• Founded in 2019 by Estonian entrepreneurs Martin Rand, Kaspar Korjus, and Kristjan Korjus, Pactum develops a solution using advanced mathematical models, cognitive science, negotiation techniques, and intelligent bots to digitally engage third parties and negotiate mutually-benefiting contracts, leading to better pricing, payment terms, and supply continuity.
• The company is based in Mountain View with engineering and operations in Estonia. Pactum also claims that its autonomous bots can contact thousands of suppliers simultaneously seeking the best pricing and terms for routine corporate purchases in logistics and a wide range of other sectors. Among its clients are Maersk, Walmart, Vodafone, and Veritiv.

Who supported the investment?

• The fresh round was led by Tallinn-based Karma Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, specialised in late seed and A round investments in Europe’s deep-tech software startups.
• An existing Vienna-based venture capital group 3VC also participated in the round, together with Atomico, a European Venture Capital firm headquartered in London, with offices in Paris, Berlin, and Stockholm, Project A, an early-stage tech investor with offices in Berlin and London, an Estonian VC fund SuperAngel, and a Budapest-based Portfolion, the venture capital and private equity arm of OTP Bank Pactum.

The investment round brings its total fundraising to $55 million. In December 2022, Pactum raised €19 million.

Pactum will use the funding round to accelerate additional research and development into autonomous negotiations, refine autonomous negotiation tools specifically for procurement teams, and develop initiatives to help upskill procurement professionals.

About Denxpert

• Denxpert is an EHS & Sustainability and ESG management consulting and software as a service provider with over 15 years of experience in the Sustainability, Environment, Health & Safety field. Its main focus is to provide organizations a one-stop-shop that enables swift and hustle-free management of applicable EHS&S legislations, obligations and optimized processes.
• Among its clients are over 500 companies worldwide (MOL, Telekom, Mercedes, E.On, Vantage DC, Rauch, PPF, Vienna Airport.

Denxpert plans to meet an exponentially growing market demand, as changing social and business expectations and various EU and national regulations require companies to publish more detailed and transparent sustainability data than ever before. I consider this seed round to be outstanding not only for its scale, but also for its market message, signalling the recognition of the increasingly prominent role of ESG in business,

Róbert Szücs-Winkler, CEO of denxpert, said

Investment details

• Sofia Angels Ventures, a €13 million venture fund backed by EIF for angels and private co-investment and headquartered in Sofia, led the current round. In November 2023, Sofia Angels Ventures joined a €9 million round for German AI startup Retorio.

Sofia Angels Ventures joins €9M round for German AI startup Retorio

• The Budapest-based Obuda Uni Venture Capital, a fund focusing on deep tech, AI, robotics and medtech startups and early stage ventures also participated. This is the first investment by ÓUVC, founded in 2023.

The fresh investment will help Denxpert meet the growing demand for detailed and transparent sustainability data, especially with the new EU regulations (CSRD) arriving, and expand internationally.

• The company was co-founded by serial entrepreneurs Martins Vaivars and Arturs Prieditis in 2023. It develops an AI-based solution allowing users to track their competitors. Every week users receive an update with the most important competitor insights, including changes in pricing, product changes, new hires, regulatory issues, clients, suppliers, tech stack, regulatory challenges, media mentions, and corporate filings.
• Currently, RivalSense uses over 80 sources for their weekly updates, including competitor websites, social media accounts, financial filings, and business databases.

Ask any founder, and they will say that properly following competition is a big pain and they would prefer not to do it all. But doing it is indispensable, since it helps with product direction, sales and hiring. We are creating a simple, appealing, self-service SaaS product out of a complex, expensive, enterprise-focused product category. Founders and executives can now be up to date with everything in their space while spending less than 5 minutes per week,

Martins Vaivars CEO, co-founder at RivalSense, commented on its product.

• The fresh funding round was led by the Tallinn-based Change Ventures that invests in founders from Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, and the Baltic diaspora around the globe. Its investments range between €100,000 and €500,000 in pre-seed stage technology startups.
• The Budapest-based VC fund Fiedler Capital and local business angels also participated in the financing.

RivalSense plans to use new investment funds to expand its clients’ base and and introduce additional AI capabilities to uncover competitor insights.

• Founded in 2016 by Zsolt Somogyi, Parkl develops a mobile app for digital parking and EV charging services tailored for office buildings and companies. The app offers secure, cashless parking at hotels, apartments, and shopping centers. It also provides convenient street parking and helps users find the nearest electric vehicle charger.
• Parkl offers 10,000 parking spaces in 40 office buildings and 700 charging points. In addition, the startup partnered with various several firms, including Wolt, Mastercard, Microsoft, Wallis Motor, Central European Startup Awards, Restu, and Green Go.

The deal details:

The leading investor in the round is Lead Ventures, a Budapest-based venture capital firm. It focuses on Central Europe and invests in sectors such as mobility, energy, sustainability, B2B services, and software, with investment ticket sizes ranging from €1 million to €10 million.

Lead Ventures’ investment plays a key role in driving momentum for Parkl’s services across Europe, helping companies achieve more efficient property management and making life easier for office building operators, tenants and employees alike. We would like to say thank you to Absolvo Consulting as well, for supporting the deal through professional transaction advisory,

Parkl Digital Technologies’ team, commented.

With a capital investment, Parkl plans to to scale up the digital mobility services and to finance its growth strategy. Additionally, the startup plans to become the dominant digital service provider of the office market abroad.

• DiffuseDrive was co-founded by Balint Pasztor and Roland Pintér. The company develops a tool for computer vision developers that generates synthetic data, annotates it, and enhances model performance through data exploration. The startup’s tool is designed to address the challenges of data scarcity in AI-driven computer vision projects.

• According to the company, its solution enables developers to create customized synthetic data and perform advanced annotations, improving the efficiency and accuracy of their models. In November last year, DiffuseDrive joined 500 Global’s Flagship Accelerator in Palo Alto, a four-month program that further accelerated their growth.
• 500 Emerging Europe led the current round. It is a venture capital firm focused on helping European startups to scale globally. It is part of 500 Global which has over $1.8 billion in assets under management.

The new funding will support further development of DiffuseDrive’s technology and expansion of its global presence. 

• Co-founded by Armands Liseks and Kristaps Veinbergs, inGain is a B2B fintech company that provides a lending solution for traditional and fintech lenders, SME lenders, crowdfunding platforms, and businesses in non-finance industries looking to launch and scale their lending and financial products. inGain claims it enables businesses to focus on their core operations without the hassle of IT management.

• Its no-code SaaS loan management system serves both secured and unsecured installment and credit line loans, as well as subscription, rent-to-own, and other fintech products. These services are available to consumers and businesses across various industries, online or offline, and payments can be made in cash or via transfer.

Let’s take one of our clients as an example. It is a store chain in Switzerland that sells various expensive musical instruments. The most popular product is the piano. Some parents are ready to buy a piano, but what happens if they spend several months trying to persuade their kids to play the piano, but their kids still refuse to play it? It is with this kind of situation in mind that the seller would like to offer piano leasing. For parents, this means that the payment for the musical instrument will be higher. However, this also gives them two options — either the piano is eventually purchased in full or can be returned to the seller at any time. What happens if a potential buyer visits a bank and informs that he would like to buy a piano? How can the bank offer leasing for the piano? Most likely it will advise the customer to use a credit card or take out a consumer loan with 20% interest, which makes no sense whatsoever,

Armands Liseks, inGain co-founder and CEO, explains.

• The fresh round was co-led by the Estonian seed-stage venture fund Trind VC and Fiedler Capital, a Hungarian VC fund investing in a pre-venture, leading or co-leading pre-seed and early seed stages.
• The Latvian Business Angels network and several undisclosed business angels also participated in the funding.

inGain plans to use the freshly raised money to finish work on its no-code self-service platform.

About Captiwate

• Founded in 2024 by Krisztian Berecz, Captiwate is a company that provides live user activity insights for engaging with website visitors through chat and video calls. Captiwate’s solution aims to predict this by analyzing the time spent on the website and activity (clicks, scrolling, reading time) based on different patterns.

• The company has a team of five people that is working on the launch of a minimally functional and salable version of their product on the market at the beginning of May. Their solution is basically sold and developed for startups and service providers (e.g. banks, insurance companies) that have a large basket value, and therefore target more business customers.

Investment details

• The fresh round was led by a Hungarian and US-based Interactive Venture Partners that has recently announced the launch of its new €50 million fund, Oktogon Ventures and Fiedler Capital, Budapest-based VC funds for startups from Central and Eastern Europe, and Cloudbreak VC, a San Diego-based private equity fund.
• Tamas Kadar, Csongor Biás, Jared Schrieber, Zsolt Kocsmárszky, Bence Toreky, Zoltán Ács, János Pereczes also participated in the investment as business angels.

The startup claims this amount raised would be enough for roughly 2 years, but Captiwate wants to go to the market within a year and raise a next round with renowned international investors in order to accelerate scaling.

