About Myriad AI

• Founded by Jan Špidlen who has previous worked at Google, Nvidia and Airbnb, Myriad AI aims to transform compliance by revolutionizing access to regulations. Their platform provides insights, with the objective to speed up decisions and improve business outcomes. 
• Myriad establishes a sales and marketing center in the U.S. while maintaining its technological base in Prague. Špidlen is now recruiting Prague-based programmers and IT specialists to develop Myriad’s software prototype into a full-fledged service.

Investment details

The investment was led by by Nation 1, a Prague-based venture capital firm focused on investing in seed-stage startups that operate in Czechia. In April 2023, it provided a €400,000 for a Сzech supply chain management facilitator Supply. Now, the fund has rebranded as N1, bringing in new partners, and raising capital for a second fund, aiming to make its first investment next year.

“This year confirmed our belief that our strategy is correct. The companies we invested in through N1 are performing very well, and we intend to close approximately four more investments by the end of the year. Throughout the fund’s existence, we have managed to invest approximately 600 million crowns. This progress has led to the establishment of our second fund and the appointment of two existing colleagues as new partners, who will be strong reinforcements for our team in the long term,”

Marek Moravec commented.

The Prague-based investment company BD Partners, Plug and Play Tech Center, an American venture capital firm headquartered in Sunnyvale, and Preston-Werner VC, led by Tom Preston-Werner (GitHub co-founder), investing in early-stage technology companies, also participated in the round.

This investment will help Myriad’s team to revolutionize compliance for banks and fintech companies using its AI technology.

About RobosizeME

• Founded in 2022 with headquarters in Czechia and the US, RobosizeME is a process automation specialist for the global hospitality industry. The company leverages extensive industry knowledge and technical expertise to help hotel chains and large hospitality management companies enhance efficiencies in all areas of hotel operations.
• Its “digital workers” have already been introduced to multiple reputable hotel chains and hotel management companies, including Kempinski Hotels and Resorts, Louvre Hotels Group, Global Hotel Alliance, Design Hotels, Dorchester Collection, H World Hotels, MCR Hotels, Story Hospitality, and many more.

Investment details

Although the deal’s amount is undisclosed, it follows the two-week announcement of BrightCap’s successor Fund II. Earlier, AIN reported on the fund’s first close of the €60 million target. The fund’s ticket size was stated to range between €400,000 and €3 million. Thus, the investment in RobosizeME is expected to be at least €400,000.

“This is the second time we are backing visionary founder Stephen Burke, following our Fund I investment in Kardi AI—a medical-grade long-term ECG heart monitoring startup. Stephen’s track record in the hospitality technology sector spans over 22 years and includes a successful previous exit. This time, he is teaming up with co-founders Linda Girrbach, a seasoned hospitality and revenue management expert, and Ivo Brabec, a CFO and finance entrepreneur,”

BrightCap’s representatives commented on the deal.

Apart from the lead investor BrightCap, other investors in this round include hospitality-focused Czech – Indonesian newly forming Botanique Hospitality Management Group.

The fresh capital will enable the RobosizeME to grow and reach the milestone of signing 6,000 hotels within 18 months.

About Jeff

• Jeff is a data-driven marketplace for financial services in some of the world’s biggest emerging economies in Asia. With a customer analysis via a collection of digital data footprint the platform provides people with access to services suited to their needs, while bringing new market and growth opportunities for financial service providers. 
• Since its 2020 launch in Vietnam, Jeff has expanded into other Southeast Asian markets, such as Philippines and Indonesia, and has grown to $10 million in revenue. Additionally, the startup claims its marketplace has given more than 6 million people access to apply for over 60 million financial products.

The investment was led by the Czech-based VC fund Presto Ventures with participation from the specialist data and AI fund J12, a group of angel investors, and industry veterans and executives Jean Pascal Duvieusart, Ladislav Bartonicek, and the founder of Printify, James Berdigans.

At Presto, we’re strong advocates of and big believers in the use of AI, machine learning, and alternative data science – especially in markets where the traditional financial data landscape poses challenges. Once the Jeff team launches in India, they’ll have a footprint in 5 of the 20 largest countries in terms of population around the world. In these countries, the segments of underbanked and financially underserved consumers are significant, and many similarities can be drawn among their systemic problems. The Jeff team has already proven their success in Vietnam was not a one-hit-wonder, and we’re excited to see their blueprint for entering new countries and product categories in action,

Roman Novacek, Partner at Presto Ventures, commented.

The money will be used on Jeff`s commercial expansion into emerging markets throughout Asia and beyond, accelerating the recruitment process, and building out the suite of financial services and products, such as credit, on their marketplace.

• Adam was founded by Roman Sysel and Jakub Dvorak in 2020, and now operates in 11 European countries: UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Greece. Its platform focuses on providing customers with easy online access to reliable contractor services. It uses a transparent online calculator, which provides customers with an estimated job cost and enables them to request home-improvement services.
• To date, the company focuses on painting services and apartment renovations. According to the company’s data, Adam boasts more than 15,000 completed jobs. At the end of 2022, Adam received a €1 million seed round from Presto Ventures.

Undoubtedly, traditional craftsmanship is in need of modernisation. That said, no one has yet managed to solve all three decisive factors – quality, availability, and price – simultaneously. We decided to tackle this complex situation one trade at a time. Our vision is that one day you will be able to build an entire house through Adam,

Adam’s co-founder, Roman Sysel, commented.

The fresh funding was led by Brighteye. It was founded in 2017 as a VC that backs European edtech entrepreneurs at seed & series A stages. Brighteye claims, it invests in companies that help people learn and grow.

The new investment will be used to strengthen their position in markets where the service is already successful. Additionally, Adam plans to expand into new cities and countries outside of Europe, broaden its offerings to new trades, and build a development team to enhance automation and further improve the customer experience.

In the Startup of the Day column, David Brozik, Prokop Cech, Lukas Benes and Jan Hicl, the founding team of Delta Green, share the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originate from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire,

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Delta Green is a Czech energy company that empowers households to utilize electricity efficiently and responsibly. Beyond energy provision, it offers intelligent, automated solutions for managing electricity consumption and production.

Delta Green stands at the forefront of innovation in the energy sector as an energy flexibility aggregator. Its solution allows the integration of renewable resources into the grid on a massive scale without compromising grid stability,

The company is working on including households, grouped into a giant virtual battery, in grid balancing. For households equipped with photovoltaics, batteries, heat pumps, or electric vehicles, Delta Green can save or earn them hundreds of euros annually. This involves not only managing electricity consumption and production but also the planned integration of households into grid balancing.

We also announced a successful pilot test involving household participation in grid balancing, illustrating the transformative potential of our solution which is expected to be fully available by year’s end.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

We’ve long thought about how we could help fight climate change, and when the opportunity arose to make these changes at Delta Green, we didn’t hesitate for a second. What Delta Green does combines everything we love: innovation, new business opportunities, and the fight against climate change.

Our motivation is to provide our customers with the means to manage electricity efficiently and responsibly, which can save or earn households thousands of euro crowns annually. In addition to energy supply, we also offer electricity consumption and production management.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

It took us about a year to reach our prototype or MVP stage. As with any tech startup, we encountered numerous technical challenges along the way. However, we managed to navigate through them successfully and keep pushing forward.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

Delta Green, originally known as Nano Green, was founded in 2008 under Nano Energies. However, this year we underwent rebranding to better reflect our mission and focus on innovative solutions in the energy sector.

We have already launched our platform that manages home consumption and tested the grid balancing integration. However, due to additional administrative requirements, we are planning to officially launch that aspect soon.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Our business model focuses on providing and purchasing electricity at spot market prices with smart management. We offer our customers a comprehensive service that includes electricity supply and purchase, along with a platform for smart management of consumption and production.

By supplying electricity at spot market prices, we offer competitive rates, and by purchasing excess electricity generated by households, we ensure optimal compensation. Our goal is to reduce costs, increase the buyback price of excess energy, and incorporate more renewable resources into the energy mix,

We generate revenue through several key avenues, including our smart management platform, which allows customers to manage their electricity consumption and production efficiently. This service is valuable for households with renewable energy sources like photovoltaics, batteries, heat pumps, and electric vehicles.

Additionally, we enable households to participate in energy flexibility markets by aggregating their flexibility through a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and offering it to the grid, thus maintaining stability and integrating more renewable energy sources.

What are your target markets and consumers?

Our target markets and consumers are households and companies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), mainly Czech Republic and Western Europe.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

We have over 6,000 customers, and our annual recurring revenue (ARR) for the year 2023 reached CZK 219 million.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

We have a team of 25 employees. Our team is a mix of professionals from the energy sector, bringing in-depth knowledge of energy systems, and individuals from the startup world, including developers, data scientists, and managers, who excel at building digital products and startups.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

Yes, we have raised a seed investment of €2.2 million. We intend to use this investment for two main purposes. Firstly, for our expansion into Western Europe, with the specific country still under analysis.

Secondly, we aim to utilize the funds to further develop our software solution for households, enabling regular households to participate in energy flexibility. We need to build a robust and stable solution, which will allow us to be the first to offer flexibility services to Czech households, where we plan to aggregate tens of megawatts.

• Tiings was co-founded by Indrė Viltrakytė, Robertas Kalinkinas, Tadas Maslauskas, and Laimis Lomonosovas in 2023, Tiings is a digital-first repairs marketplace aiming to simplify fashion repairs process and turn it into a sustainable habit.
• Clients need to upload a one-minute video and then them get pay it, drop off the item to a PUDO or get it picked up by a courier, and get the item back, repaired. Currently, the startup have an MVP working product version, and plans to do a test in the UK soon.

After 15 years in the fashion industry, I’ve seen the problems of overproduction and overconsumption. Each year, around 130 billion new fashion items are produced, most discarded after a few seasons. I believed that if maintaining possessions were easier, more people would do it. Ten years ago, secondhand fashion was niche, but now it’s popular, highlighting the growing trend towards sustainability. However, repairing items remains cumbersome and time-consuming. You have to find a specialist, commute, and spend hours on one repair. There had to be a better way. So, we created a seamless platform where you can show what needs fixing via video, and get quotes, payments, and shipping all in one place,

Indrė Viltrakytė, CEO and co-founder, commented.

The investment was supported by FIRSTPICK, the Vilnius-based high-speed VC fund and an accelerator for tech startups in the Baltics, BADideas.fund, investing €50,000-€250,000 tickets in early-stage startups from CEE with global ambitions, and PurposeTech, the Prague-based pre-seed fund that backs purpose-driven founders across Central and Eastern Europe. The amount of funding was undisclosed.

Tiing will use the fresh funding to launch its Service Providers Gateway so that any provider can join the platform and start offering their services. The startup also plans a beta launch in a foreign market.

About Rohlik

• Founded in 2014 in Czech Republic, Rohlik Group is an online grocery delivery service, which achieved a unicorn status in 2021. The company is active in the Czech Republic (Rohlik.cz), Hungary (Kifli.hu), Austria (Gurkerl.at), Germany (Knuspr.de), and Romania (Sezamo.ro).
• Rohlik operates fully automated fulfilment centres, leveraging a host of AI, ML and robotics technologies to drive efficiency and high productivity without compromising on quality. The company claims its customers experience reliable 15-minute delivery windows and same-day deliveries available as soon as 1 hour after booking.
• Now, according to the company. Rohlik delivers over a million orders per month and served over 800,000 customers in 2023.

