About Signapse

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

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

Michal Sikyta, Investment Director at Soulmates Ventures, said.

Investment details

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

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

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

About Zen Educate

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

Investment details

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

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

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

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

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

About Reactive Technologies

• Reactive Technologies is a grid resilience technology company helping grid operators, electric utilities, and regulators transition to Net Zero and ensure resilient, renewable grids. Reactive claims its products, including the first-of-its-kind GridMetrix technology, bring transparency to grid operations by measuring grid inertia and other functions with 95% accuracy, a vast improvement over the projections and estimates they are replacing.

• The startup is backed by several global sustainability and tech venture and management companies, including M&G, BGF, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Eaton, Toshiba, and Accenture Ventures. Reactive Technologies is a 2022 Bloomberg New Energy Finance Pioneers winner.

Investment details

This investment from M&G along with our existing investors, BGF and BEV , marks another significant milestone for Reactive Technologies. As we deliver more projects to support the global transition to Net Zero, this backing will empower us to deliver at scale, expand our commercial presence internationally, innovate further, and make a real contribution to a clean energy future,

Marc Borrett, Reactive Technologies’ CEO, stated.

• The fresh funding was led by M&G’s investment from Catalyst, a £5 billion purpose-led private assets. The UK and Ireland growth capital investor BGF and Breakthrough Energy Ventures also participated in the deal as the existing investors. EKTA Partners acted as the financial advisor to Reactive Technologies on this transaction. 

The current funding will support Reactive’s global expansion initiatives and key hiring endeavors, as well as advancing the realization of its projects.

• Native Teams was founded in 2020 by Jack Thorogood and Alex Mitrevska. The startup specializes in providing work payment solutions, aiming to help individuals and businesses streamline global remuneration within a centralized platform. Native Teams has expanded to over 65 countries with a global team of more than 200 employees across their target markets.

Investment details

The round saw participation from several CEE-based funds:

• The Sofia-based venture capital fund Eleven Ventures, which supports tech companies from Southeast Europe;
• Fil Rouge Capital, a Croatian investment fund manager whose funds focus on early stage businesses from pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds of investment;
• MFG Invest, a group of angel, Begin Capital, a UK-based VC fund, and others also participated.

The market opportunity ahead of us is probably the biggest sector imaginable: redefining payments for work. This funding round lets our capital-efficient business take the next important steps as we serve ever-broader market segments, to a greater extent, and in a growing number of countries,

Jack Thorogood, CEO and co-founder of Native Teams, said.

Fresh investment will be used to enhance their financial services platform for better product performance in their key markets. Moreover, it will help the enhancement and expansion of their offering into the US, India, and wider Asian region. 

• Novus was founded in 2020 as a “neobank” that integrates financial services with event-driven positive impact initiatives. It enables users to monitor their carbon footprint and earn cashback for sustainable purchasing choices through its app, where customers can obtain rewards from 130 brand partners.
• In addition, its corporate model allows users to contribute to causes they feel connected to, with a portion of revenue automatically directed to an NGO of a customer’s choice upon the completion of any transaction.

Novus’ mission was to create impact through the lens of finance. Our vision was to empower all consumers and corporations to do well while doing good. With Paynetics’ expertise, we’ll amplify our mission and reach new heights,

Hristian Nedyalkov, CEO & co-founder of Novus, says.

• Paynetics is a licensed provider of end-to-end payment services. It enables non-financial companies to embed finance. The company offers individual and business accounts with dedicated IBANs and UK accounts, supporting SEPA credit, SEPA Instant, FasterPayments, BACS, and some local non-Euro settlements. It also provides virtual and physical Visa and Mastercard cards that are enabled for Apple and Google Pay with customisable branding.

According to the buyer, this deal underscores Paynetics’ commitment to advancing environmental, social, and governance goals while expanding the ESG ecosystem across Europe.

• Founded in 2022 by Viktor Levchenko and Danylo Orlov, Adsme is developing a technology that uses AI algorithms to analyze and predict the effectiveness of visual and text ads on Facebook and Instagram. These forecasts should help businesses use their advertising budgets more effectively.
• In 2023, Adsme raised a pre-seed funding round from Fidelity Family Office and Andryi Zaikin, founder of the YEP! Accelerator The round was aimed at enabling the startup to expand its operations and grow to $100 million in revenue per year over the next five years.