• Interactive Venture Partners is a US-based fund and fund management company, complemented by a Budapest-based team. Interactive Venture Partners provides early-stage investments in companies across industries in CEE, preferring some technology-based differentiation.
• The initial capital commitment of the fund is €50 million. For now, the fund has already made 6 investments, two of which were already announced: Mitzu.io and Captiwate. The fund will announce further investments soon.

We offer entrepreneurs US family office style investing with founder-friendly terms, mentoring, a long-term view, quick decision making, deep financial capacity for follow-on funding (if appropriate), as well as an international network,

Laszlo Czirjak, Managing Partner, Interactive Venture Partners, stated.

• According to Interactive Venture Partners, it supports startups seeking to grow by gaining access to larger markets and to a broader network. Additionally, Interactive Venture Partners is an affiliate of the Interactive Brokers Group of Companies, and its managed fund is supported by entrepreneur Thomas Peterffy, founder and Chairman of Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. 

The team of Interactive Venture Partners also claims that their mission is to create entrepreneurial wealth in the region, encourage more serial entrepreneurship, attract more institutional investment, and thereby bolster and grow the CEE startup ecosystem.

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.

• Co-founded in 2020 by Bence Zwecker, Albert Wettstein, Kirill Perepelica, and Botond Zsoldos, Munch offers a food management platform for restaurants, bakeries, hotels, supermarkets and other stores to sell surplus food. The platform helps businesses to make food management sustainable from an environmental, social, and economic point of view, enabling clients to reduce food waste and also profitable losses.
• The startup saved over 800,000 food packages from going to waste, resulting in the prevention of nearly 2 million kilograms of CO2 emission. In September 2023, Munch raised its seed round led by Fiedler Capital and joined by multiple VCs and angels.

• The fresh Series A round was led by Piton Capital, a venture capital and growth equity firm headquartered in London which invests in businesses with network effects. The firm makes investments ranging from €200,000 to €20 million, since inception it has invested in over 50 businesses, primarily in Europe.
• Other investors included FJ Labs, a stage-agnostic venture fund headquartered in New York City, and existing investors Hungarian Fiedler Capital, Czech impact fund Tilia Impact Ventures, Slovenian fund Silicon Gardens, and angel investors.

Along with the investment, Munch also announces the launch of its operation in Romania, led by Alexandru Turcanu. The startup aims to bring more partners and save even more food from going to waste.

• 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.

• Founded by Thomas Percy, Qneiform aims to revolutionize recruitment by using advanced AI to enhance accuracy and completeness in talent data. The startup basically provides recruitment professionals with a tool to identify ideal candidates for their job openings.
• Additionally, Qneiform claims its not only enhances efficiency but also transforms the approach to identifying and recruiting key talent. The startup has offices in Budapest, London, and the Netherlands.

Who invested in Qneiform?

The lead investor in this round is Samen Slimmer, an Amsterdam-based venture alliance that focuses on investing in and developing European businesses that leverage AI to revolutionise industries. It is formed by:

• Dutch Founders Fund, a Dutch pre-seed venture fund;
• Keen Venture Partners, a venture seed to Series B-dedicated capital firm;
• and Slimmer AI, an AI-focused venture studio based in the Netherlands.

At Slimmer AI we and our Samen Slimmer alliance partners teamed up with Thomas to realize his vision for an amazing AI-powered platform – going beyond the industry’s most accurate and complete talent dataset, towards advanced insights and workflow functionality to give recruiters superpowers,

Slimmer AI’s team commented on the investment.

• For Sammen Slimmer, the investment in Qneiform is the first venture within the alliance.

This association of investors further plans to provide not just financial support but also access to AI technology and development assistance, enabling startups to realize their visions.

• Launched in 2022 by Dominik Mate Kovacs, Kristof Szabo, and Zoltan Kovacs, Colossyan develops a platform that allows users to create videos from text using AI. Using a text prompt, the user can upload presentations, documents, or audio to create a certain video. The solution is focused on Learning and Development (L&D) creators.
• Colossyan’s solution has already attracted 2,000 clients across 46 countries, including Porshe, Vodaphone, Paramount, and BMW. According to the startup, its Learning and Development text-to-video technology, powered by advanced Generative AI, reduces video production time from weeks to under 30 minutes.
• The round was co-led by Lakestar, a European VC firm that invests in tech companies, along with continued support from existing investors such as LAUNCHub, Day One Capital, Emerge Education, and various angel investors.

Colossyan is dedicated to democratizing knowledge with affordable, interactive video creation, rapidly responding to consumer feedback. Our partnership with Lakestar is a significant step in revolutionizing video production and doing so quickly to meet the growing demand for interactive learning,

Dominik Mate Kovacs, commented on the investment.

Almost a year ago, Colossyan raised the first $5 million investment for its Series A round.

The current investment will help the startup to further develop and expand its solutions, continuing to offer tailor-made solutions in digital learning and communication.

• Founded in 2016 by Michal Blak and Rahim Blak, edrone builds an e-commerce CRM with marketing automation and voice commerce. The company claims to cater to a dynamic sector of hundreds of small and medium enterprises frustrated with the lack of value generated with existing solutions.
• The startup claims, in 2023, it doubled revenue in Brazil and improved sales efficiency and NDR (Net Dollar Retention) in Poland. In 2020, the company received the round from VC investment partners at Portfolion – a series Pre-A investment of $2.5 million. In 2022, the startup received an additional Series A funding.

The investment details:

The investment was led by INventures, a Poznan-based VC fund specializing in strategic consulting, helping companies improve their core business areas. edrone is the fund’s ninth investment. Existing investors PortfoLion, Mueller Medien, and Atmos was also joined the investment.

Our first round with PortfoLion Capital Partners helped us become metric-driven and revise our business model. The next with Atmos Ventures and Müller Medien GmbH & Co. KG forced us to think about scale-up and discover the Ideal Customer Profile. The third with #InVentures will allow us to scale the business with much better efficiency on verified markets,

Michal Blak, CEO and co-founder od edrone, commented on the investment.

The Board of Directors, which includes Michal Blak and Maciej Serafin, will be supported by the Supervisory Board, represented by: Katarzyna Dąbrowska, president of INventures, Tibor Győrbiró, partner at PortfoLion, Michael Amtmann, head of Mueller Medien New Business, Sami Moughrabie, founder and Managing Partner at ATMOS Ventures, Steen W. Sorensen, owner of VarsoGroup.

edrone will use the funding mostly to expand the Brazil branch and hire new employees, at least doubling the company’s headcount in Brazil.

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.

• Founded in 2009, Naco Technologies develops, manufactures, and supplies nano coating technologies coatings for equipment used in the tooling, automotive, aerospace, and micro-chip industries. Its products include oil-enhanced, wear-protective, thermal-barrier, and liquid-repellent coatings.
• In 2015, Naco Technologies was acquired by the Germany-based Schaeffler Group. In 2023, Naco Technologies opened a pilot production plant dedicated to coating hydrogen system components. It also received €10 million from the European Innovation Council Accelerator, consisting of a €2.3 million grant further topped with investment capital.

• The current round was co-led by Impact Ventures, Hungarian VC fund focused on impact-driven projects within the EU, and the Untitled Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund that invests in startups from the Baltics, CEE, and CIS in agritech, medtech, robotics, data management, and other industries.

“At Impact Ventures, our focus is on empowering companies that drive significant environmental and societal impact in the EU. Investing in Naco Technologies aligns perfectly with our mission, as they play a crucial role in advancing green hydrogen technology,”

Gergely Iváncsics, Investment Director of Impact Ventures, commented on the investment.

• With the new funding, Naco Technologies plans to scale operations internationally and foster global partnerships and client relationships, particularly with electrolyzer and fuel cell manufacturers. In addition, the company plans to expand its R&D facilities and enhance the team.

• The first Nova Post office is located in Budapest at 1066, Teréz. körút 8;
• Customers can receive and send documents, parcels, and cargo up to 100 kg to Ukraine;
• The branch works every day. The delivery time from Ukraine to Hungary is from 5 days, and the cost is:
  • Documents — UAH 250;
  • Parcels up to 2 kg — UAH 400;
  • Parcels up to 10 kg — UAH 600;
  • Parcels up to 30 kg — UAH 1,200;
  • Cargo from 30 to 100 kg — UAH 40 per kilogram.

The company added that delivery by Nova Post couriers to any address throughout Hungary is also available. Customers can order a courier through the website or mobile application and pay for it additionally + UAH 100 for shipments up to 30 kg or + UAH 250 for every 100 kg.

Earlier, Nova Post expanded to Latvia, opening a branch in Riga. The company’s website also contains information that Italy, France, and Austria will be the following countries to be launched.