There is huge demand across Europe for online groceries delivered quickly and reliably without any compromise on quality. We don’t see that as a short-term phenomenon, but as a long-term opportunity around which to build a market-leading proposition.

At Rohlik, we have built the technology to deliver on that promise in a sustainable and profitable way, leveraging AI, ML and robotics technology with our obsession with customer service to drive maximum efficiency and high productivity,

Tomáš Čupr, founder and CEO of Rohlik Group, said.

Investment details

• The investment was led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
• The existing investors Sofina, a Belgium-based investment company, Index Ventures, a VC firm with offices in London, Tel Aviv, San Francisco, and New York, Quadrille, based in Paris and San Francisco, an independent investment firm, and TCF Capital, an investment company focused on growing retail, retail infrastructure, also participated in the financing.

The round also complemented by growth capital funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) under its Scale-Up Initiative. The fresh costs will accelerate Rohlik’s expansion plans in DACH and CEE, where the company aims to establish its presence in more than 10 additional cities by 2030.

Investments details

1. The first investment of the fund was in May, backing the Czech energy company Delta Green that develops technologies and software solutions to make flexible electricity consumption accessible to households, promote renewable sources, and reduce emissions from power plant operations. The company planned to use the total investment of €2.2 million for further growth, expansion into Western Europe, and completion of software that will open the way for households to earn through grid balancing.

2. The second investment from Purple Ventures went to iVent Pro. The British startup offers a cloud system for managing virtual and hybrid conferences for universities, companies, and the public sector.

iVent Pro has effectively captured customer requirements in the post-COVID era and has an excellent product for online and hybrid event organizers. It offers the ability to create unlimited events, thereby reducing overall event costs. We invested in a team with vast experience in this field and look forward to seeing where they can take the product,

Jan Davídek, general partner at Purple Ventures, commented.

3. And the third investment from Purple Ventures was directed into a yet undisclosed company developing a SaaS system for modern HR management. The total value of the investment in iVent Pro and the new HR solution amounts to €1.25 million.

About Purple Ventures

Purple Group, now operating under the name Purple Holding, began forming in 2007 under the wings of co-founders David Kašper, Jakub Nytra, and Filip Řehoř. Purple Ventures’ Fund I was launched in 2018 by Jan Staněk. Currently, its total funding amount is €15 million. Purple Ventures is focused on backing startups in the pre-seed and seed stage. The fund has supported over twenty companies in six years.

In March 2024, Purple Ventures launched its second fund, total amounting of €40 million. It focuses on startups from the CEE region with teams in the EU, with the ticket size ranging from €250,000 to €750,000.

About SprayVision

• Founded in 2018 by Giovanni Sala and Petr Jahn, SprayVision is focused on spray pattern digitalization, analysis, evaluation, process control and non contact thickness measurement. The startup claims its technology enables to reduce time, scrap, paint waste, and emissions.
• The solutions also aims to help customers transform manual processes into digital ones and advance automation setups where human-robot collaboration is incorporated into fully autonomous operations.

Investment details

• The fresh funding round was led by Digital Industry Fund IV (Industry 5.0), a 2023 vintage early-stage venture capital fund managed by Momenta Ventures, located in Lucerne, Switzerland. It invests in the United States, Canada, and Europe and targets companies from information technology, energy, advanced manufacturing, and B2B payments sectors.

We are excited to partner with Momenta, a venture capital investor that deeply understands our industrial customers and their pain points. We look forward to their practical support as we expand into North America and fully penetrate the European Automotive market. We still have a lot of work to do,

Petr Jahn, co-founder and CEO of SprayVision, said.

• SprayVision is the fourth company to secure investment from Momenta’s Digital Industry Fund IV. J&T Ventures, an early-stage Prague-based venture capital fund, also participated in the funding round.

According to the SprayVision’s team, this funding will accelerate the company’s global operations, and helps to create an even greater industrial impact.

About Entrio

• Co-founded in 2011 by Berislav Marszalek and Matija Marijan, Entrio aims to provide a simpler and more modern way of selling and buying tickets. Entrio now operates across three markets including Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
• In 2023, the company sold more than one million tickets for over 3,000 events, with a total value of more than €16 million. Additionally, Entrio offers a network of over 80 physical partner outlets.

Investment details

• Invera Equity Partners backed the €9 million investment for the startup. Lauched in 2020, it is a private equity firm based in Zagreb. The firm seeks to invest in business services, telecom, media, and technology, manufacturing and industrial production, hospitality and entertainment, healthcare, and food and beverage sectors across Southeastern Europe.
• This is the fourth investment for Invera EP.

We will focus on the segment of major concerts, but also on sports, theatre, conferences, museums, and attractions. For us and Invera EP, alongside strong growth, it is a priority to maintain and continue developing the excellent organisational culture within the Entrio team that we have built over the past 13 years,

Entrio’s founder and chief executive Berislav Marszalek said.

Entrio’s team will use the investment to develop new products and services focused on increasing sales results for their event organizers, as well as providing a personalized offer of relevant events for event participants.

About Zerops

• Co-founded in 2017 by Ales Rechtorik and Jan Saidl as a spin-off from VSHosting, Zerops develops a platform for developing, deploying, and running applications, regardless of their size or complexity.
• According to Zerops, it pursues the goal to simplify the life and work of developers with a straightforward premise: every programmer should have their own environment, and every environment should be as similar as possible to the production environment.

Zerops is the very definition of a ‘by developers for developers’ product. The core of our vision, as well as our guiding principle, is making developers’ lives easier. While staying humble, well aware of the behemoth of the cloud industry, we’re working hard to gain the trust of the early adopters from the developer community. And to make our vision come true, we’re expanding the Zerops team,

Ales Rechtorik, Zerops, CEO & co-founder, commented.

Investment details

• The fresh investment was co-led by the Czech-based venture capital firm Presto Ventures and Gi21 Capital, a venture capital investment firm also based in Prague.
• Regardless of the investment, the startup maintains its strategic partnership with VSHosting’s global parent company, Contabo Group (part of the KKR portfolio from 2022).

Zerops plans to use the new capital to add integration with frameworks and open source software, expand the knowledge base and documentation, improve the onboarding process, and gain traction in preparation for global expansion.

In March 2024, Presto Ventures had another pre-seed investment announced, when the Czech startup Lakmoos managed to secure €300,000 from the fund.

About Elin.ai

• Co-founded in 2023 by Jan Romportl, Petr Stanislav, and Jiri Horacek, Elin.ai is a mobile app that acts like a ‘cognitive antivirus’ – it keeps an eye on the user’s online experience and analyzes the content they consume or produce. Elin.ai has a long-term memory, gradually learns about the user’s world and improves their personality model.
• According to Elin.ai, it uses AI (Large Language Models) to deliver accurate and personalized psychological response to screenshots provided by Gen Z users. In the form of a chat, the app then helps them understand and cope with the content by providing useful context, advice, or interventions to protect their mental wellbeing.

Elin.ai actively protects teens and young adults from getting trapped in toxic thought and emotional patterns caused by harmful, manipulative or extreme content and intentionally distorted information. Beyond that, Elin.ai has tremendous potential to positively impact broader societal issues by reducing the need for compensatory behaviors like extremism, conspiracy theories, or rigid thinking,

prof. Jiri Horacek, Elin.ai CRDO & co-founder, commented.

Investment details

• The current investment round remains open and has already seen a large capital injection of €500,000 from Presto Ventures, a Prague-based VC firm investing across the broader CEE region, and BD Partners, a full-service partner for new businesses in the US.
• Additional €100,000 are coming from several undisclosed angel investors.

For Presto, Elin.ai is a very exceptional investment. For three main reasons: First, because it’s in the B2C user app category, which we don’t usually focus on. Second, because Jan Romportl, a renowned AI and deeptech expert, has been working with us for years. That’s why we didn’t hesitate when Jan approached us with his project, especially in such an impactful sector. And thirdly, Elin.ai is the only startup from our 60-strong portfolio that we backed in the so-called ‘idea stage’. We have full confidence in the founding team and their mission,

Premysl Rubes, Presto Ventures founder & managing partner, commented.

Elin.ai will use the funding to launch its mobile app and target at least 5,000 active users. The startup also aims to conduct foreign market research to expand its reach.

About KAYA VC

• KAYA VC manages over $300 million in assets across 4 funds. KAYA co-invests and partners with funds like the British-American Index Ventures, European Creandum, EQT, and US-European Goldman Sachs. Their advisory network includes founders like Tomáš Čupr of Rohlík, as well as Juraj Masár and Veronika Koleják of Better Stack.

• Since the launch, it has more than forty companies in its portfolio, with the value of their shares reaching €300 million. KAYA’s portfolio includes two unicorns: the Czech online grocer, Rohlík, and the Polish Docplanner, a global platform managing healthcare practices and scheduling.

We support big dreams and ambitious plans. We help create the best conditions possible for our entrepreneurs, enabling them to overcome challenges more easily. We connect them with other successful entrepreneurs for advice and back their belief that the Central European Region is a fertile ground for building global companies that can win in their respective markets,

Tomáš Obrtáč, one of four equal partners in the fund, says.

More on the Fifth Fund launch

Now, the firm is preparing to launch its fifth private investment fund, which will have 80 million at its disposal.

KAYA expects their investor composition for their fifth fund to be similar to the previous one, where the majority of finances came from institutional investors and about three-quarters of the capital originated from the private sector. The minimum investment in KAYA is expected to be €1 million.

The fund also added that it does not specialize in a specific segment, category, or mission of startups. But KAYA aims to invest primarily in Czech, Slovak, and Polish companies.

AI maintained a top sector for investment, representing approximately 17% of global funding, according to the latest VC funding in CEE 1Q24 report presented by Vestbee. AIN analysed the report and shares the key points.

VC investment trends in CEE

• In the past five years, the value of startups in the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) startup ecosystem increased from €89 billion in 2019 to €213 billion in 2023.
• However, the number of funding rounds dropped between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024. The overall investment volume remained stable, with a slight increase in Q1 2024.
• In Poland, there has been a noticeable decrease in venture activities, particularly among seed funds backed by public capital, highlighting their crucial role in the market.
• The availability of VC funding remains much better than it was pre-2019, although difficulties in securing financing are expected to continue into the second quarter.

Startup investment rounds in CEE in Q1 2024

• Number of funding rounds: 157 (134 fully disclosed in terms of amount, month, investors, and company details);

• The biggest disclosed investment rounds:
  • Mews closes Series D round of €101.3 million;
  • Project 3 Mobility receives €100 million in a Series A round;
  • Starship Technologies raises €84.6 million of funding;
  • Bob W closes Series B round of €40 million;
  • CloudTalk raises Series B round of €26.3 million;
  • Tuum received a €25 million in a Series B round.
• Total value of funding closed in CEE is over €640 million.

