industry into a model of efficiency and sustainability, this capital enables us to reduce both cloud spending and emissions for our customers,”

Kevin Häfeli, co-founder and CEO of Helio, commented.

• The fresh round was led by QBIT Capital, an early stage venture capital firm focused on Swiss startups. Early stage accelerator-VC from Amsterdam Rockstart, Swiss venture capital firm for climate tech startups Uebermorgen Ventures, Germans seed+speed and Combination VC, Austrian angel investor group ROI Ventures, and other investors also joined the investment.
• Helio will use it to use this funding to accelerate its market penetration, particularly in areas like 3D rendering and AI.

• Founded in 2017 by Norbert Juschicz and Willibald Bacher, Greenwood Power develops non-conventional instrument transformers designed for medium voltage electrical grid. Its products can be used for applications like gas-insulated switchgear, air-insulated switchgear, and outdoor installations, with a focus on resilience in harsh environmental conditions. 
• Now, Greenwood Power employs 161 people and claims that in 2023, it has an export share of 99% and is generating €10 million in revenue, which means the company is reaching profitability.

“A gigantic sales market is currently emerging for us, as on average one transformer station per 100 households needs to be equipped with current and voltage sensors. Our measurement-accurate sensors were specifically designed for retrofitting local network stations and, compared to the competition, are characterized by a cost-effective production method using 3D printing,”

Norbert Juschicz, СEO of Greenwood Power, commented.

• The fresh round was co-led by:
  • eQventure, an Austrian VC firm with hubs in Austria, Germany, the UK, Israel, the USA, and China. It supports high-tech startups in Austria with growth capital, a global network, and operational guidance.
  • Austrian tecnet equity that focuses on early-stage investments with a fund volume of approximately €50 million. The firm offers capital and support to young high-tech startup companies with the potential for significant growth.

“With its products, Greenwood Power supplies a key component for turning existing power grids into powerful smart grids. We are excited to see how new added value, attractive jobs, and specialist know-how are developing in Lower Austria as a result of our investment,”

Doris Agneter and Jürgen Milde-Ennöckl from tecnet equity added.

• Greenwood Power aims to use the funds to hire more employees, finance a possible production facility in the USA, and increase its global market share from its current level to 10%, quintupling its market presence.

• Founded in 2015, Resourcify aims to enable a zero-waste solutions via its recycling platform. It enables businesses to manage, track, and improve their recycling while having less administration, and saving up to 40% of the costs compared to conventional waste management.
• Resourcify claims it has processed over 500,000 tonnes of waste via the platform, and plans to further increase the CO2 savings for its clients and the environment. 
• The round was led by German independent Vorwerk Ventures Capital fund. Revent, Berlin-based early-stage tech fund, Ananda Impact Ventures, a pan-European investment remit, managing €200 million in four Core Impact Funds, Vienna-based VC firm Speedinvest, BonVenture, an investment company in the German-speaking region that focuses on the social impact, and WEPA Ventures, a corporate venture capital firm based in Arnsberg, also participated in the investment.

“The waste industry is growing massively due to regulatory tailwinds and increasing consumer pressure. As a result, recycling and circularity are becoming strategic priorities for large companies around the world. We are excited to continue to support a company that is on track to become the digital backbone of the circular economy!”

Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, Partner at Speedinvest, commented.

• With this round of investment, Resourcify intends to enhance its software as a service offering across multiple industries, continue to focus on critical waste ‘take-back’ programs that enable companies to reach their sustainability goals, and expand into Europe and the UK.

• Kern Tec was co-founded in 2019, by Fichtinger, Sebastian Jeschko, Fabian Wagesreither and Michael Beitl, Currently, Kern Tec uses pits of stone fruits like apricots, plums and cherries that are otherwise destined to go to waste and turns them into oil and ingredients for the food & beverage industry but also for cosmetic and industrial applications.

• Kern Tec claims that it has already processed over 2.500 tons of fruit pits in their Austrian production facility. Currently, the company enters the growth stage scaling the whole value chain and their global customer base.      

“Kern Tec rescues fruit pits from waste in fruit processing & returns them to the food industry as a valuable ingredient in accordance with the principle of circular economy. Less CO2 emissions, less water consumption — our fruit pits are the raw material for food with a low footprint.”

• The fresh investment was led by Telos Impact, Belgium impact management and consulting firm. PeakBridge Growth II Fund and the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund also participated in the round. Apart from the equity financing, the company has secured significant local and international grants.

“This historic €12 million investment amplifies our commitment. We’re not merely producing ingredients; we’re spearheading a sustainable shift in the B2B food landscape,”

co-founder & CEO Luca Fichtinger commented the deal

• Kern Tec plans to launch in the US in 2025, once it has completed the scale-up process in Europe. The company also wants to develop new technologies with the funds as well. Additionally, it hopes to scale the value chain and increase its employee numbers.