• Commsignia specializes in the research and development, manufacturing and distribution of cooperative intelligent transportation systems. Its product line includes a V2X Communication Software Stack and Commsignia’s own security stack implementation, Hybrid V2X/ADAS Safety Applications, a V2X Simulator, On-Board Units (OBU) and Roadside Units
• The company was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Currently, the company has mass production deals with multiple automotive OEMs and also partners with global automakers, including Volkswagen2, Audi of America3, and Ford4.
• The fresh round was co-led by:
  • Hungarian PortfoLion Capital Partners, that recently joined $13 million round for deskbird, a workplace management company.
  • Finnish Inventure. In August this year, it led $7.4 million seed round for local satellite provider ReOrbit.
  • Day One Capital, Budapest-based VC firm that recently joined €25.5 miilion investment for Hungarian biotech Turbine.
  • Inference Partners, London-based venture capital firm investing in the infrastructure software of the future.
• Partech, Credo Ventures, and Karma Ventures also participated. The round sees LG Electronics joining as a strong strategic partner along with existing strategic investors Samsung Catalyst Fund and Qualcomm Ventures. 
• Commsignis wants to strengthen its leadership and expand into new markets.

• deskbird develops software for workplace management, providing a comprehensive solution for hybrid businesses. It helps to manage desk sharing, coordinate employees’ return to the office, optimize space requirements, and save costs on rent and energy. 5,000 offices worldwide use deskbird, including Schaeffler, Unicef, Vitra, Heineken, and Thyssenkrupp.
• The round was co-led by ALSTIN Capital, a German agnostic independent venture capital fund, and AVP (AXA Venture Partners), a global venture capital firm that invests in high-growth, technology-enabled companies. Existing investors, such as Swiss-based session.vc, Rivus Capital with offices in London, Munich, Berlin and PortfoLion, Hungarian all-stage venture capital and private equity firm.

“With the smart software solution from deskbird, the question “Who sits where in the office?” is no longer relevant. Hybrid workplaces can be organised quickly, making flexible working even easier. A great new-work start-up that allows both companies and their employees to benefit to the maximum,”

Carsten Maschmeyer from ALSTIN Capital, stated.

• With the fresh round deskbird aims to expand the market within Europe and other regions, including the USA. The company also intends to use the financing round to further develop its product.

• iBar Experience develops an AI-driven inventory app that integrates into restaurant management software to provide a fast, accurate, and convenient solution for keeping inventory with a photo-based approach.
• With the help of AI, the app enables bartenders to measure the volume of any bottled drinks with only one photo of the leftover spirit. For dark bottles, kitchen products, or kegs, iBar offers bluetooth scales.

“This significant investment milestone will fuel our expansion plans and empower us to take our cutting-edge inventory management app to new heights. With the additional resources, we will enhance our team and further develop our application to meet the evolving needs of businesses worldwide,”

the company shared the future plans.

About the investor

Hiventures is the lead investor in the company. It is a Budapest-based venture capital fund management company, part of the Hungarian MFB Group. The fund invests across all sectors and stages with tickets of up to €3.5 million and the goal to build a sustainable and competitive entrepreneurial ecosystem in the CEE region

• Axoflow was founded by Balázs Scheidler, Ferenc Hernádi, and Sándor Guba. It is a platform that helps businesses control and improve their data supply chains. This allows companies to maximize their observability investments. Axoflow has been designed to optimize the entire machine data lifecycle, a critical aspect for both traditional and cloud-based environments.
• The company leverages the power of syslog-ng. Some features include encryption for data in motion and at rest, retention of original data for compliance, and role-based access control with region policies.
• Earlier, Axoflow received a $400,000 investment from angels.

Investors in this round include:

• Credo Ventures, Prague-based venture capital company focused on early-stage investments in Central Europe. Among its recent investments are participation in €17.3 million round for ElevenLabs, and $11 million for Resistant AI. To date, in October 2022 Czech Credo Ventures closed its fourth fund of €75 million.

• Istanbul-based VC firm, 500 Emerging Europe, that invests in pre-seed and seed rounds in Emerging Europe, with first tickets as high as €2 million.
• Notion Capital, London-based venture capital firm focused on high-potential businesses in the cloud computing and SaaS markets.

The company aims to finalize PoC, onboard new flagship customers and become a category definer in the space over the next 12–18 months.

• Prefixbox was founded in 2014 by Istvan Simon. The startup focuses on e-commerce, messaging, product search, retail technology, SaaS, search engine, and semantic search. Using its fully managed search, recommend, and insights solutions, Prefixbox aims to improve the shopping experience for increased conversion rate and revenue.
• Since launching, the team of Prefixbox has grown from 2 to 41 people. The company claims it has almost 650 million API requests per month on its website. The fresh funding round follows five prior rounds, bringing Prefixbox’s total funding amount to $4.82 million. 
• Euroventures, Budapest-based leading independent private equity and venture capital firm, led this round. Currently, the firm manages two funds (Euroventures IV and Euroventures V Coop) and targets innovative, growing companies.

• Among its latest investments is €10 million round for Hungarian-founded software startup Antavo. 
• The fresh funds will be used to boost the company’s tech stack and expand its footprint in the global retail market. 

• Munch was founded in 2020 by Bence Zwecker, Albert Wettstein, Kirill Perepelica, and Botond Zsoldos. In November 2022, the company merged with Czech-based app Nesnězeno, co-founded by Jakub Henni.
• Munch offers a food management platform for restaurants, bakeries, hotels, supermarkets, and other stores to sell surplus food. The platform helps businesses to make food management sustainable from an environmental, social, and economic point of view, enabling clients to reduce food waste and also profitable losses.
• The startup claims that it has saved over 800,000 food packages from going to waste, resulting in the prevention of nearly 2 million kilograms of CO2 emission. Munch also has its charity project that deliver food to those who need it.
• The investment was led by Fiedler Capital, a Budapest-based venture capital firm. Among its investments is ＄1.5 million round for Latvian startup Trace.Space. To date, Ljubljana-based Silicon Gardens, an early-stage VC firm that aims to empower Slovenian startups such as local Muffin, also participated.
• Munch will use the investment for further expansion across the CEE region and beyond, encompassing countries such as Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, and others.

• Founded in 2015 by Dániel Veres, Kristóf Zsolt Szalay, and Szabolcs Nagy, Turbine builds a platform to understand the inner mechanisms of cancer. The company uses its proprietary Simulated Cell technology in combination with AI and ML to build a faster and deeper biological understanding of therapeutic targets.

“Turbine’s platform overcomes the limitations of traditional drug discovery approaches by combining cell simulation and machine learning to uncover novel cancer therapies and the patients most likely to benefit from them. We believe Turbine’s unique approach has tremendous potential to guide biopharma R&D in a new direction,”

Anvesh Ramineni, Managing Partner at MMV, comments.

• MassMutual Ventures (MMV) provided the additional funds. The funding adds further US-based investors to the company’s financing syndicate consisting of Mercia Fund Managers, Accel, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Delin Ventures, and Day One Capital among others.
• Alongside the funding, Turbine announced the appointments of four directors to its board.
• The fresh funds will be used to advance Turbine’s internal pipeline of simulation-guided programs. The company will also scale its biology simulation platform to support additional partnerships.

• Founded in 2019 by Marton Bati and Mark Csonka, Greenstic is a distributor and contract manufacturer of disposable, eco-friendly restaurant packaging materials, containers, and cutlery. In 2022, the startup started its international expansion by establishing a subsidiary in Romania and a franchise partnership in Slovakia, under the new brand identity of Greenstic Europe. The company aims to become the leading eco-conscious packaging supplier in Central Europe. 
• The Budapest-based Hiventures, part of the Hungarian MFB Group, is one of the largest venture capital firms of Central and Eastern Europe. The fund invests across all sectors and stages up to €3.5 million. Hiventures is committed to a sustainable and competitive entrepreneurial ecosystem in the CEE region.
• Greenstic plans to use the fresh investment to expand its manufacturing and logistics capacities and broaden its product range and customer base in Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.

• Proofminder was launched in 2021 by Ambrus Vancso, Norbert Havas, and Levente Simon. Proofminder’s platform provides various micro-level actionable insights on plant, including plant stress, stand count, weed detection, nitrogen or weather damage analysis, precise yield assessment. The startup claims it help growers estimate, calculate and improve all that visible on the field across the season. 
• Among the startup’s clients are such companies as MAS Seeds and Bonafarm Group. To date, it has already covered over 1000 ha by involving partners like drone operators in the monitoring process.
• The investment round was led by the Budapest-based VC fund Impact Ventures. It focuses on supporting and investing in social SMEs in Europe with strong growth potential, addressing areas of social inclusion, education, employment, health and environmental sustainability.
• Proofminder aims to scale up its solution and to multiply the annually covered arable land by 10, covering diverse plant types like for example field crops, orchards and trees. Also, it plans to increase a 10x growth in revenue.