• Estonia leads with 31 funding rounds, followed closely by Poland with 30 rounds, and Czechia with 18 rounds.
• The most active VC funds were: New Vision 3, Credo Ventures, EIT Digital, Vitosha Venture Partners, Presto Ventures, FundingBox Deep Tech Fund, Inventures, Launchub Ventures, Movens Capital, PortfoLion Capital Partners, Practica Capital, Tera Ventures, Baltic Sandbox Ventures, CofounderZone, KAYA VC, Sunfish Partners, Techstars, ZAS Ventures, Coinvest Capital, DEPO Ventures, DOMiNO Ventures, Inovo VC, J&T Ventures, N1 Fund, Reflex Capital, Startup Wise Guys, Taiwania Capital.
• Enterprise Software, AI, fintech, healthcare, energy, SaaS, cloud are among the most popular industries for VC investments.

New VC funds from CEE in Q1 2024:

• OTB Ventures raised its second deeptech fund, amounting to $185 million, targeting Series A investments, with a small portion (up to 10%) designated for seed investments.
• Lithuanian-based Practica Capital finalized its third fund at €80 million, focusing on seed-stage tech startups in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. This fund provides initial investments up to €3 million and can offer additional support up to €8 million.
• SMOK Ventures from Poland secured its second fund, valued at $25 million, aiming to support approximately 35 pre-seed and seed-stage startups across Central and Eastern Europe, including regional founders operating abroad. Investment amounts from this fund typically range from $100,000 to $1 million.
• Romanian GapMinder launched GapMinder Fund II, an €80 million venture capital fund. This new fund is dedicated to investing in seed and late-seed stage tech companies in Romania, Moldova, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bulgaria.

You can also read the highlights of the CEE market report of 2023 prepared by the Vestbee team:

About Signapse

• Signapse is a sign Language translation software company that uses Gen AI to achieve photo-realism and accuracy. The startup claims that its team includes deaf and hearing people who build artificial intelligence solutions for clients who need access to sign language translation and interpretation.
• Over the past two years, Signapse has used Generative AI to create 5,000 BSL train announcements daily throughout the UK, as well as delivering over 4,000 manual BSL translations for clients in the website and video markets. Recently, Signapse has delivered Deaf accessibility to transport companies such as LNER Train Stations in the UK, and CVG Airport in the US. 

We at Soulmates Ventures are proud and excited to be a part of the Signapse endeavor in building unconstrained generative AI sign language translation. Their innovative solution is reflecting the daily challenges and needs of the Deaf people. We are looking forward to supporting the Signapse team through our acceleration program to amplify their distinctive real-time solution and enhance accessibility in transport, mass media, TV, streaming services and others for the Deaf community globally,

Michal Sikyta, Investment Director at Soulmates Ventures, said.

Investment details

• The fresh €2.4 million seed funding comprises €1.8 million from investors, co-led by Soulmates Ventures and Deeptech Seed Fund, and €588,000 from the UK Government. The Royal Association for Deaf people, Empirical Ventures, CEAS Investments, and FSE Group are the participators in the round.
• Established in 2020, Soulmates Ventures is a Czech accelerator and venture capital firm dedicated to sustainable innovation in areas such as air, water, energy, circular economy, food & agriculture, mobility, education, and healthcare. The fund supports a seed-stage startups throughout Europe, offering also a tailored acceleration program and access to growth opportunities.

With the new funding the company plans to improve deaf accessibility through building unconstrained translation for British Sign Language.

In March 2024, Soulmates Ventures invested in the Czech fintech startup Flowpay and the Romanian energy tech Ogre Ai.

About Product Fruits

• Launched in 2019 by Karel Papik and Ladislav Salom, Product Fruits provides a Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) that provides a no-code interface and easy integrations for creating seamless product onboarding processes. The startup has signed up nearly 1000 customers, including Sanof, Rakuten, and Mango.

• Product Fruit’s team claim that its Digital Adoption Platform has enjoyed accelerated 4x growth over the last year. Now it focuses on automatically building workflows and determining customer conversion likelihood. Additionally, in March 2023, the startup raised an €1.6 million in seed round, bringing its total funding to €3.1 million.

Product Fruits is actively harnessing the game-changing power of AI for digital adoption solutions, and we’re doing it in a way that isn’t just for show. This funding round will make it possible for us to see the project through. Considering the downturn in funding across the tech industry, we also take this as a heartening endorsement of the success we’ve already had and the promise we’re demonstrating,

Ladislav Salom, co-founder of Product Fruits, said.

Reflex Capital, a Prague-based early-stage venture capital fund, led the current investment. It is the only investor in the round. Product Fruits will use the fresh funding to accelerate the developmentof its AI-driven digital adoption platform, to grow its staff by no fewer than ten people, and expand into European and US markets.

About Delta Green

• Delta Green was established in 2008 as Nano Green and rebranded in 2024 by David Brozik, Prokop Cech, Lukas Benes, and Jan Hicl. The startup develops technologies and software solutions to make flexible electricity consumption accessible to households, promote renewable sources, and reduce emissions from power plant operations.
• According to Delta Green, its solution makes possible to integrate renewable resources into the grid on a massive scale without compromising grid stability. Additionally, the startup can save or earn hundreds of euros annually for households equipped with photovoltaics, batteries, heat pumps, or electric vehicles. 

As our initial move, we’re introducing the service to Czech households, aiming to aggregate tens of megawatts,

David Brožík, Delta Green’s co-founder, said.

Investment details

• Tilia Impact Ventures is the lead investor during the €2.2 million round. It is a Prague-based seed stage venture capital firm. In September 2023, the firm launched its second €30 million fund, to support mission-driven CEE founders in climate, education, and healthcare.
• The investment round also saw participation from Credo Ventures, a Czech early-stage investor, and Purple Ventures, a Brno-based VC fund, which also invest in tech startups across the Central and Eastern European region.

Delta Green will use the fresh round to complete the development of software for the involvement of households in balancing the network, to expand its team, and enter new markets in Western Europe.

• Founded by five marketing industry insiders, Behavio launched its brand for tracking and ad testing tools in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Now, the company tracks brands and ads across 13 countries in Europe, America, and Asia.

• Among its partners are over 400 consumer brands and agencies, including T-Mobile, LEGO, and Publicis. The majority of them are from e-commerce, fintech, online services, or food and beverage sectors – brands like Footshop, Flashscore, or Bonami.
• To date, Behavio secured €3.5 million in funding from Airbridge Equity Partners, Presto Ventures, J&T Ventures, and several angels, including ex-Emplifi Nik Pantovic.

Our goal is to enable marketers to make truly resonant brand marketing and to easily prove its business value to the CEO. We offer affordable, easy-to-navigate dashboards that show you straight away what’s hitting the mark and what needs a tweak – when it comes to specific ads or the brand health as a whole. Thanks to our advanced behavioral research methods, we provide marketers with uniquely practical insights,

Jiri Boudal, Behavio’s co-founder and CEO, says.

• The fresh round was led by an existing investor Airbridge Equity Partners. It is an Amsterdam-based  investment firm providing flexible investment solutions to technology-driven companies in Europe. The firm invests around €1 million – €5 million with the ability to stay active over time.

Behavio plans to use the investment to develop its platform further, to implement artificial intelligence and provide more accurate data on how and where people focus their attention when they watch an ad.

Investment details

• Ember, a company founded in Edinburgh in 2019 by Pierce Glennie and Keith Bradbury. Ember provides a fleet of 24 electric buses. The company buys its buses from the Chinese company Yutong, and works with them on the design, battery layout, and architecture of the buses.
• The startup has also developed software for its bus fleet. It helps automatically allocate drivers and vehicles for specific shifts and routes and monitors the service for issues, such as unexpected charging problems, a no-show driver, temperature control on the bus, and traffic-related delays. After monitoring, the technology allows notify passengers about a delay, have a driver turn up the heating or escalate the issue to an operations team member.

Contrarian Ventures joined the $14 million Series A round for the company. It was led by the Prague-based Inven Capital, the London-based VC 2150, and the Berlin-based AENU, with participation from some existing investors. Ember will use the investment to expand across Scotland and the UK.

About Contarian Ventures

Established in in 2017, Contrarian Ventures is a seed-stage venture company focused on investment in climate tech startups from Europe and Israel. The fund usually invests from €1.5 million to €4 million. Currently, it has offices in Berlin and London. The founder and managing partner of the company is Rokas Peciulaitis.

• Founded in 2012, Cin7 provides Connected Inventory Performance – cloud-based inventory management software. According to the startup, it gives product businesses an automated and real-time view of the entire inventory lifecycle.
• Cin7’s products, Core and Omni, natively integrate with over 700 applications. Since founding, Cin7 supported product sellers in over 100 countries, served 8,000+ customers and processed over 125 million orders annually.
• Inventoro was founded in 2020 as a SaaS service to revolutionize the way small and medium-sized businesses manage their inventory. With its algorithmic sales forecasting, businesses can achieve optimal stock levels. Inventoro’s system is powered by advanced mathematics and artificial intelligence to achieve forecast accuracy.

We bonded with Cin7 immediately the day we first met, and this transaction is a natural progression of our proven line of cooperation. The two products together amplify our efforts to help SMB product sellers and manufacturers, ultimately connecting them to one large, efficient supply network while reducing waste and supporting local economies along the way,

Tomas Formanek, Inventoro’s founder and CEO, said.

• The acquisition and integration of Inventoro’s capabilities with Cin7’s platform will extend product seller’s access to its AI technology, and will provide customers to enhance existing inventory and order management capabilities with intelligent prediction and optimization. The deal amount was not disclosed.
• The deal is also the first live exit from Presto Ventures second fund.

We’ve built Presto with the goal of supporting talented tech founders in the CEE region and helping them propel their smart solutions worldwide. We celebrate the sale of Inventoro as an important milestone in fulfilling this vision. It’s yet another confirmation that Czech entrepreneurs have much to contribute to the global technology market,

Premysl Rubes, founder and managing partner of Presto Ventures, which was the first and only institutional investor in Inventoro, said.

In addition to the acquisition, Cin7 also announced the newly appointed CEO of Cin7, Ajoy Krishnamoorthy (ex-Microsoft, Acumatica). 

About Birdwingo

• Founded by two brothers, Adam and Andrej Hano, Birdwingo develops an app to help teens to teaches essential financial skills such as investing, budgeting, and scam awareness through interactive lessons and real-life investing scenarios, all under oversight of parents. Aiming to educate teens on managing these assets, Birdwingo created a “Duolingo for finance” academy. Additionally, Birdwingo motivates teens with cash rewards for learning through its ‘learn to earn’ feature.

• Its user base is already surpassing 20,000. The statistics from the platform’s beta testing phase show: 94% of teens completing the Academy reported increased confidence in managing their money, 79% started saving and investing for the long term, and 84% of parents believe their kids’ financial literacy improved. The app is already available on both the App Store and Google Play.

Birdwingo addresses the gap in financial education, which schools often inadequately cover, and is sometimes left to questionable financial influencers or scammers online. We step in to enable teenagers to actively invest under full parental supervision, combining high-quality theoretical knowledge with real-world practice, 

Adam Hano, Birdwingo’s co-founder, said.

• The fresh investment was led by Bienville Capital, a New York-based investment firm offering Asset Management and Advisory Services across both public and private markets. Other company founders and bank executives joined the round.

The funds will be used for further development of the platform. In addition, Birdwingo plans to partner with high schools and non-profit organisations.