• The ESNA is a forum of the EU governments that was created in 2021 to maintain and develop startup-friendly policies. Monitoring the progress and sharing best practices in policy areas, such as changing national rules on stock options or tech visas, are among its goals. To date, ESNA has nine members — Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain.
• The ESNA’s entry prerequisite is signing the EU Startup Nations Standard of Excellence (SNS). It is a list of recommendations for governments on implementing startup-friendly policies. So far, 26 EU governments and Iceland signed the declaration. Viktor Orban’s conservative government isn’t among them.
• The reason for Hungary’s refusal is one of the clauses in the declaration that mentions gender diversity. The clause states that the governments need to pay attention and act on supporting diversity and inclusion in their startup policies. Basically, the governments are recommended to encourage startups to hire people regarding diversity of ethnicity, gender, religion, age, and sexual orientation.
• On April 6, the Hungarian government confirmed that the problem in the clause is the wording of “diversity of gender.” For years now, the conservatives of the country have been promoting “traditional social values”, promoting discrimination against minorities and opposing the term “gender.” It seems that these policies may now also affect the Hungarian startup ecosystem.
• However, the Hungarian startup ecosystem is on the rise, Sifted writes. In 2022, the Startup Hungary’s report showed 60% increase in raising capital in comparison to 2021 — it is over €180 million in total. At the same time, startup founders claim that there are regulatory issues, such as bureaucracy, not favorable tax and stock option regimes, which obstruct their startups’ growth.

Testing is the leading specialization

The largest number of Polish women (14.9%), Hungarian (13.6%), Ukrainian (22.1%), and Czech women (19.6%) found their careers in Testing. 

• The top 5 most popular technologies are:
• SQL in the highest positions.
• HTML follows as the second most choice.
• CSS is also popular with female programmers.
• JavaScript is the fourth most popular,
• followed by Python as the fifth.

Only Dutch women broke the pattern and chose paths related to programming — Frontend (11.8%) and Fullstack (9.75%).

Women in IT and their salary

The majority of female IT specialists (27.5%) earn about PLN 4500 — 7000 (€950 — €1500) monthly. In turn, as many as 17.4% of respondents said that their optimal wage should be around PLN 7000 — 9500. Only half of them admitted (56.8 %), that they are satisfied with their current salary.

Interestingly, as many as 66% of IT specialists from Poland admitted to not knowing the wages of their male colleagues. This shows a lack of visibility, that led to, according to No Fluff Jobs, women in the European Union earning on average 13% less than men.

The wage gap among male and female IT specialists is most prominent in Ukraine (18.25%), followed by Hungary (17.2%), Czech Republic (16.4%), the Netherlands (14.2 %), and lastly Poland (4.2 %).

Other professional challenges

Other than wages, the IT specialists in Poland most often mentioned other challenges including taking care of well-being and coping with stress (43%), decreased motivation (42%), and the changing economic situation in the world (26%). 

The biggest challenge for women from Ukraine (66%), the Czech Republic (46%), and Hungary (46%) was taking care of their well-being and coping with stress. IT specialists from the Netherlands most often complained about the decrease in motivation (34%).

About No Fluff Jobs

No Fluff Jobs is a top European IT job board portal. It is based in Poland, but also operates in Ukraine, Hungary, Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. The platform strictly requires employers to publish a salary bracket in every advertisement.

• Founded in 2020 by Dominik Mate Kovacs, Kristof Szabo, and Zoltan Kovacs, Colossyan develops a platform that allows users to create videos from text using AI. Using a text prompt, the user can upload presentations, documents, or audio to create a certain video. The solution is focused on Learning and Development (L&D) creators.

• The startup offers two subscription plans. Its basic plan is for simple video makers. And the enterprise range is for professional videos. The prices are tiered depending on the number of minutes users can generate. 
• LAUNCHub Ventures led the round. It is a Bulgaria-based early-stage VC actively investing in SEE&CEE tech startups in Seed and Series A stages. Recently, the funds participated in the round for Transmetrics and co-led the investment in Veridion.
• Another main investor this round is Emerge Education. It is a European early-stage venture capital specializing in L&D startups.
• Colossyan will use the fresh capital to grow its engineering and AI research teams. It will also expand its services further across London and New York. 

• Founded in 2017 by Bence Jendruszak and Tamas Kadar, SEON develops software to detect fraud in real-time through transactional data analysis. Its software uses ML and human intelligence algorithms to collect information about transactions, integrates with a device fingerprinting module, and combines email verification and IP address analysis. It allows businesses to detect and eliminate fraudulent activities, and maintain data security.
• SEON is based in Budapest, with commercial headquarters in London, UK. Last year, the startup raised $94 million in a Series B funding round led by Silicon Valley-based IVP.

“Less than a year on from our $94M Series B, we’re executing on our mission to fight fraud and combat money laundering… Rather than building an AML solution from the ground up, it made perfect sense for us to acquire Complytron’s extensive and innovative algorithms and worldwide databases – as well as the expertise of its talented team,”

Tamas Kadar, co-founder and CEO of SEON, commented.

• Complytron was launched by Oliver Lebhardt, Abris Gryllus, and Zoltan Varju in 2019. It develops AML/KYC screening tools such as sanctions monitoring, PEP checks, artificial intelligence, and machine learning-based network analysis to provide a probability assessment of any online connection to a network of high-risk legal entities for businesses of all sizes.
• SEON claims that the acquisition was made in reaction to the need for reliable AML solutions as the world prepares for a political and humanitarian environment that is becoming more and more unstable. The acquisition will allow increasing their total addressable market by approximately $6 billion. 
• Under the deal, SEON will receive full ownership of Complytron’s technologies as well as its personnel, including its specialized AML team. Oliver Lebhardt, co-founder and CEO of Complytron, will join SEON together with Abris Gryllus, co-founder and UX lead.

• Founded in 2016, Talk-a-Bot develops chatbots that help conduct corporate communications. Its AI-based system automates the internal and external communication of companies. Essentially, it makes communications more streamlined, turning digital business conversations into secure, app-like services for both customers and employees.
• The startup has its own proprietary communications tool — CHEQ. Talk-a-Bot’s multilingual bots natively support over 100 languages and are built from over 30 integrable function modules. The startup claims that the bots help achieve at least 85%-95% response accuracy rate.

“Our solution has created a significant market and new service in Hungary and is now used by more than 100 international and domestic companies. We expand abroad in order to support the digitalization of the CEE corporate life, especially the manufacturing sector,”

Akos Deliaga, Founding Managing Director of Talk-A-Bot, comments.

• Széchenyi Capital led the funding round. It is one of the largest and most active investors in the Hungarian capital market. It manages assets of more than €385 million, including 80 portfolio companies.
• With the fresh funds, Talk-a-Bot isnow planning to expand further in the CEE market, taking up a leadership role in the space.

CEE startups are initially focusing on international markets. Product companies are included in global industry rankings. Outsourcing companies work with clients from all over the world. At the same time, there is a very limited amount of available verified and regularized information on the CEE tech scene in English. In this text, AIN.Capital is committed to filling the gap with tech events in the CEE region.

AIN.Capital has selected the most important and largest IT events in Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland that will be held in 2023. Visiting these events will introduce you to the CEE technology scene, will help you find employees, clients, startups, investors, press coverage, useful acquaintances, and much more.

Have we missed any events? Let us know: lp@ain.ua

• Founded in 2016 by Kristof Szalay, Ph.D., Daniel Veres, M.D., Ph.D., and Szabolcs Nagy Turbine develops an AI-based platform that simulates tumor cell behavior in patients to understand the complex mechanisms driving the disease. Simulations can reveal the right modality and combination approach to treat even the most resistant cancers. 
• The technology enables to select the right preclinical models, as well as the right patients to confirm the predicted mechanisms, targets, biomarkers, and combinations.
• Turbine is headquartered in London, with offices in Budapest, Hungary and Cambridge.

“The idea sprung from our frustration that conventional experiments frequently lead to expensive and time-consuming drug development failures. We’re poised to demonstrate that simulations not only reveal new ways of treating cancer, but increase the likelihood of success at every single step of the drug development process,”

Szabolcs Nagy, chief executive officer and co-founder of Turbine said.  

• The fresh round was led by the UK proactive venture capital investor Mercia that has a portfolio of over 400 startups from across all sectors, specializing in software, consumer and life science investments, biotechnology, digital healthcare, and medical devices. The second leading investor was a strategic investment fund MSD Global Health Innovation from pharma giant Merck & Co that evolves corporate healthcare venture capital by utilizing their healthcare ecosystem strategy.
• Day One Capital and some of Turbine’s existing investors, Accel, Delin Ventures, and XTX Ventures also joined the round.
• Turbine will use the investment to drive its next generation, potential first-in-class programs targeting DNA damage repair, and to transform key aspects of the oncology drug discovery and development process.

• Founded in 2015 by Laszlo Kishonti, aiMotive develops a software, tools, and hardware products complemented by proprietary data management tools, enabling customers to rapidly develop and deploy production automated driving features. It helps to reduce development costs and timescales.
• aiMotive’s technology product portfolio is focused on four key areas within artificial intelligence and autonomous driving:
  • aiDrive: Embedded software stack for autonomous driving,
  • aiData: Artificial intelligence operations and data tooling,
  • aiWare: Expertise and intellectual property for silicon microchips,
  • aiSim: Software simulation for development of autonomous driving.

• The startup has offices in Germany, the United States, and Japan, with over 200 employees worldwide.
• Stellantis is one of the world’s leading automakers, and a mobility provider. Among its brands are Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, Vauxhall, Free2move, and Leasys.
• This acquisition will enhance Stellantis’ artificial intelligence and autonomous driving core technology, expand its global talent pool, and boost the midterm development of the all-new STLA AutoDrive platform. 
• aiMotive will operate as a subsidiary of Stellantis, maintaining its operational independence and startup culture. Founder László Kishonti will remain as CEO. It will continue selling three areas of its current technology product portfolio, including aiData, aiSim and aiWare, to other partners.