• Co-founded by Bobby Bayer and Barbora P Howell, TrueClaim automates healthcare cost savings for self-insured companies using medical claims and price transparency data. TrueClaim continuously reviews 100% of healthcare invoices to detect billing errors, pharmacy and care savings opportunities.
• According to the company, TrueClaim has identified an average of 10.96% savings opportunities in the $20.2 million worth of medical claims it reviewed since January. In addition, the startup also offer a cost recovery service with a 3x ROI guarantee.

Our software uses newly available healthcare data to save self-insured companies 7% in healthcare costs. It may not seem like a lot, but given that health insurance can cost thousands of dollars a year, this savings can be significant for a small business or startup,

TrueClaim’s team commented.

Who participated in the investment round:

• Kaya VC, a Czechia-based venture capital firm investing in founders from Central and Eastern Europe, and, predominantly, Czechia;
• Y Combinator, a prominent US-based accelerator, and Orange Collective, its alumni investment club;
• Rebel Fund, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California;
• Surge Point Capital, a venture capital firm based in New York, USA;
• Explorer Fund, a Stanford-based VC fund, investing up to $100,000 in pre-seed founders.

The startup plans to use the investment for the product development and distribution.

• Founded by the Ukrainian entrepreneur Sergiy Yakymchuk and originating from the Brno-based technology company Monet+, Talsec employs multi-layered protection to safeguard applications and APIs from threats like reverse engineering, app cloning, device rooting, and other types of attacks through application and device integrity checks.
• The solution also monitors the application’s runtime environment in real-time, providing risk assessments, auditing, and data analysis. Talsec’s malware detection is based on machine learning technology.

• Initially developed for the financial sector, now, Talsec offers several packages as annual subscriptions. The company presents itself as “App Safety as a Service,” including a suite of developer tools (SDK), application and API protection, penetration testing, monitoring services, and a user security set.
• Talsec provides protection for mobile applications across various development platforms, such as Android, iOS, and cross-platform frameworks such as React, Cordova, or Google’s Flutter platform. Among its clients are Generali and VIG, BrasilCard, and the Czech Ministry of the Interior.

We decided to enter the market with a product that offers protection for mobile-first businesses, with an initial focus on fintechs. We want Talsec, with its freemium toolkit, to become standard for developers needing to ensure the security of their applications and their users. This year, we are on track to multiply our audience and revenue and significantly expand awareness of our products within the developer community,

Sergiy Yakymchuk, founder and CEO of Talsec, stated.

• The investment was co-led byDig Ventures, a London-based VC firm investing in pre-seed and seed-stage B2B SaaS and fintech companies in Europe and the U.S, and DEPO Ventures, a Prague-based VC firm, which recently, together with Tensor Ventures, announced their exit from Neuronix AI Labs, a US-Israeli chip startup.

With the fresh funding Talsec aims to accelerate its penetration into the global market and support further development.

• The Czech Republic became the fourth country in Europe where Nova Post has opened its offices. The first city was Prague, where the office was opened on June 5 of the same year. At that time, the company announced that it plans to invest 3 million Czech crowns in development in the Czech Republic.
• According to Andrii Artemenko, the CEO of Nova Post in the country, this year they plan to open offices in the cities of Pilsen, Ostrava, and Ceske Budejovice. And also increase the number of parcel delivery points.
• AIN reminds that Nova Poshta opened 89 offices in Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Italy, Hungary, and Moldova.

How does it work

The office is located at Dr. M. Horákové 11/76, working from Monday to Saturday. The delivery time is from five working days.

The cost of delivery from Ukraine to the Czech Republic:

• Documents up to 1 kg — UAH 500.
• Parcels up to 2 kg — UAH 550.
• Parcels up to 10 kg — UAH 850.
• Parcels up to 30 kg — UAH 1,800.

In addition, Ukrainians can order delivery by Nova Post courier of up to 200 kg from Ukraine to any address in the city of Liberec. Delivery by courier is paid additionally + UAH 100 for shipments up to 30 kg or + UAH 250 for every 100 kg. The company’s website has a special calculator that helps calculate the cost of the parcel.

• Founded in 2020 by Yaron Raz and Asher Hazanchuk, Neuronix AI Labs offers a solution that focuses on lowering computer vision AI cost and power consumption. Based in Sunnyvale, California, the company aims to reduce costs in sectors such as semiconductors, security technologies, and smart cities.
• According to the company, it enables the increase of hardware computing capacity to keep up with advancements in artificial intelligence. Currently, Neuronix boasts several patents and over two decades of industry experience among its team members.

• Initially, it was discovered by Depo Ventures and later nurtured to success with the strategic partnership of Tensor Ventures. Apart from the funds, Neuronix AI previously attracted investments from Frontures and Alchemist Accelerator.

Our involvement began when Yaron approached me as a mentor during the winter cohort of the Alchemist Accelerator in 2021. I immediately knew we had to seize the opportunity to invest. Despite being perceived as ‘too deep tech’ by many Silicon Valley funds at the time, I reached out to Tensor Ventures to join us. This American-Israeli-Czech collaboration has been instrumental in the startup’s journey, playing a strategic role in the success of Yaron and his team. It proves that investments in cutting-edge technology are worthwhile. I thank Yaron and Asher for their dedication and hard work, and wish them continued success under the umbrella of Microchip Technology,

Michal Ciffra from Depo Ventures commented.

• The exact amount of the deal was left undisclosed. The buyer, Microchip Technology, the leading semiconductor supplier of smart, connected and secure embedded control solutions, has a market cap of around $46 billion.

The sale of our stake in Neuronix is quite extraordinary given the fiercely competitive market in Israel. The success of this transaction is closely tied to the direct involvement of Tensor Ventures in the M&A process, and our extensive experience in the semiconductor industry, particularly insights from Intel,

Petr Ulvr, co-founder of Tensor Ventures, commented.

The transaction marks the second exit in Tensor Ventures’ portfolio, which held the largest share in the startup.

• Founded in 2015 by Jan Čurn and Jakub Balada from the Y Combinator Fellowship in Mountain View, California, Apify provides a web scraping platform, allowing companies to gather data from websites. It aims to automate any web-based workflow, and then execute it at scale in the cloud.

• Apify clients include Siemens, Intercom, Microsoft, T-Mobile, and Accenture. The startup claims that its revenue increased an 80% for the last quarter of 2023 compared to the year prior. Apify’s previous investment injection was in 2019.

This investment allows us to maintain our financial efficiency and unique company culture while keeping our options open for future investments or exits. Our current goal is to demonstrate our ability to convert capital into economically efficient growth, attract new customers, and scale our business. Once we achieve this, it may make sense for us to seek a large investment from global VC funds and attempt to become the next Czech unicorn,

Jan Čurn, co-founder and CEO of Apify, comments.

• The fresh investment was led by J&T Ventures, an early-stage Prague based venture capital fund, which invests into startups from the CEE and SEE region. Its strategy is industry agnostic, but the firm primarily focuses on companies in seed stage. J&T Ventures’ average ticket size is between €500,000 – €2.5 million.
• The existing investor, Czech VC firm Reflex Capital, which is managed by Ondřej Fryc, also participated in the financing.

Apify will spend the fresh capital on increasing its marketing activities, product development, and will further foster the growth of the developer community.

In the Startup of the Day column, Kamila Zahradnickova, co-founder of Lakmoos, shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originate from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

We create data models that simulate how people make decisions. Lakmoos uses our proprietary AI to create precise copies of target groups that companies can then interact with anytime. Unlike real people, our digital respondents never get tired or annoyed.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

Before founding Lakmoos, I was quite involved in corporate research as a behavioural scientist. I helped shape campaigns for Nestle and Ogilvy, as well as NGOs like The Nature Conversancy, and I was just flabbergasted by the amount of guesswork that was deemed acceptable. So I started wondering about where the friction was – basically, why companies don’t simply run proper testing with their target groups.

Then I met my future co-founder Jan, shared my frustrations, and we started thinking about how to bring voice of the customer into any meeting. Initially, I covered the science behind measuring minds, Jan leveraged his pioneering research to build our layered AI, and our third co-founder Roman developed the first version of the Lakmoos app.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

Right after founding the company in June, we hired 20 people to help us develop the core of the product over summer. While everyone was on vacation, we created 14,000 lines of code.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

We founded the company in June 2023 and released our first public demo in October 2023. It’s not available for enterprise use.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Lakmoos is a SaaS product, meaning that after the implementation month, there are monthly fees based on the amount of users.

What are your target markets and consumers?

Right now, we’re focusing on five industries in the EU and US. Our model is layered and modular, meaning that it’s getting built step-by-step.

This means that banking layer can interact with telco layer, as financial behaviour is predictive of how much people spend on their phone credit. Using these optics, we chose industries that have enough data and also have a strong need to test their markets.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

Our demo has been co-created with seven European banks, now we have our first paying enterprise customers.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

There have been around 20 people in our team since the start. Most of the team are AI experts, data scientists, developers and methodologists. Right now, we’re hiring a sales team.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

Yes, we first took on angel investment €210,000 in total. Right now, we raised our pre-seed of €300,000 with Presto Ventures to scale our sales with test kits to: banking, automotive, telco, energy, and healthcare.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

We aim to onboard 13 new clients by the end of the year, mainly from banking, automotive, telco, energy, and healthcare. In addition, by 2030, we wants to transform 20% of traditional market exploration, saving $30 billion in exploration costs and 35 billion hours of fieldwork globally.

• Lime Therapeutics was founded by Shardule Shah, Prakrit Jena, and Dan Heller, and provides its technology LipidSenseTM. This platform targets conditions such as cancer, metabolic disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases.

• The startup claims that with LipidSenseTM, enables the identification of potential new drugs that can alter lipid biology, thus opening doors to novel therapeutic avenues. In addition, it allows for the rapid measurement of lipid flow in cells at a speed – over 20,000 times faster than the current standard.

The team is building a science platform which is able to detect and target lipid accumulation non-invasively and efficiently. We as well as the experts in our network were impressed by their speed of movement as well as their ability to utilize data and target conditions such as cancer, metabolic disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases,

Jan Kasper, Managing Partner of ZAKA VC, commented.

• ZAKA is a pre-seed and seed-focused VC family office founded by entrepreneurs Peter Zalesak and Jan Kasper operating from Prague, London, and Bratislava with 50 portfolio companies invested in the past 4 years. The firm invests all across EU and US. Recently, it invested in Eigen Therapeutics, an American biotech company.

According to Lime Therapeutics together with ZAKA VC, the fresh injection will enable the startup to revolutionize human health span and usher in a new era of wellness for all.

In the Startup of the Day column, Laureen Höllge, co-founder of Mamio, shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originate from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Mamio is a mobile app for moms. Currently, moms can connect with each other on Mamio based on the age of their child and location, as well as find support throughout motherhood on a redefined forum.

In the future, Mamio will add a motherhood guide personalized by the age of the child and a personalised recommendation system for products and services. Mamio’s added value is that it can create a friendly environment for mothers, and most importantly, provide personalized support.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

We live in the age when there is an app for everything. Yet mothers (especially in the CEE and DACH region) still have to rely on old-fashioned parenting forums. We wanted to change that and provide them with personalised support always in their pocket.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

We launched our MVP in 6 months after having started working on it. The MVP launch was super smooth. What suprised us was that we had thousands of moms signed up for the product launch which showed us that we really tapped into a need that does not have a proper solution yet.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

We launched the MVP in the beginning of 2023. Now, we work on both mobile platforms and we have tens of thousands more users and new functionalities as well.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

The application is free for users. The app will generate revenue through a personalized recommendation system, selecting products and services that can facilitate motherhood for moms and offering them curated options.