• Founded in 2020 by David Kertesz, Kornel Kalman, Zsofia Toth, and Krisztian Putti Volteum develops a software with which fleet operators can optimize their vehicle every day. The product can model and predict the energy consumption and the battery state of charge, plan optimal trips for the vehicles, and manage the daily tasks of the fleet.
• Volteum goal is to enable every company to use EVs as easily, effectively and economically as internal combustion engine vehicles. The company claims that the solution will help to save money and loads of human resources, manual calculations, and planning with the algorithms.
• The fresh round was led by Budapest early-stage technology investor Day One Capital. The firm seeks to invest in the computer hardware, software, mobile, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology sectors. Techstars, Oktogon Ventures, Fiedler Capital also joined the investment. 
• Volteum plans to spend the fresh capital to expand in the United States and Canada, and to enter the package delivery market. Also, the company plans to expand the range of available functions, for example for fleet operators. 

• Headquatered in London, Antavo was founded in 2012 by four Hungarians, Andy Nemes, Zsuzsa Kecsmar, Attila Kecsmar, and Andras Bencsik. The startup develops a no-code, API-centric platform that makes the loyalty program experience fully customizable and empowers loyalty and marketing teams to run their program internally, without IT help. 
• Among Antavo’s clients are such global companies as BMW, KFC, La Cage, Kathmandu, Luisaviaroma, and BrewDog.

“Antavo saw incredible growth last year, which, along with the dynamic loyalty program landscape change, brought us to a rebranding as Enterprise Loyalty Cloud. This refreshed position better encompasses the company’s goal and the support of our investors in our Series A round means we can continue to develop a powerful, world-first SaaS loyalty product that encourages and nurtures lasting brand love through differentiation and unique lifestyle engagement.”

Zsuzsa Kecsmar, co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Antavo, comments. 

• The round was led by Bucharest-based venture capital firm Euroventures. The firm seeks to invest in medtech, big data, security, internet of things and technology sectors. Hungarian Lead Ventures, iEurope, and Polish Innovation Nest also joined the round. 
• Anvanto intends to use the funds to speed up growth and its international presence, to proceed reinvesting in its expertise for omnichannel capabilities and integration with extra apps and platforms. 

• Founded in 2015 by Barbara Fazekas, Kristof Bardos, and Peter Langmar, Green Fox Academy provides online and offline courses for junior programmers and Salesforce specialists. The company focuses on retraining courses, additional education programs, and corporate training programs in the IT sector. 
• Green Fox entered the Czech market in 2018, followed by Slovakia two years later. To date, since establishment, Green Fox has trained more than 4,000 IT specialists, and headquartered in Budapest, Prague, and Bratislava.
• Founded in 2014, Bratislava-based Sandberg Capital is a private equity firm. The company prefers to invest in IT, agriculture, retail, telecommunication, and education sector companies based in Slovakia and Czech Republic.
• The acquisition of a stake in Green Fox Academy is Sandberg Capital’s direct investment in Hungary. After the transaction, Sandberg Capital assumes the role of strategic investment partner in Green Fox Academy. The companies do not disclose the amount of the deal.
• The fresh deal will help to accelerate Green Fox Academy international expansion and to develop corporate services and courses.

• Founded in 2012, Primal Game Studio is an independent game studio that have worked on various titles for partner studios, including products in the League of Legends universe for Riot Games. 
• Over 3,600 backers have already supported on the Primal Game Studio’s Kickstarter campaign. It will end on October 25. The funding will be used for development of the company’s upcoming side-scroller RPG title Mandragora. 

“We’re incredibly excited about the support we’ve received from our community. It’s been great to see how many of our fans want to be a part of the development process, and we’ve been receiving amazing feedback on what we’ve shown of the game so far,”

Zoltan Zsuffa, CEO at Primal Game Studio, said.

• The development of Mandragora began in 2016 after what producers called an “inspiring” trip to Ireland. The game will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
• Primal Game Studio announced that Mandragora’s Kickstarter campaign has been fully funded alongside its first three stretch goals: unlocks 5th and 6th playable classes, develops new game Mandragora, and additional features. 

• Founded in 2014 by Zoltan Visy and Balint Mero, Redmenta is an online self-grading worksheet app that helps teachers to create and evaluate test sheets. It is also suitable for internal company training of employees. 
• After the COVID-19 pandemic started and the demand of online education increased, the company has grown from 200,000 to 1.3 million registered users. Now approximately 250,000 people are using the app monthly. Founders claim that Redmenta helps students and teachers to save time and energy with assessments and assignments.

“It’s a good base for us that we already have 250,000 monthly active users on our system, and it’s not only popular in public education but also supports the training of employees in many places, from small businesses to the country’s largest employers to government,”

says Zoltan Visy, co-founder and CEO of Redmenta.

• The lead investor of the stratup’s €140,000 pre-seed round is Peter Csillag, who recently sold his own company, Starschema, and became the president of the Hungarian Business Angel Association (HunBAN). It is his first educational technology investment.
• The fresh investment will support Redmenta in scaling its business globally. The startup is also planning to increase the team, as well as to meet the needs of professional institutional and corporate environments, providing a system for new partners.

Methodology

We applied the same methodology, as we used in preparing rankings of the most active Polish, Baltic, and Finnish venture capital funds. Firstly, to create the list of top Hungarian backers, we analyzed the investment activities of all active VCs in this country for the period from January 2022 to June 2022.

After that, we chose those that made one or more investments in startups in the first half of 2022, and conducted a survey among them. Relying on their answers, open source information, as well as Dealroom.com and Crunchbase data, we chose 10 backers that have led or joined at least one round in the six months of 2022. 

This ranking consists of profiles of the 10 most active Hungarian VC funds and shows information on the number of investments they made in total and within the period mentioned above, funding focus, ticket sizes, management team, and recently closed deals.

1. Hiventures

• Number of investments: 280+ / 6 of them in H1 2022
• CEO: Bence Katona
• Fund size: €420 million
• Region: Hungary
• Industries: sector agnostic
• Investment stages: early to late stages
• Ticket size: €50,000-€3.5 million

Hiventures is one of the largest Hungarian funds that invests exclusively in the local startup ecosystem and has around €258 million under management. The fund invests across all sectors and stages up to €3.5 million. In exchange for a minority share in a company, its portfolio gets access not only to funding, but also to a wide network of mentors.

Recent investments: Sweet City, Briefly, roboGaze.

2. Day One Capital

• Number of investments: 41 / 6 of them in H1 2022
• Managing Partners: Csaba Kakosy and Gyorgy Simo
• Fund size: €34 million
• Region: CEE
• Industries: e-commerce, ML, AI, marketing, cybersecurity, remote reality
• Investment stages: seed, Series A
• Ticket size: €300,000-€2 million

Day One Capital is an early-stage technology backer, investing in technology-driven B2B software companies. The fund supports teams from the CEE region on their global scaling mission. Apart from the funding, Day One Capital provides founders with strategic, operational, and financial support.

Recent investments: Websippy, Material Exchange, Synnada.

3. Oktogon Ventures

• Number of investments: 21 / 4 of them in H1 2022
• General Partners: Veronika Pistyur and Gyula Feher
• Fund size: €10.1 million
• Region: CEE
• Industries: commercial service, software, and SaaS sectors
• Investment stages: early stages
• Ticket size: €150,000 and it goes up in follow-on rounds

Oktogon Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Budapest. The firm seeks to make minority seed-stage, early-stage, and later-stage companies. The firm prefers to invest in commercial service, software, and SaaS sectors headquartered in Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, and Bulgaria.

Recent investments: FLIT invest, Deligo, AEY.

4. PortfoLion

• Number of investments: 54 / 3 of them in H1 2022
• CEO: Andras Molnar
• Fund size: €250 million (€100 million Digital Fund I and II, and €150 million Regional Private Equity Fund I and II)
• Region: CEE
• Industries: sector agnostic
• Investment stages: from pre-seed up to Series C
• Ticket size: €500,000-€15 million

PortfoLion is an all-stage CEE venture capital and private equity firm. It has been active since 2010 and has 31 companies in its portfolio. PortfoLion manages assets valued at €440 million, which comprises six funds, including PortfoLion Digital Fund I and II, and PortfoLion Regional Private Equity Fund I and II for later investments. The firm also does buyouts in the agriculture and digital technologies sectors.

Recent investments: Ontotext, SEON, Mindgram, FLOWX.AI.

5. Euroventures

• Number of investments: 51 / 2 of them in H1 2022
• Managing Partner: Peter Tanczos
• Fund size: €180 million
• Region: Hungary, Central Europe
• Industries:  medtech, big data, security, and IoT, milk industry, wine production
• Investment stages: seed to growth stages
• Ticket size:  €1 million-€5 million

Budapest-based Euroventures is one of the longest-established and leading independent private equity and venture capital firms in Central Europe. Currently, the firm manages two funds (Euroventures IV and Euroventures V Coop) and targets innovative, growing companies. The fund has invested in around 50 businesses, many of which have been successfully exited.