Today, it’s challenging for moms to choose the right equipment for themselves and their child. We can help them choose products and services based on the child’s age and maternal philosophy, and through partnerships, we can offer them special benefits for using such products and services,

Mamio already has dozens of partners, and more are carefully being selected.

What are your target markets and consumers?

Our team is building the product in Czechia before expanding to the broader region.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

Currently, we have 20,000 users who come to us without significant marketing expenditure and who are above average loyal and engaged to the app.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

We have 4 core members and 6 externists helping us build the product.

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

Yes, in February 2024, we closed a pre-seed funding round of €300,000 (7.4 million crowns):

• €200,000 of it are provided by Czech Founders VC
• another €100,000 are provided by Prague-based VC fund PurposeTech.

We also received support worth €60,000as part of the Technology Incubation from CzechInvest.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

Mamio’s team is finetuning new functionalities and preparing for expansion, so stay tuned.

• Ember was co-founded by Keith Bradbury and Pierce Glennie in Edinburgh back in 2019. The company provides all-electric, intercity bus service. Ember uses a CCS (combined charging system) EV charging system, which supports both AC and DC charging through a single plug — this is a common standard across Europe and elsewhere, meaning that they technically aren’t for Ember’s use only.
• Today, Ember counts 24 buses in operation, though it has just taken receipt of an additional 14 next-gen vehicles from Yutong, which sport an increased 563 kWh battery capable of powering 510 km of travel on a single charge — this compares to around 380 km for the previous generation bus. Currently, Ember counts a single main charging hub in Dundee, with 1,200 kW of charging capacity that is backed up by on-site wind turbines.

Investment details

• Inven Capital, a Prague-based venture capital fund investing in climate tech startups across Europe and Israel, is one of the co-leads in the round. The firm is backed by a major European energy utility ČEZ, a.s. and by the European Investment Bank (EIB), having €500 million at its disposal over two fund generations;
• 2150, a London-based venture capital firm investing in technology companies that seek to sustainably re-imagine and reshape the urban environment. 2150 is part of Urban Partners, a platform shaped around urban problem solving;
• AENU, a Berlin-based early-stage climate impact VC fund focused on Europe. AENU drives systemic transformation in venture capital towards impact, accessibility and stakeholder-alignment that contribute towards impact capitalism.
• Other participants included Contrarian Ventures and Pale blue dot.

With the fresh investment, Ember plans to expand across Scotland and the broader UK market. In addition, the startup claims it is focused on scaling the network, constantly improving EmberOS and making the passenger experience ever better.

• Purple Ventures’ Fund I was launched in 2018 by Jan Staněk. Currently, its total funding amount is €15 million. Purple Ventures is focused on backing startups in the pre-seed and seed stage. The fund has supported over twenty companies in six years. A few of them are CEE startups such as Hedepy, Tatum, Choice, and Kardi AI.

About Fund II

The second fund will be open to external investors. It will focus on startups from the CEE region with teams in the EU. The ticket size will be from €250,000 to 750,000.

The fund plans to invest in various emerging segments such as:

• Digital Health;
• SaaS;
• EnergyTech;
• Creator Economy;
• Security;
• EdTech;
• E-commerce;
• Deep Tech;
• IoT.

In the past six years, we have been able to identify a number of interesting companies. However, we can clearly see that the potential of the market is many times greater and that with the help of external finance we can achieve many more interesting opportunities,

Jan Staněk, co-founder and Managing Partner of Purple Ventures, commented.

Purple Ventures plans to invest the first €14 million this year, while the rest is going to be collected within the next two years. In addition to the funding, Purple Ventures will continue offering guidance to the startup founders, acting as mentors and advisors. The first exits are planned after 2028. 

About Picogrid

• Founded by Zane Mountcastle and Martin Slosarik, Picogrid builds sensors, drones, unmanned vehicles, command interfaces, and other notoriously fragmented defense systems. The core of Picogrid’s technology lies in Legion, its cloud-based API used to connect and control various third-party autonomous systems.
• Since the launch, Picogrid has won over a dozen federal contracts, including a $1 billion IDIQ contract from the Pentagon. The company’s technology serves ongoing military operations on bases across the United States and is used by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Our platform is a paradigm shift in defense operations, offering unprecedented levels of coordination and real-time intelligence. It’s not just about having the most sophisticated defense systems; it’s about how these systems work together as a singular force. The integration of our most advanced defense systems is the difference between deterrence and vulnerability,

Zane Mountcastle, co-founder and CEO of Picogrid, says.

Investment details

Initialized Capital, a San Francisco and New York based early stage venture capital firm, led the fresh round. It’s portfolio spans over six core funds, worth close to $200 billion in market value with 25 companies valued at $1 billion or more and 5 valued over $10 billion.

Other participants include:

• Starburst Ventures, a global aerospace and defense focused venture capital fund;
• Giant Step Capital, a Brazilian venture capital firm, investing in the advancement of space exploration and technology;
• Domino Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund operating worldwide from its offices in Amsterdam, Istanbul, Tallinn, Tbilisi, Baku, Astana, and Tashkent;
• Alumni Ventures, a network-powered venture capital firm from Manchester;
• and Credo Ventures, a Prague-based venture capital company focused on early stage investments in Central Europe or, occasionally, the US. In September 2023, it joined €10 million Series A round for UK-based Continuum Industries.

This funding will allow Picogrid to accelerate product development, ramp up manufacturing with the opening of its second factory in Lawton, Oklahoma, and forge partnerships within the defense sector OEMs. Picogrid claims it signifies growth for the company and a leap forward for the defense industry and global security.

About Flowpay

• Flowpay was founded by William Jalloul in 2021. It is a fintech startup that develops a way to assess not only the risk but mostly the potential of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to provide operational financing for their growth. The startup uses AI and Embedded Finance to automate the entire process from funding applications to risk scoring and evaluation.
• The startup also claims that, unlike banks, it does not require clients to fill out paperwork, instead connecting to point-of-sale systems, e-commerce platforms, and more. Based on this data, it evaluates the availability of financing and offers each client a customized loan to fit their needs.

Flowpay utilizes the power of AI to assess risk and efficiently process loans, embedding their tools in the platforms that SMEs already use for their daily operations. We have been impressed by the quality of its leadership, the robustness of its credit models, and their speed of execution. Techstars believes Flowpay has shown it has the potential to become a leader in the transformation of the SME lending landscape,

Allard Luchsinger, Managing Director Techstars, said.

Investment details

• Before the current funding, Flowpay was accepted to Techstars, one the world’s most active pre-seed investor with over 3,800 companies in its portfolio, in 2022. Alongside six other European startups, Flowpay was also accepted to the IBM fintechx program. In addition, Flowpay won Technological Startup of the Year in the Vodafone Idea of the Year competition.
• Alongside Techstars, other participants in the round were Czech VCs like Soulmates Ventures and DEPO Ventures, and key angel investors such as Mark Ransford, Martin Herrmann, Kartik Varma, and Allard Luchsinger.

This newly acquired investment will allow Flowpay to scale beyond the Czech Republic, enhance its technological capabilities, and offer its services to a wider range of SMEs.

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.

• Founded in 2021 by Transon Nguyen, Kathryn Vanderlaag, and Kamran Ali, Eigen Therapeutics is on a mission to revolutionize cancer treatment. The startup addresses the precision and specificity gaps in traditional therapies, like chemotherapy, which often lacks distinguishment between healthy and cancerous cells, leading to severe side effects and targeted therapies.

• Eigen’s platform enhances the effectiveness of existing therapies, such as immunotherapy and antibody treatments, by priming cancer cells. Their innovative technology increases the levels of proteins targeted by therapies, expanding the range of susceptible cancer cells. This can lead to increased effectiveness while battling cancer.

We are genuinely impressed by Eigen Therapeutics and their remarkable progress. Since December 2022, they have accomplished significant milestones, showcasing both vision and speed. Notably, their collaboration with top Silicon Valley funds underscores the caliber of their approach,

Jan Kasper, Managing Partner at ZAKA VC, commented on the round.

• ZAKA VC invested in the company. It is a Prague and Bratislava-based family office focused on pre-seed and seed investments all across EU. The investment in Eigen Therapeutics marks the fund’s eighths deal in the biotech sector, following recently announced rounds in ExcepGen, Sensible Biotechnologies, and Olio Labs.

• Founded by Kamila Zahradnickova and Jan Polisensky, and Roman Konecny, Lakmoos builds data models that simulate how target groups make decisions. The platform replaces human survey respondents with data models that reflect the dominant opinion of the selected target groups. These models can instantly answer business-related questions.

• By combining multiple streams of data in their layered model, Lakmoos upcycles the data from archives, CRMs, and analytical tools to build precise copies of target groups. The company claims it enables to get instant insights, without the need for budgeting, approval rounds, or participant recruitment.

Imagine you are a company, you have a great idea for a product or an ad, but you are not sure people will like it. Nowadays, you would contact a research agency and go through a time-consuming, expensive, and stressful process. At Lakmoos, we want to change the status quo and enable you to test your idea immediately on our digital copy of your target population. With the help of AI and data science, Lakmoos can give you precise answers in real time,

Roman Konecny, Chief Sales Officer and co-founder at Lakmoos, said.

• The fresh investment was led by a Czech-based VC firm Presto Ventures, which recently invested in Czech-Ukrainian startup Choice. Sedlakova Legal, a local company focusing on IT, cybersecurity, personal data protection, medical law, intellectual property, and other law areas, and Alexander Braun also participated in the round as legal advisors.

Lakmoos will spend the funding to scale sales with test kits to: banking, automotive, telco, energy, and healthcare. In addition, by 2030, the startup wants to transform 20% of traditional market exploration, saving $30 billion in exploration costs and 35 billion hours of fieldwork globally.

• Launched in 2012 by Richard Valtr, Mews develops a cloud-based property management system for hotels and apartments that helps simplify operations and automate customer and guest management, manual tasks, payments, and booking management, assisting in streamlining operations for hoteliers and transforming the guest experience.
• Mews, with its cloud-based system, integrates with numerous tech solutions. Currently, it manages over 350,000 hospitality spaces for 5,000 global clients, including the likes of Strawberry Hotels, The Social Hub, and Airelles.

Continuing the great work from 2023 and expanding on our product innovation. Of course, this year will be a big year for AI in hospitality, and I really look forward to seeing our teams release the first of these features to make sure Mews is at the forefront of AI innovation,

Richard Valtr, founder of Mews, shares the plans.

• Mews says that the latest funding follows a year of growth with a 60 per cent year-over-year revenue surge, surpassing $100 million in annual net revenue. The company claims its Gross Payment Volume exceeds $8 billion and annual hotel check-ins reach 16 million globally. Additionally, Mews acquired three new companies — Frontdesk Anywhere, Hotello, and Nomi.
• The fresh investment was led by existing Swedish investor Kinnevik and global Goldman Sachs Asset Management. In 2022, these they led $110 million Series C investment round for Mews. Revaia, Notion Capital, and new investor LGVP also participated in the financing.

Mews will use the funding towards global expansion, research and development, as well as strategic acquisitions while helping hospitality organizations worldwide to expedite their digital transformation efforts.

• Upheal was co-founded in 2021 by two Slovaks Juraj Chrappa and Martin Horvath as a result of personal experience with mental health challenges. The startup offers an AI-powered mental health platform for clinicians. According to Upheal, it saves time through note-taking and transcribing sessions, secure video calling, and organizing the data into summaries, highlights, and other analytics.
• Upheal helps therapists to streamline their clinical workflows, saving time on administrative tasks like writing progress notes and treatment plans. The company claims it has processed 90,000 sessions in the last 12 months, and saved mental health professionals 21,000 hours.

Whether you’re a solo practitioner or a large clinic, our combination of proprietary and foundational AI models delivers notes and insights with remarkable accuracy and robust compliance. We support everything from in-person sessions, third-party telehealth platforms, to integrations via API,

Martin Horvath, co-founder & CTO, commented.

• The fresh investment is led by a Prague-based Credo Ventures, with participation from KAYA Ventures and Inovia Capital. In total, Upheal raised $4.35 million of funding.
• Several angel investors also joined the round, notably Martin Viecha, VP of Investor Relations at Tesla, and Aakash Desai of Decoder Ventures.

Upheal will use the funding for the expansion of its AI capabilities and improving its platform to allow for fully customizable AI templates, AI-powered progress tracking, group therapy, simplifying the therapist’s workflows, and more. It will also support marketing, engineering, and further product development.

About Choice

• Launched in 2021 by Ukrainian entrepreneurs Alex Ilyash and Volodymyr Olyanitsky, Choice develops an online B2B subscription-based service that allows restaurant to create a website and set up all necessary restaurant-related business tools on a single platform with joint administration: website, applications, online menus with QR payments, table reservations, a CRM system, and much more.
• Additionally, the platform can be integrated with popular POS systems and marketplaces such as Wolt, Bolt, Glovo, Foodora, and Uber Eats.

Choice was created with a mission to help restaurants digitize their customer base and increase customer retention and satisfaction. We can already see the positive impact of this digitization on the development of establishments in various European cities and how it allows us to improve their services,

Alex Ilyash, CEO and founder of Choice, Says.

• Choice works with more than 16,000 restaurants and has over 5,000 clients. In 2023, over 2 million orders totaling $42 million were made in Choice’s partner restaurants. Currently, the company’s MRR is over $150,000.

Investment details

• J&T Ventures, a Prague-based venture capital fund, led the current late-seed funding round. J&T is currently managing €50 million, with the tickets ranging from €500,000 to €2.5 million. The fund’s focus is on the seed to Series A startups from the CEE and SEE region.
• Previous investors, Reflex Capital and Presto Ventures, also joined the investment round. In 2022, the company received its seed investment from these investors, as well as Purple Ventures. As of December 2023, the company reached $2 million ARR.

The funding will be used to scale the service to four new markets in Central and Eastern Europe, and to continue growing in Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine.

Tech startups are invited to apply to the Spring Accelerator 2024 that starts on March 21 and ends with a pitch event – Demo Day – at the end of May.

What can the startups get?

• As starting a technology company is a difficult challenge, AceON team set for themselves the goal to bring an international 2-month intensive program to founders, which is full of lectures with experts, on valuation, finance, developing MVP, pitching tips, term sheet, marketing, ESOP, and more.
• Furthermore, participants will have an opportunity to ask mentors for advice regarding, for example, software development, financial planning, fundraising, etc.
• AceON Accelerator is also an investor and can offer money to the best who will finish the program and meet the accelerator’s criteria. The amount of this investment is undisclosed, but the Autumn program offered up to €70,000 for startups.

Who can apply?

AceON seeks to support startup founders who aren’t afraid of challenges and hard work, are flexible,
and understand that to build a successful startup they need to find out what their customers really
want and accept the fact that the market changes constantly. What they look for:

• teams from Czechia, Slovakia, or Romania,
• committed teams or solo founders hungry for success,
• software or non-software solutions with a strong problem proposition,
• a scalable product with the potential for rapid growth in the global market,
• startups mainly in the pre-seed stage, but also idea-stage startups with a proven
  concept.

AIN.Capital publishes the discussion transcript which the ZAKA VC family office shared with us.

The year 2023 in venture capital marked a significant change for investors

Global venture investment volume has declined rapidly since its peak in 2021 — by approximately 50% last year. However, this was more of a decline in capital invested than the number of companies backed. In Europe, the situation was very similar to the rest of the world, although even in Europe, the number of deals did not fall as much as the size of investments. The decline was felt mainly by growth-stage startups but did not significantly impact early-stage startups, which continued to attract the attention of investors.

Some of the larger foreign funds with a focus on multiple investment phases have focused a bit more on the early stage, where they have seen more opportunities, due to the problems of falling valuations in the late stage and also due to the virtual freeze of IPOs (initial public offerings on the stock market). Among other things, the currently favorable valuations in the early stages and the fact that the founders put more emphasis on financial sustainability rather than rapid growth and scaling while burning much money have contributed to this,

Andrej Petrus, CIO of ZAKA VC, explains.

The past year has also affected investment opportunities. There was less competition on the VC fund side as some funds could not raise new money to invest and focused more on supporting already invested companies and less on new investments.

Over the last period, we have seen much more focus on funds to assist and invest in existing portfolio companies that have not been able to raise additional funding from other funds at later stages. We’ve also seen many bridge rounds. There is less capital in the market compared to 2019-2021. However, less competition between funds creates room for more detailed analysis of potential investments and longer discussions on investment strategies overall,

Andrej Petrus adds.

The highest investment activity in VC in 2020 and 2021 resulted in very high startup valuations. This is a classic effect of high capital supply and lower demand. However, this has changed since the end of 2022, and valuations are now more normalized, even from the pre-Covid period.

• On the one hand, there is less capital, but on the other hand, many new companies and founders are still working on new propositions with high potential.
• Development in artificial intelligence has also brought about new technological and commercial opportunities.
• Both large corporates and small startup teams, which are much faster and more agile, are trying to jump on this technological trend.

For these reasons, the current period is perfect for investing in early-stage startups. Like the entire financial world, venture capital operates in cycles, dependent on new technological advances and innovations, public stock market activity, and the valuations at which companies are entered at each stage, determining future investment profitability. The current period in this cycle is very interesting for venture capital funds in the early investment stages.

The cost of creating a software product is steadily decreasing, and competition is increasing, which impacts the investment focus of funds.

The development of technology also affects the change of investment strategy or sector focus of individual funds. Creating a software product today is easier, cheaper and faster than ever. The arrival of cloud servers from Amazon Web Services in 2006 drastically reduced the cost of setting up a startup, where companies no longer had to buy their servers but used cloud servers from other providers. It triggered an extreme growth of new startups in the market.

This trend of lowering the costs of creating a software product continues strongly because of open source, no-code and low-code tools, and other infrastructure and technology already in place for developers. The reduced cost of creating a new software product naturally increases competition, the barrier to entry is reduced, the number of startups is increasing, and investors are counting on this. Defensibility is an essential element in the investment decision.

Over the past period, we have seen investment changes in different sectors. Interest in biotech, clean tech, energy, deep tech and defense tech is also increasing because of these sectors’ difficulty, uniqueness and, thus, defensibility. Investors are interested in industries that are harder to innovate. Conversely, sectors where innovation has been more accessible — fintech, consumer, and SaaS — receive slightly less capital than in previous years.

Artificial intelligence

In addition, the massive onset of artificial intelligence is significantly impacting the consideration of new investments. New technological advances in this area are not only favorable for new startups entering the market but AI is also being used extensively by existing well-established companies. The year 2023 brought the advent of LLMs (large language models) technology, which has been noticed and used by perhaps everyone. The year 2024 will be all about the robust implementation of AI as a technology into existing company processes to reduce costs and increase efficiency. VC investors are also exploring the opportunities that AI brings for their needs.

We are already testing some tools to help us find suitable companies for our portfolio and analysis. However, VC is still true about personal relationships, intuition and experience. The evaluation of an investment cannot be shifted to artificial intelligence; it can be helpful, but the final decision will always be up to people,

Andrej Petrus says.

Potential Hidden in CEE

Geographically, Central and Eastern Europe is becoming increasingly attractive for investors. More and more professionals and experienced individuals are getting involved in the startup community here, contributing to the growth and development of new projects. Innovative startups are thus arising in the CEE region, while investors worldwide are becoming increasingly aware of their potential and are also impressed by the capital efficiency with which CEE startups operate.

CEE is one of the fastest growing VC regions. Between 2017 and 2022, it grew 7.6 times in invested capital, which is twice the EU average, but we also saw a sharper decline in invested capital here in 2023. According to Vestbee, it was around 75%. According to Crunchbase figures, the year-on-year decline in the Czech Republic was 75.5%. So, capital is still limited here compared to Western markets. However, it is a good opportunity for investors to invest in the early stage because teams in Central and Eastern Europe are more capital-efficient. Sometimes they can create the same product as a comparable team in the United States or Western Europe for half the capital, and the quality of technology talent is very comparable,

Andrej Petrus explains.

Good companies make other good companies and are the basis of the ecosystem. This trend is accelerating in Europe.

Europe has good conditions for founding new startups and for the growth of unicorns. The number of new startup founders is higher yearly in Europe than in the United States. And unicorns, successful technology companies with a valuation of over a billion euros, play an essential role in the ecosystem. According to the State of European Tech report, data shows that unicorns are producing many new companies. Because of their experience in fast-growing successful tech companies, former successful company employees become founders and later start working on their startups, which is vital for the development of the whole ecosystem and the economy.

The unicorns founded in Europe in the 1990s produced around 6,000 new founders who created new companies in the following years. Unicorns founded at the beginning of the millennium have produced 50 % more new founders in even less time. This accelerated transformation trend from employees to founders continues with unicorns founded in the 2010s. This is a very positive indicator for Europe.

About ZAKA VC

ZAKA VC is a Czech-Slovak family-owned venture capital company which was created by combining the investments of the Zálešák and Kasper families. Their investment focus is on early-stage technology startups, primarily in Central Europe, the Baltic States, the United Kingdom, the DACH region, and the United States. ZAKA has invested in a total of 47 companies, which makes it one of the most active family venture investors in Europe.

• Founded in 2020 by Adam Plona, Jakub Zieliński, and Małgorzata Ohme, Mindgram is a science-based platform and mobile app for mental wellness. It helps companies support the mental well-being of their employees, as well as build their resilience and drive performance. Mindgram’s tools can help manage stress, burnout, communication problems as well as family difficulties and anxiety.
• Via the app users have access to workshops, training, podcasts, chat consultations, and full-scale online psychotherapy. Currently, it’s available in Polish, English, and Spanish. In March this year, the company will add support for German, French, Danish, Portuguese, and Italian, and by the end of the year 30 additional languages will be added, including Ukrainian, Arabic and Chinese.

Investment details:

• The fresh round was led by Smartlink Partners, a Polish fund specializing in investments in advanced technologies, including companies operating in the HRtech area.
• Poland’s Market One Capital, Czech Credo Ventures, and Hungarian Portfolion also participated in the funding. The cooperation will provide Mindgram not only financial, but also strategic support and expertise.