Recent investments: Hunch, Daytrip, Prefixbox, Logiscool.

6. Lead Ventures

• Number of investments: 14 / 2 of them in H1 2022
• Founder and CEO: Ábel Galácz
• Fund size: €100 million
• Region: Europe, CEE
• Industries: sector agnostic with preferences in mobility, energy and sustainability, as well as b2b services and software
• Investment stages: seed, Series A
• Ticket size: €2 million-€5 million

Lead Ventures invests in scale-up companies whose product/service has been validated by the market and typically earns sizeable revenues. Beyond funding, it supports portfolio companies with experience and business network.

Recent investments: PublishDrive, Bindr.

7. Unity Ventures

• Number of investments: 11 / 2 of them in H1 2022
• Founding Partner: Zoltan Fuzesi
• Region: CEE with a focus on Austria, Hungary, and Poland
• Industries: internet, mobile internet, and electricity supply
• Investment stages: early stages
• Ticket size: €100,000-€2 million

Unity Ventures is an early-stage investment fund and an impact investment catalyst. The firm focuses on companies able to generate impact, be it societal, environmental, and economic. In 2016, the firm launched Unity Ventures Lab to prototype the future of impact finance in CEE by their strategy of evangelizing, innovating, and investing.

Recent investments: KingSi Power, Leekr Technology.

8. Solus Capital

• Number of investments: 43 / 1 of them in H1 2022
• General Deputy CEO: Zsolt Katona
• Fund size: €50 million
• Region: Hungary
• Industries: sector generalist
• Investment stages: from early to growth stages
• Ticket size: up to €3.5 million

Solus Capital is a venture capital fund that is currently managing two funds that have assets under management amounting €50 million. Solus I primarily invests in innovative Hungarian startups and scale-ups in the fields of electronics, robotics, photonics, materials technology, bionics, packaging technology, chemical industry, light industry, construction, logistics. Solus II finances SME from edtech, govtech, medtech, sportstech, digital economy, IT-security, and the most modern innovations (5G).

Recent investments: PhoenixOrthosis.

9. OXO Ventures

• Number of investments: 16 / 1 of them in H1 2022
• Managing Partner: Peter Oszkó
• Fund size: €50 million
• Region: CEE
• Industries: sector agnostic
• Investment stages: pre-seed, seed, and Series A
• Ticket size: €200,000-€5 million

OXO Ventures is a venture capital asset management company. It provides multi-stage funding from €200,000 and up to €5 million per project in the form of equity or convertible note financing. The company focuses on technology driven startups at early or growth stages with great potential. Besides equity funding, the firm also performs partial or full buyouts.

Recent investments: Gloster, iconicchain, Vilhemp, HackRate.

10. Bonitás

• Number of investments: 14 / 1 of them in H1 2022
• CEO: Gábor Kiss
• Fund size: €40 million
• Region: Hungary
• Industries: generalist with preferences in agrotech, healthcare and biotech, clean and renewable energy, sustainable environment, advanced vehicle and other machinery technologies, infocommunication technologies and services
• Investment stages: early stages
• Ticket size: €500,000-€3.5 million

Bonitás is currently investing from its second fund Bonitás KTA II. It is aimed to support innovative projects in the product development or MVP phase, ready for market entry, suitable for international expansion. The Bonitás KTA II is willing to buy a partial stake in the company upon entry (up to 50%), in addition to which it intends to finance the company’s growth efforts with new capital.

Recent investments: Biopesticide.

• Founded in 2019 by Balint Orosz, Craft develops a platform with a set of digital tools for managing and creating different types of documents. The product allows users to generate customized long emails, PDFs, Word documents among other formats, for all screen sizes, as well as to create shared spaces for the team work.
• In 2021, Craft Docs won a Mac App Of The Year award. Currently, it has over one million installs from customers in the US, UK, Japan, and Germany.

“Craft is a significant evolution in the world of docs. We enable our customers to create an entirely new type of document format, which is powerful, beautiful and shareable. Our $12.2m raise demonstrates the confidence in the quality and growth potential of Craft. The investment allows us to continue building out our team with the very best talent, which is a very strong position to be in,”

Balint Orosz, founder and CEO at Craft, said.

• The Series B of funding follows an $8 million Series A round closed by Craft in April 2021. It was led by the current investors Creandum and InReach Ventures, with participation from the co-founder of Skyscanner Gareth Williams. 
• According to Crunchbase, with the fresh funding, the total amount of investments in the company raised to $20.2 million. 
• The company’s product solutions are available for individual and corporate use. Craft stated that its product is already widely used in the marketing, engineering and human resources field. The proceeds will support the company in further improving its products for iOS, Mac, Windows, and web, as well as to expand its business offering. 

Liki24.com has had international ambitions since its very foundation. According to the founder and CEO, Anton Avrinskyi, the team has initially set a goal to build a global business operating in many markets and allowing millions of people to purchase medicines cheaper.

The first country was Poland in July 2020

The team also thought about the United Kingdom, but finally, they decided on the Polish market based on the following:

• far less cost of launch;
• it’s a neighbor of Ukraine;
• Poland is the fastest-growing nation in Europe.

In the Forbes interview in July 2021, Avrinskyi said that the Polish market is different from the Ukrainian; it’s less consolidated, more regulated, and conservative. However, there are also positive changes. In 2020, Poland implemented a united electronic prescription system simplifying drug delivery and logistics.

At the moment, Liki24 has its delivery service in Warsaw. Postal delivery is also available countrywide. Recently, the Polish logistics company InPost has installed 70 parcel lockers with fridges in Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, and Lodz. As a result, users can quickly and safely get their medicines that require a particular temperature during transport and storage.

The next goal was Romania

New markets to expand were selected in three steps; the market analysis has been performed together with one of Liki24.com investors — Genesis Investments. After all, they chose a country with a relatively small drug market characterized by low competition, so in July 2021, the company arose in Bucharest.

Nowadays, Liki24.com has its own courier services in Bucharest and Constanța, providing delivery to all cities. The company is working on extending the local geography of the service availability to launch the 30-minutes express delivery, which is very popular in Ukraine.

Liki24.com is promoted in Romania via contextual ads on Google, Facebook, Instagram, and through influencers. However, word-of-mouth marketing is still the best.

The service is user-friendly and helps people solve a row of problems: granting access to high-quality goods, saving time and money, becoming popular from user to user, and the last is the best promotion. Several local media paid attention to Liki24.com in their releases.

According to the company representatives, after six months of its operation in the market, its turnover increased more than ten times in Romania.

In the past year, Liki24 also launched the courier service in Budapest, the capital of Hungary

The company reps said that currently, the team works on legal issues without disclosing any figures.

Drug delivery is one of the most regulated and legislation-sensible industries in Europe. For example, a law effective January 1, 2021, significantly changed the meds delivery format in Hungary. That’s why our legal team now works there hard to find an optimal solution within the current legislation.

In 2021, Liki24.com had over 300,000 users in Poland, Hungary, and Romania

The numbers speak for the demand. Another good news for us is that the repeat purchase rate hit 70%: users test our service, like it, and purchase meds and healthy goods again at our platform, the company reps said.

The main trend Liki24 can confirm for all three countries is increasing online purchases of drugs and wellness goods, home delivery, and online booking.

Currently, the company is focused on scaling and developing the platform in operating markets. Further foreign expansion is not ended, but still, there are many things to be researched in different countries, not only within Europe.

• According to the company, about 100 restaurants have already joined Rocket in Hungary, while in Spain, there are over 250 ones. During the launch stage, there is no delivery charge.
• In the new markets, Rocket couriers will use electric vehicles as well as bicycles to minimize air pollution and noise.

• The company also continued its expansion in France and started operating in Marseille. It is already Rocket’s fourth city in the country.
• Today Rocket covers eight European markets (Ukraine, the Netherlands, Greece, Cyprus, France, Portugal, Spain, and Hungary) and a total of 44 cities. Cyprus was the first country outside Ukraine where the service was launched. In April 2021, Rocket entered the Dutch market. During the year, it launched delivery in Greece, France, and Portugal.

Shapr3D, $6.5 million

Shapr3D has raised a $6.5 million Series A funding from top European early-stage venture capital firms Point Nine and Creandum (one of the original investors in Spotify). 

Shapr3D is a direct modeling tool with an intuitive 3D modeling user interface on a tablet device. Perfect for engineers, industrial designers, jewelry makers, 3D hobbyists, architects.

BitNinja, $2.5 million

BitNinja has raised $2.5 million in Series A round. The round was led by Lead Ventures, Oxo Technologies Holding, and previous investors Octogon Ventures and the founders of Balabit. 

BitNinja is an easy-to-use server security tool that can be installed on a server in minutes and it is virtually maintenance-free. 

BOOKR Kids, $2.4 million

BOOKR Kids has raised $2.4 million in new funding and another $2.4 million in convertible notes. The round was led by Bonitas, a private venture capital fund.