We have a chance to become the only platform in the field of mental health that is able to provide its services in over 70 markets and in 37 different languages,

Małgorzata Ohme, co-founder of Mindgram, commented on the investment.

Mindgram established cooperation with Smartlink Partners at the beginning of this year. Before that, in April 2022, Mindgram raised a €7 million seed round led by Credo Ventures to expand across Europe.

• Omnetic was founded five years ago in the Czech Republic by Jakub Šulta, Pavel Svoreň, and Petr Kratochvíl. Its parent company the EAG Group focuses on the digitization and consolidation of automotive services. Currently, the group operates in twelve European markets under the Omnetic brand.

• It is a dealership management system for automotive professionals. The platform focuses on digitizing the business of car dealers, bazaars, and car repair shops. Currently, its solutions are used by dealers of 33 automobile, bus and goods vehicle brands, as well as the four largest service networks.

In this investment round, which was organized by Wood & Company, four foreign bidders made it to the tender finals out of almost two dozen bidders. Kartesia and CVI offered the most flexible capital solution, moreover, they operate in the markets where our future acquisition targets are also located,

Petr Kratochvíl, investment director at Omnetic, commented.

• The investment round for Omnetic was led by the pan-European private equity fund Kartesia and the Central European and Poland-based debt fund CVI.

Omnetic intends to use the capital to facilitate further customers acquisition growth for its platform. The company also aims to expand its solutions to Poland, Germany, France, and the Benelux countries.

The company’s idea is to become a single point of communication between restaurants and their guests through QR payments, web pages, table reservations, ordering, and food delivery functionality. For example, restaurants can sign up for the system and create an online menu for free, and then Choice offers them a paid subscription for additional services, with the price for Ukraine ranging from $19 to $95 per month.

The startup’s lead investor is the Czech company Presto Ventures. At the beginning of its development, the project raised €100,000 in investment from the British Seedcamp and Czech J&T Ventures. Choice received another €200,000 from the Czech investment company Reflex Capital. Subsequently, Reflex Capital invested another €400,000. In October 2021, the startup raised a pre-seed investment of €700,000.

As of 2023, Choice has grown to a thousand regular subscription customers, 16,000 signups, 5,000 paying customers, and has entered the markets of 25 countries. The service has offices in the Czech Republic and Ukraine, operates in Poland, the United States, and Hungary, and is used by about 16,000 businesses worldwide.

In this interview with AIN.Capital, Choice co-founder Volodymyr Olyanitsky shared the company’s achievements over the past year, announced new technological solutions for the platform, and shared details of the service’s integration with Glovo.

At the start, your service raised investments to enter new markets. Did you succeed in achieving this goal?

From the beginning, we were represented not only in Ukraine but also in the Czech Republic, so we succeeded in entering other markets. The fact is that many Ukrainian startups have been able to build their businesses in Ukraine, but they have not been able to jump into new markets. We were lucky because my business partner, Alex Ilyash, has lived in the Czech Republic for 17 years and understands how European business works. Given his market expertise, it was easier for us to launch in the Czech Republic.

As for other countries, we entered the Polish market a year and a half ago and now have a good position — we are about second in the market in our niche. In addition, we opened the Baltic market with an office in Tallinn, Estonia. We also tried to gain a foothold in Germany, but we do not plan to make new attempts, as this market is too expensive and highly competitive for us. We are focusing on Eastern Europe, where there is less competition and less initial investment for expansion.

In general, the European market is less receptive to our service due to the limitations of the QR menu concept, which doesn’t resonate there. Even if an online menu exists, it typically appears in PDF format. Unlike Ukraine, Europe is not as digitally advanced, so we focus solely on developing our QR delivery business in that region.

What were your platform development plans, and which did you implement?

We tripled our core indicators. I mean client revenues—the number of customers and turnover have increased. We entered Poland and the Baltic states and expanded our team to over 130 people. Ukraine remains our #1 priority market, so about 65 specialists work in the Ukrainian office.

Our product portfolio has also changed. We developed some pilot platform features the whole time, which are, however, supplementing each other. Therefore, we began developing an online menu with an order-to-table option where guests can reorder without a waiter using just the QR menu. But as a result, 90% of our efforts during the last 18 months were dedicated to developing a delivery service. It is our core product.

A restaurant makes money on both in-house and online orders by Glovo, Bolt Food, and, finally, its own delivery service. Choice provides businesses with a complete distribution and takeaway package. We tested the options in small, local, and medium-sized businesses, and now, we are slowly getting to the enterprise sector.

We also integrated two delivery providers—Uklon and Glovo—into Choice so that the entities not present there can still conduct their own delivery on a crowdsourcing basis. Our platform allows launching your private delivery and “lending” a courier.

Did you attract new investors in 2023?

Yes, we are at the final stage of negotiations with a European fund. We cannot disclose who it is, the details, and the deal amount, but we will close the round soon.

The 2022 total investment in the platform was €2.2m. What is its current estimation?

It’s €3.5m, including the last closed round.

What is the current company’s estimated value?

Our capitalization hits $15 to 20 million.

How will you use raised funds?

Our Ukrainian product feels fine. So we will reinvest its revenues in itself. We will focus on the product team expansion due to the growing numbers of customers and features and product roadmap. Our appetite for new features to implement is growing as well. And there are new markets to enter.

Do you plan new tech solutions for the platform?

We aim at new solutions for networks. We have got some niche-specific solution requests. For instance, we want the restaurants to choose who will deliver their orders: their own, Glovo’s, or Uklon’s couriers.

It should work like this: A restaurant sees delivery costs and provider options, e.g., 4 km distance for one price or another. We want businesses to calculate the most cost-efficient delivery option via our platform.

Our plans also include loyalty and CRM system development. Our customers’ biggest problem is that they never really knew their guests and had no data about them. This is where any business should start to study their clients. How many of them are there, how often they come, how often they return, an average bill, their names, what they like, etc.

Currently, we gather guest data and make businesses familiar with their customers. It may sound like a piece of cake. Because everyone believes data was collected all the time, but it wasn’t. People used to pay via terminals, and it was impossible to get any data about them. Then, we implemented a client database tool enabling a new level of awareness for the restaurants. While placing an order or paying, a client can enter their email or phone number for better analysis of their favorite dishes, being in touch with them and making a loyalty system possible by, for example, providing a 10% discount for the next order.

Did the restaurants & cafes feel the difference in profits after starting cooperating with you? How does it work?

In Ukraine, for sure. The average bill grew according to our numbers. Why? First, users used to order on marketplaces, and catering entities paid certain fees per client. In the case of a loyalty system (if a guest visited a facility at least once, it promotes repeating orders with bonuses, discounts, or promo codes—edit.), guests use its bonuses to make another order directly at the restaurant without extra fees, so the foodservice must not pay marketplace fees. However, the marketplaces deliver new clients. The caterers also increase their sales if they have plenty of clients or a delicious menu highly wanted due to tons of recommendations.

Second, Choice developed a special CRM system for restaurant businesses, enabling guest data storage and order analysis at once. Using the CRM system from Choice, they get data about clients placing orders. And if a facility motivated a client to make another order with the help of different CRM system tools—given a promo code or a discount for the next order, like 10%—they will show up again. By doing this, we certainly increase the LTV (Lifetime Value is an estimate of the average revenue a customer will generate throughout their lifespan as a customer).

Thanks to such tools and their own delivery, the caterers can increase their income by 10% to 20% by working with us. But you should not expect great improvements in terms of a month. The delivery itself is a channel the clients need to get used to and be motivated to use it with promos and other bonuses.

There are marketplaces in the market still. Plus, you can always place an order directly at a restaurant. It would be perfect when an entity uses two marketplaces and does delivery. A delivery option is helpful since not all venues are present on the marketplaces. In addition, restaurants can offer more direct promotions and offers. With your direct order, you support a specific business.

What is about competition, for example, expirenza by monobank?

Our products are different. We focused less on online menus and more on the front store of facilities; however, we are still on the table via QR menu. It is also a kind of front store but more for in-house guests and not direct online customers.

We and mono almost go separate ways. Often, you may see a QR menu by Choice and a payment system by expirenza in the same house. Most clients prefer the Choice menu for its single-menu option, where an administrator can edit a menu for all at once—in-house, delivery and marketplaces.

Based on our experience, people got used to the online menu interface by Choice. All other QR menu providers followed us. For example, it was us who implemented likes for dishes. And the others copy-pasted it from us. The idea of likes came to us in a new restaurant where we didn’t know what to order, and the waiters offered things that were not really popular.

What are the terms of your cooperation with Glovo?

Glovo On-Demand is a courier lending service. Thanks to it, the Glovo couriers can perform deliveries for all restaurants that are present and not present in the marketplace. We long asked Glovo to implement this function because it was already available in other markets: Poland, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. We rolled this feature out with Wolt Drive in Czechia.

Glovo On-Demand can be implemented with our help or by Glovo directly. In fact, it is delivery for business. It costs 100 hryvnia and more depending on the weather and traffic ratio. For a client, it looks so: a person places an order and a courier is assigned; and even if a restaurant isn’t registered in the Glovo system, the client can see a Glovo courier delivering the order.

Our collaboration is also advantageous for business owners. Within a single profile, they can manage all orders from Glovo in the Choice Business app. The administrator can enter and edit data in the Choice profile, and it is synced with Glovo automatically.

How do you test and validate updates?

It depends on a problem to solve or tasks to perform. We collect feedback from clients and our team. Depending on the request frequency, we plan its implementation in our monthly or yearly roadmap. Then, we research similar solutions by our competitors, develop a beta, test it in a testing environment, and fix bugs; after that comes a release and production.

First of all, we are a SaaS platform, so we try to do things that are applicable to the widest range of clients possible. Now, we are thinking about making our task backlog public so everyone can see our workflow. And the clients will be able to vote with likes for specific tasks.

What are your plans for the development of the service in 2024?

We currently have integrations with Glovo and Uklon as delivery services. We also want more restaurants to save their time because time is money. So, we want them to accept orders from Glovo and Bolt in one tablet. We already have the first 100 pilot projects. The main product we will be working on is features for chain restaurants. And, of course, we will set up a loyalty system to increase the average check for customers.

Update as of February 14: we have clarified the current situation with attracting new investments.

In the Startup of the Day column, Pavel Bulowski, the co-founder of Meiro, shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.

The Startup of the Day column on AIN.Capital is dedicated to tech projects from all sectors that originated from the CEE countries. If you would like to introduce your project, please fill in the questionnaire.

Tell us about your startup. How does it work?

Headquartered in Singapore with R&D in Central Europe, Meiro is the only wall-to-wall Customer Data Platform (CDP) offering flexible hosting on every major cloud and on-premise in every corner of the world.

Meiro Customer data platform features an easy-to-use end-to-end solution for data management, analytics, personalization, omnichannel marketing, and advertising. Meiro CDP turns customer data into a revenue-generating asset by seamlessly tracking users across devices, touchpoints, and a growing number of marketing channels and unifying diverse data streams into a single rich dataset.