BOOKR Kids is a unique reading-based edutainment tool, designed to engage and delight the youngest learners in reading. The company offers a digital format of classical and modern stories with animation, narration, text highlighting, and special educational games.

AerinX, $2.3 million

AerinX has raised $2.3 million in pre-Series A funding round. The round was led by Takarék Venture Capital Fund I, managed by Dutch-Hungarian VC company DBH Investment. 

AerinX has developed a cutting edge solution that revolutionizes the way skin inspection is carried out for airplanes. 

Green Fox Academy, $1.5 million

Green Fox Academy has raised around $1.5 million from Impact Ventures. They have received a total of $1.6 million in funding over two rounds. 

Green Fox is aimed to make non-programmers into programmers in four months and then help their successfully graduated students to find a job. 

Founded in 2015 by Dorka Horváth and Dani Karányi, BOOKR Kids is a unique reading-based edutainment tool, designed to engage and delight the youngest learners in reading. The company offers a digital format of classical and modern stories with animation, narration, text highlighting, and special educational games. It is designed for 3-11-year-old children to improve their literacy skills, reading comprehension, and English as a second language through well-known pieces of literature and texts written by educational experts, linguists, and language teachers.

The investment will help develop more innovative content and a more comprehensive curriculum. Also, the company wants to bring its BOOKR literacy program to the global education market. To date, the company has educational partners in Turkey, Greece, Spain, South Korea, Singapore, Germany, and the US.

TIER, $250M

The German micro-mobility company TIER has completed a $250 million Series C investment round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Existing investors Mubadala Capital, Northzone, Goodwater Capital, White Star Capital, Novator, and RTP Global also joined the round. Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg is also among the TIER investors. 

Launched in 2018 by the CEO Lawrence Leuschner, Julian Blessin, and Matthias Laug, TIER provides electric scooter ride-sharing services that mission is “to change mobility for good”.

InnovaFeed, $167M

InnovaFeed, a biotech company, has received $167 million from existing investors Creadev – an evergreen investment company operating worldwide, and Temasek – a global investment company headquartered in Singapore.

Founded in 2016 by Aude Guo, Bastien Oggeri, Clement Ray, and Guillaume Gras, InnovaFeed is a biotech company that produces a new source of protein from insect rearing for animal feed and aquaculture in particular.

SME Finance, $95M

Vilnius-based SME Finance has received $95 million in funding from the European Investment Bank. It is the largest investment awarded by EIB to a fintech lender.

Founded in 2016 by Audrius Milukas, SME Finance is the largest non-banking alternative financing company in the Baltics. SME finance helps businesses to grow by providing non-standard factoring solutions to small medium-sized enterprises.

Skeleton Technologies, $48.5M

Tallinn-based Skeleton Technologies has raised $48.5 million in Series D round. The round was led by existing investors such as EIT InnoEnergy, FirstFloor Capital, MM Grupp, and Harju Elekter with participation from leading European industrial investors and a group of entrepreneurs.

Founded in 2009 by Chairman Oliver Ahlberg and CEO Taavi Madiberk, Skeleton Technologies is the global technology leader in ultracapacitor energy storage in automotive, transportation, grid, and industrial applications. The company is aimed to decrease emissions and fuel consumption, improve power quality, and to power electrification to fight climate change.

IQM Quantum Computers, $45M

Espoo-based IQM Quantum Computers, the European leader in building superconducting quantum computers, has raised $45 million in Series A funding. The round was led by MIG Fonds with participation from all existing investors including Tesi, OpenOcean, Maki.vc, Vito Ventures, Matadero QED, and some new investors such as Vsquared, Salvia GmbH, Santo Venture Capital GmbH, and Tencent.

Founded in 2018 by CEO Jan Goetz, COO Juha Vartiainen, CTO Kuan Yen Tan, and Chief scientist Mikko Möttönen, IQM delivers on-premises quantum computers for research laboratories and supercomputing centers and provides complete access to its hardware. For industrial customers, IQM delivers quantum advantage through a unique application-specific co-design approach. 

Razor, $30M

German startup Razor has closed a new $30 million Series A round. $12 million will be contributed by the existing investors including Alexander Kudlich, founder of 468 Capital, Florian Leibert, founder of Mesosphere, Presight Capital, Global Founders Capital, and Redalpine VC funds, another $18 million – came through debt financing from Claret Capital.

Razor Group is a consumer holding that acquires and scales merchants’ brand stores that sell on Amazon. It was founded in August 2020 by Tushar Ahluwalia and Jonas Diezun, Headquartered in Berlin, Razor already has offices in London and New Delhi, and employs 35 people.

Tourlane, $20M

Berlin-based traveltech startup Tourlane has raised an additional €16.8 million as an extension of Series C funding round, closing it at €56 million. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, DN Capital, and HV Capital, as well as both founders, also joined the round.

Founded in 2016 by Julian Stiefel and Julian Weselek, Tourlane develops a planning and booking platform for multi-day tours, offering customized experiences and expert travel consulting. 

KINEXON, $18M

Munich-based hardware and software developer KINEXON has got an $18M venture debt loan from European Investment Bank. The transaction is supported by the European Fund for Strategic Investments.

KINEXON’s expertise is in sensor network development, edge computing, and real-time process automation. Its real-time localization technological solutions are used in production and logistics, as well as in professional sports enabling in-depth performance analytics, injury prevention, and fan engagement.

Vivid Money, $18M

German fintech Vivid Money has closed a €15 million Series A funding round that pushed its valuation to €100 million. Leading investor is the US Ribbit Capital VC fund.

Vivid Money is a challenger bank that develops financial platform and mobile banking app that helps customers save and invest their money. It was launched by Alexander Emeshev and Artem Yamanov, previously worked as executives for Russian Tinkoff Bank, in June 2020.

BOOKR Kids, $2.4

BOOKR Kids, the leading digital publishing company of interactive books in Central and Eastern Europe, has raised $2.4 million in new funding and another $2.4 million in convertible notes. The round was led by Bonitas, a private venture capital fund.

Founded in 2015 by Dorka Horváth and Dani Karányi, BOOKR Kids is a unique reading-based edutainment tool, designed to engage and delight the youngest learners in reading. The company offers a digital format of classical and modern stories with animation, narration, text highlighting, and special educational games.

4.5.6 Skin, $825M

French startup 4.5.6 Skin has secured $825 million in a Seed round led by  Be Angels and French entrepreneurs including Fotolia and eFounders Thibaud Elziere, Julien Romanetto, and Frédéric Montagnon and Benoit Koerperich. 

4.5.6 Skin is a beautytech that designs customised skincare products for people with melanin-rich skin.

Kodit.io, $115M

Finnish real estate startup Kodit.io has raised $115 million in a combination of equity and debt. The round was led by Nordic real estate investor NREP.

Founded in 2017 by CEO Kalle Salmi, Kodit.io is a proptech company that builds AI-powered real estate data platform that delivers fast cash offers to home sellers and offers home buyers ready-to-move-in apartments.

GetYourGuide, €114M

Berlin-based startup GetYourGuide has raised €114 million in convertible note financing led by the private investment firm Searchlight Capital.

Existing investors SoftBank Vision Fund, KKR, Battery Ventures, Highland Europe, Spark Capital, Lakestar, Heartcore Capital and NGP Capital, as well as the company’s own founding team also participated in the round.

Founded in 2009, GetYourGuide is the online marketplace and booking platform for travel experiences.

DANCE, €15M

Berlin-based startup DANCE has closed a €15 million Series A investment round led by German VC firm Holtzbrinck Ventures.

Founded by CEO Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss, Alexander Ljung and Christian Springub, DANCE is an e-bike subscription service where users pay a monthly fee that covers their bikes and provides an all-inclusive support package. 

Limehome, €10M

Munich-based Limehome has raised additional €10 million, bringing its Series A funding to a total of €31 million. Investors include Holtzbrinck Ventures, Lakestar, Global Growth Capital and Picus Capital.

Limehome is hospitality startup that offers designed suites in German and Austrian cities and provides customers with an easy-to-use digital access system.

edrone, $5.3M

Fintech edrone has raised $5.3 million – $2.5 million was received as a part of the Pre-A Series investment round carried out by the Hungarian VC fund PortfoLion. The rest of the sum is a grant from the National Center for Research and Development.

edrone is the eCRM designed for e-commerce. The startup provides marketing automation solutions based on customer intelligence algorithms that are aimed to help to understand customers behaviour and engage them with all-in-one e-commerce marketing cloud. 

HomeDoctor, €3.7M

Polish healthtech company HomeDoctor has closed a €3.7 million Series A round led by Cogito Capital Partners.

Founded in 2016, HomeDoctor is a digital provider of online medical consultations and healthcare services to patients’ home that operates in B2B2C and B2C models.

BitNinja, $2.5M

BitNinja, an integrated server defence system, has secured $2.5 million in Series A round led by Lead Ventures with participation from iEurope, Oxo Technologies Holding, and previous investors Octogon Ventures and the founders of Balabit. 

Founded in 2014 by CEO George Egri and Head of Marketing Viktoria Vereb, BitNinja is an easy-to-use server security tool that can be installed on a server in minutes and it is virtually maintenance-free.

Soleadify, $1.5M

Bucharest-based Soleadify has raised $1.5 million in a Seed round led by European venture firms GapMinder, Venture Partners, and DayOne Capital with participation from some business angels through SeedBlink.

Soleadify develops a search engine for businesses and business data. The company helps to find the target market in seconds and to contact the right decision-makers to increase chances for successful outreach campaigns. 

Warren.io, $1.4M

Tallinn-based cloud computing startup Warren.io has raised $1.4 million in a Seed round. The leading investor was London-based early-stage VC firm Passion Capital, Lemonade Stand and some angel investors also joined the round.

Warren.io is a high availability and decentralized cloud management platform based on machine learning algorithms for regional infrastructure service providers.

Founded in 2014 by CEO George Egri and Head of Marketing Viktoria Vereb, BitNinja is an easy-to-use server security tool that can be installed on a server in minutes and it is virtually maintenance-free. The company uses the technology called a defense network, which allows every BitNinja protected server to learn during the attack and share the learned information with the central server. The company is aimed to make the internet a safer place.

With the raised funds, BitNinja will improve its new products and bring them to the market. In addition, they want to expand their team and get international fundraising.

George Egri, CEO and co-founder of BitNinja, said:

“We would like a USA based lead investor in the Series B round, which we plan to reach in the next 1 or 2 years.” 

ICEYE, $87M

ICEYE, a SpaceTech startup, has raised an $87 million Series C round of funding. Into account, the funding round is significantly larger than originally planned, which is especially notable in the economically unstable 2020.

The round was led by True Ventures – a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology startups, with participation from OTB Ventures.

 ICEYE is a world-leading SAR data provider. The company is building and operating its own commercial constellation of radar imaging satellites, with SAR data available to global customers since 2018.

Bitpanda, $52M

Vienna-based fintech Bitpanda has closed a $52 million Series A funding round, the largest Europe’s Series A round of 2020.

The round was led by Valar Ventures with participation from Vienna-based VC Speedinvest.

 Bitpanda is a popular trading platform for Bitcoin, Ethereum, gold, and over 30 other digital assets with more than 1.2 million users and 190 team members. As the company declares, it is aimed to provide easy-to-use, safe and trustworthy access to any digital assets for both new and experienced users.

Cosmose, $15M

Warsaw-based martech Cosmose has attracted $15 million in a Series A funding round pushing its valuation to more than $100 million.

The round was led by Tiga Investments, with the participation of OTB Ventures, TDJ Pitango funds, as well as investors from India, Israel and Singapore.

Cosmose develops a data analytics platform that predicts consumers’ offline shopping behaviour. The company gathers anonymous mobile user IDs and precise geolocation data that shows customers’ real behaviour in stores.

Shapr3D, $6.5M

Shapr3D has announced a $6.5 million Series A funding. To date, Shapr3D has raised a total of $7.3 million in funding over four rounds.

The round was led by top European early-stage venture capital firms Point Nine and Creandum (one of the original investors in Spotify).

Shapr3D is a direct modeling tool with an intuitive 3D modeling user interface on a tablet device. It is easy to learn and easy to use. Perfect for engineers, industrial designers, jewelry makers, 3D hobbyists, architects.

Mercuryo.io, $2.9M

Tallinn-based startup Mercuryo.io, a crypto wallet and BTC acquiring services for business, has closed $2.9 million seed funding.

The seed round was led by Target Global.

Mercuryo.io is known as a technologically developed state that has a legal definition of cryptocurrency status as an alternative means of payment. Mercuryo`s mission is to introduce cryptocurrencies into daily life and allow people to handle their crypto transactions casually.

VersaBox, $2.9M

Warsaw-based smart robotics company VersaBox has announced the completion of a $2.9M funding round. 

The investors are the Polish VC funds Fidiasz EVC, SpeedUp Energy Innovation, Movens VC and RST Ventures for Earth.

VersaBox develops robots and digital solutions for logistics. Its AUTONOMY@WORK system allows customers to implement and manage intralogistics processes, such as transport of goods and products within companies, production facilities, or warehouses.

Turing College, $1.4M

Turing College, a Lithuanian Edtech startup, has received $1.4 million.

The funding was from a very successful cybersecurity company Tesonet, an e-commerce startup Omnisend, a video gaming firm Unity Technologies LT, and Startup Wise Guys with participation from the EU Research and Innovation Fund.

The goal of Turing College is to become the leading education platform for top IT specialists in the Northern and Eastern European regions. The company is planning to spend the proceeds on a new study program of Data Science.

OQUDA, $1M

Nur-Sultan-based educational market network platform OQUDA has attracted $1 million from business angel Marat Tolibaiev.

OQUDA develops a SaaS platform for selling educational programs through distributors, as well as automating customer support at the post-sale stage.

The platform is aimed to help educational recruiting agencies to optimize customer management processes, freeing up to 50-70% of their time towards increasing sales. 

Linx4, $1M

The Vienna-based company operating one-stop equipment financing marketplace has raised a $1 million investment round.

The round was led by business angels including Rolf Steffens, Peter Oser, Markus Buncsak.

Linx4 provides a solution for usage-based and pay-per-use financing for Original Equipment Manufacturers.

Cartloop, $350K

Cartloop, an eCommerce startup, has raised a total of $350K in funding over 1 round.

It was a pre-Seed round led by GapMinder – a Venture Capital Fund, targeting IT Software and Services startups in Romania and CEE. Also, the round was backed by Tamas Cristian, the co-Founder of TypingDNA.

Cartloop is the human-engagement platform designed to delight and convert customers through 1:1 conversations. The platform is aimed to help e-commerce brands build customer relationships and increase sales by sending real-time messages.

• Barion Payment provides electronic payment solutions and serves as an electronic wallet. Established in 2015, the company has raised more than $7 million investment from HomeCredit and they have roughly 5000 merchants. From these, they have an ever-growing profile database of 1M consumers already. The company wants to repeat this success in all European countries, and grow to be one of the biggest payment providers in the world.
• HeatVentors is developing a thermal energy storage tank based on phase change material technology called HeatTANK. Established in 2017, the company is aimed to find efficient and environmentally friendly solutions for the arisen problems with thermal energy storage. The startup closed a seed round in 2018 and received funding in 2019 to boost its operations.
• BOOKR Kids is a unique reading-based edutainment tool. The Edtech was founded by Dorka Horváth and Dani Karányi in 2015 to create original, effective digital content for children, designed to engage and delight the youngest learners in reading. Nowadays, Bookr is the leading digital publishing company of interactive books in Central Europe.
• Rollet is simplifying parking payments. They are creating an automated payment method composed of the registration number of the car and the credit/debit card data. The parking facilities with the Rollet payment method will automatically identify the vehicle by its registration number at entry/exit and the app will calculate the expenses as well as pay the bill with the click of a button. In 2019, Rollet raised $1.1 million in seed funding from Hiventures Investment Fund and Solus Capital to expand internationally.
• Talentuno is a recruitment crowdsourcing platform transforming the way people find jobs and companies find talents through personal networks. Founded in 2016 as a marketplace where freelance matchmakers can source candidates and refer them to free positions, in exchange for high commissions for successful recommendations. In 2019 the startup has raised $4.7 million in Series A funding to go global.
• Conversific is an e-commerce analytics and conversion optimization SaaS tool that helps to grow your e-commerce store. It was founded in 2016 as a Business Intelligence platform aiming to analyze the data from online stores. Conversific helps brands and retailers help optimize traffic and conversion, gather better data, and grow online sales. Financially supported by Hiventures Investment Fund in 2018 and 2019, the startup reached more than 5000 e-commerce stores.
• ff.next is is a fintech startup, offering design-driven mobile banking apps for banks with a special focus on younger customers. These solutions enable banks to engage younger generations, Millennials & GenZ customers with design-oriented digital interfaces. In February 2019, the startup closed a seed financing round.
• NOW Technologies turns electric wheelchair control systems into a multipurpose, modular onboard platform. Founded in 2014, the startup has introduced four products: Gyroset Vigo (a wireless headset), Gyroset Glory (a proportional headset to control a computer, and drive wheelchairs with the same device), a headrest sensor; and an actuator direct controller. With $2.8 million in funding, NOW Technologies are well set to help people with disabilities live an independent life.
• Shapr3D is a 3D modeling app for the iPad Pro that brings a revolutionary 3D modeling experience. Perfect for engineers, industrial designers, jewelry makers, 3D hobbyists, architects. Founded in 2015 by Istvan Csanady, the startup has raised $7.8 million to expand internationally.
• Seon strives to help online businesses reduce the costs, time, and challenges faced due to fraud. Seon offers an intelligence tool, able to provide a complete user profile, flag fraudsters by simply entering an email address, IP, phone number, or location in the browser extension. Founded in 2015 by Bence Jendruszak and Tamas Kadar, Seon has raised $710K in investment so far.