Built for enterprises driven by regulations or needing to own and fully control their tech stack, Meiro offers transparent, flexible, and scalable architecture that seamlessly integrates with clients existing internal systems, addressing data residency and control at the core,

Marketing professionals looking to optimize campaign performance use Meiro CDP to consolidate siloed customer data into a single customer view and to use data available for effortless marketing activation and personalized customer experiences that drive engagement and revenues.

How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?

Meiro is our 2nd venture — we founded data consultancy for digital transformation & marketing projects. Talking to our clients, we saw the need for a solution to consolidate all customer touchpoints, online & offline, and to go beyond reports and dashboards by creating actionable insights and audiences segmented based on the behavior across all channels. With changing data legislations, the need for an easy-to-use, flexible platform also focusing on data security and governance was very clear to us.

How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?

Our CTO created the MVP in a few months. What we saw was encouraging. This was the foundation of the CDP — data integration platform with Identity Graph as a core tech functionality for Meiro CDP.

When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?

We officially launched the product exactly 15 months after the incorporation of the company, in October 2018.

Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?

Meiro focuses on software license MRR with supporting revenue from services around the product implementation and adoption.

What are your target markets and consumers?

• EU (DACH, Central and Eastern Europe);
• APAC (e.g., Indonesia, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand);
• ME (Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar)

We cater to Senior marketing / UX professionals, Data science teams in medium-sized + large-sized organizations in different industries. Our clients come from banking, e-commerce, real-estate, tourism, gaming, and media verticals.

If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.

Meiro CDP resolved Chemist Warehouse’s data management challenges by implementing a complex identity resolution which in turn enabled the consolidation of a holistic customer view and comprehensive customer profiling. With precise first-party data available in Meiro, Chemist can now see the complete history of users across devices and platforms, encompassing both known and anonymous interactions.

These features enabled Chemist Warehouse to centralize data points, gain better insights into customer behavior, and unlock numerous opportunities for growth while ensuring a gradual and solid progression

Impact achieved with Meiro CDP:

• +200 audience segments created with Meiro CDP
• +25% in Retail Media Growth
• 10.9 million of anonymous users became addressable with 1pt tracking

In addtion, top retail bank in Indonesia improves lead acquisition, and ad relevance and boosts direct marketing engagement with Meiro CDP.

What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.

Meiro’s team currently consists of 50 people who are actively working towards our shared goals and objectives. As we continue to expand and scale our operations, we are planning to increase the size of our team to 70 members.

[Ed. You can find the full list of open positions at Meiro by following the link].

Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.

We have successfully secured $3 million in a pre-Series A round, led by Southeast Asian VC firm Wavemaker Partners, with participation from angel investors at Singapore-based Angel Central. This marks our first strategic funding round following five years of robust self-funded organic growth and profitability. The funding will be used to accelerate the company’s growth trajectory.

What’s next? Tell us about your future plans.

We aim to fast-track our product development, bolster the team, and expand our presence in Europe and Southeast Asia. Additionally, Meiro plans to enter new markets, starting with the establishment of a branch in Dubai slated for 2024.

• Founded in 2022 by Laureen Höllge, Johana Šperlová, and Karel Hrdina, Mamio develops mobile app that allows mothers to meet each other by baby age and location and share motherhood experience. In addition to this service and discussion forum, Mamio will also create a motherhood guide and a personalized recommendation system for services and products.
• The application is free for users. It will generate revenue through a personalized recommendation system, selecting products and services that can facilitate motherhood for moms and offering them curated options. Currently, Mamio has 15,000 users in the Czech Republic.

We knew we wanted to create something for women, and motherhood is a life situation specific to them. We felt that the entire parenting forum sector needed innovation, and at the same time, we saw an
opportunity that has added social value,

Laureen Höllge commented on the fresh round.

In the pre-seed round, €200,000 are provided by Czech Founders VC, a community-driven venture capital firm investing into Central European founders. Another €100,000 are provided by Prague-based VC fund PurposeTech. Mamio also received support worth €60,000 as part of the Technology Incubation from CzechInvest. In the past, it went through the ČSOB Startit incubator and received several awards – such as Best Young App 2023 in App Parade or the Social Impact Award.

The startup will use the investment for further development of functions, growth of the user base in the Czech Republic, and preparation for further expansion.

AIN.Capital talked with ZAKA VC’s Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Jan Kasper about the fund’s activities and success stories in 2023, as well as further plans and predictions for 2024.

You can read the interview below:

Tell us about ZAKA VC. Who do you invest in, how much, and at what stages?

ZAKA is one of the most active VC family offices in Europe. We have an agnostic approach, with strong focus on software solutions across multiple business sectors as well as on scalable health and biotech solutions.

Our primary focus is on pre-seed and seed, but we are always happy to assess startups even in the earlier stages. Geographically speaking, our portfolio startups are active on all continents, but our activity is oriented primarily on Czechia and Slovakia, the Baltic countries, and the UK.

In 2023, which was also ZAKA’s fourth year, you had closed 20 new investments. Can you tell us more about these deals?

With a strengthening network in the health & biotech sector, startups in this segment dominated our new investments in 2023. I will mention, for example, ExcepGen (where we became a co-investor together with Y Combinator, RA Capital Management, and Sam Altman’s Apollo Projects), Olio Labs, Medisearch (both also backed by Y Combinator), or Eigen Therapeutics (backed by First Round and Alumni Ventures).

Outside of biotech, there were, for example, Spanish-based Webel (service marketplace), Austrian-based Tripmakery (group booking platform), or the Czech startups Cruxo (retail media platform), and Sharpgrid (DataTech in On-Trade and Hospitality).

What startups in the 2023 batch impressed you the most so far, in regards to their team, product, or growth?

All of the startups in biotech sector have made some major progress since our investment – however, these are not measurable in MRR or CAC/LTV. All of the teams are working hard on proving their concept, IP registration, crucial partnerships, etc. Among the non-biotech startups, Webel and Tripmakery are proving on monthly basis that they “hit the nail on the head” and perceive a growing demand for their products. 

Can you share with us the proudest moments of 2023 that you’ve experienced at ZAKA VC?

We are very proud of the yearly progress that we have made – our know-how, energy, and investment opportunities get stronger every day.Not even once in the last year did we think about the fundraising crisis; we have rather perceived it as a stronger opportunity to invest.

Given you have a diverse geography portfolio, what did you find most challenging about the startup and VC market in 2023?

As mentioned earlier, where others see challenges, we see opportunities. Our independence and EU-wide activity allows us to perceive the situation on different markets which has led to a stronger focus on the Baltics and the UK. These are the countries where we see many success stories and a strong ecosystem development.

Did you face any challenges yourself?

One of the challenges is the precising of our assessment process – continuously shaped by tech innovation, market development, our network, and increasing knowledge.

With the arrival of 2024, what plans or expectations does ZAKA have for this year?

We want to continue growing and investing even more. We are eager to learn and to be better every day, which we are working hard for. We are also taking steps to prepare a new fund in 2024. With fund size between €12-15 million it will be based in Prague and focused on pre-seed and seed phase, active in the Baltic region, UK, and extended to the US.

This is the first time we are opening our investment instrument to other investors – our future Limited Partners.

By judging the market last year, can you share any predictions for the near future?

We are in the era of increasing implementation of artificial intelligence which has a massive influence on how people live and do business. Generation Z people think, act and work differently. All the startups which leverage these changes in business (sustainability, edtech, healthcare, biotech, mobility, etc.) gain a strategic advantage. We believe that VC activity will largely copy these trends.

What tips would you give promising startups in the region who want to raise capital from investors or, in particular, ZAKA VC?

• Keep yourself concentrated and motivated and also, keep your mind clear.
• Be ready to easily explain the problem you are solving as well as why your solution and your team are the best to solve it.
• When fundraising, do your math. Prepare your argumentation for the round size, valuation, market size, pricing strategy, and your unit economics.

• Founded in 2023 by Katarína Šimková, Closerocket develops a B2B sales platform designed to help companies find and connect with sales talent. The platform provides a variety of features to help companies scale their sales efforts, including access to a global network of sales professionals, a sales strategy development tool, and a sales reporting system.
• Nowadays, the startup generates monthly revenue of over €40,000. CloseRocket claims that its platform enables companies to manage their sales teams and track their performance.

We are building a platform that is built for merchants and reflects their needs, the way they work and the nature of their business. Marketers usually don’t like CRM tools and consider them a burden,

says Katarina Šimková, the founder and CEO.

• CloseRocket received an investment from the Slovakian fund Vision Ventures. Czech Jinej Fond also joined. The so-called angel investors include Andrej Kiska, Peter Komorník, Michal Šimkovič, and others.
• The investment will be spent to expand its offerings into the US market.

About Hedepy

• Hedepy develops an app that provides psychotherapy through video calls. In addition, Hedepy offers its clients a self-help zone, which aims to provide a space where people can focus not only on solving acute problems, but also on their prevention. Customers can also take an indicative test to understand where their problem or insecurity is coming from. Moreover, they can chat with their chosen psychotherapist.
• Since it launched in 2020 by Lukas Krcil, Martin Zdražil, and Roman Zámečník, Hedery expanded to 11 European countries, including Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Greece, and Finland. According to the startup, its platform has grown by more than 200% year-on-year, with more than 100,000 therapy sessions in 2023.
• Hedepy also provides therapy in the form of benefits to companies. Among its corporate clients are Havel and Partners, Ford, Multisport, Oktagon, and Unicredit Bank.

More on the deal

The investment was co-led by Czechia’s investment firm N1, private VC fund Purple Ventures, and RSJ Investments. Several new partners, including the Hungarian specialist fund Impact Ventures and one of Hedepy’s B2B clients, Aspect Group, also participated in the funding.

This investment is recognition for all our team members and the hundreds of therapists and psychiatrists in the 11 European countries where we now operate. We will now fight even harder so that everyone, regardless of income and where they live, can have the best mental health care,

Lukas Krcil, CEO and co-founder of Hedepy, commented on the investment.

Hedepy will apply the fresh capital to further develop its app and extend its support for corporate clients that use the platform for their employees.

About Daytrip

• Daytrip was founded in 2015 because its founders believed that there had to be a better way to travel between cities. The startup offers private transfers with English-speaking drivers and optional sightseeing stops.
• Over the years,Daytrip’s growing network of over 7,000 drivers has helped over 850,000 people transform their travel day into a holiday. On top of that, Daytrip has maintained a 5-star rating on Tripadvisor and expanded its operations to more than 110 countries worldwide.

Traveling is picking up again and in fact, data show that American travelers are about to take as many, or even more international trips in 2024 compared to last year. People are looking to explore countries they were not able to travel to during the pandemic, they are more willing to spend their money on unique travel experiences and immerse themselves into the local cultures. And Daytrip is ready to help them achieve that,

Markéta Bláhová, Co-Founder and COO of Daytrip, comments.

Who are the investors?

• Taiwania Capital is the lead investor this round. It is a venture capital firm that establishes partnership with worldwide companies and to boost Taiwan’s economic growth. The fund invests in Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and other Central and Eastern European countries.
• Euroventures, one of the longest-established and leading independent private equity and venture capital firms in Central Europe, participated as an existing investor along with J&T Ventures, an early-stage Prague-based Venture Capital fund, and N1, a Czech-founded early-stage focused VC fund.

What’s next?

The latest funding round will support Daytrip in further building the platform, expanding its operations in new countries including the United States, and establishing strategic partnerships with key industry leaders.