• Now, the startup gets fully acquired by JobCannon, which was also founded in 2022 by Ukrainians Peter Kolomiets, Alex Molodyk, and Andrii Cherednichenko. Since the launch, it has quickly grown from a small team to a company of 51 specialists with nearly 500 customers. Currently, the startup has headquarters in London.
• In early 2024, the startup raised $500,000 in a pre-seed round from Whitehill Capital, with the backing of the World Bank, to further develop its SaaS product with the implementation of artificial intelligence.

Acquisition details

Although the exact amount of the deal in undisclosed, the deal should not exceed $1 million according to Peter Kolomiets. The agreement will be financed in several tranches. Following the acquisition, Viktor Levchenko will join the JobCannon team as CTO.

The technological synergy of JobCannon and Adsme creates a powerful foundation for the global transformation of the recruitment market. Improving the AI component of JobCannon will increase the effectiveness of our products by making the candidate matching mechanism more accurate. The job tracking tool will significantly help attract new, most relevant customers with minimal costs, confirming that JobCannon is a reliable partner in the field of recruitment,

Andrii Cherednichenko, CMO and co-founder of JobCannon, shared.

Adsme’s AI technology will be integrated into the JobCannon recruiting platform and will improve the algorithm of “matching” candidates and recruiters.

• 1991 Ventures is a London-based seed venture fund founded by Ukrainian brothers, Denis and Viktor Gurskyi, who are better known for running incubation and accelerator programs inside Ukraine. The Gurskyi brothers previously backed more than 200 startups between 2016 and 2024, via their incubator Social Boost and their 1991 Accelerator.

• In 2019, the Gurskyis created 1991 Mariupol. It is a technology startup center, launched with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi present — served as an outpost of East Ukrainian innovation, giving the frontline port city hope. 

About the new 1991 Fund

1991 Ventures plans to invest in over 40 companies across the fund’s lifecycle and will build on the incubation and accelerator programs the Gurskyis have been running from Kyiv and now London, which have seen a third secure funding. It is also backed by UK’s limited partners Venrex and Samos Investments, early institutional investors in Seedcamp and Entrepreneur First. 

It’s very hard for Ukrainian founders to tap into London. So we would like to provide them with pre-seed or seed funding so that they can… access larger rounds in the future and understand how the U.K. can be a springboard to global funding,

Denis Gursky, founding partner of 1991 Ventures, commented.

Stellantis announced the purchase of the AI company on its website on January 24. Following the deal, 44 engineers and developers from CloudMade, who are engaged in the development of AI technologies, will join the Stellantis. CloudMade founder and CTO Jim Brown said they were “extremely pleased” with the deal.

Why does Stellantis need CloudMade?

“The acquisition of CloudMade will accelerate the development of STLA SmartCockpit and help achieve Dare Forward 2030 goals,” Yves Bonnefon, Chief Software Officer at Stellantis, said.

Thanks to this adaptable technology and leveraging our growing connected car parc, we will create intelligent mobility solutions faster and with more flexibility, to delight our customers with in-vehicle and mobile experience personalization.

Services and products will include:

• Predictive maintenance and diagnostics to proactively identify and schedule maintenance needs and provide alerts, thus enhancing vehicle availability.
• Personalized in-car experiences able to adapt to individual preferences such as climate control, driving style coaching and entertainment options.
• Stellantis-specific voice assistant enhanced with custom automotive skills to advise on car features, answer model-specific queries and optimize voice routing.
• Optimized mobile experience and remote commands such as pre-trip planning, battery preconditioning and other proposed activities, based on frequent driver’s behavior.
• Advanced navigation and mapping that will provide up-do-date maps, real-time traffic information and intelligent routing, thus improving the overall navigation experience and help customers reach their destination more efficiently.
• Targeted features for fleet management,which will allow business customers to optimize delivery schedules, reduce travel time and resource utilization, increase productivity and EV performance, and, ultimately, facilitate the monitoring and management of the overall fleet.

The Stellantis auto manufacturer corporation unites such car brands as Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, etc. Before the current deal, Stellantis acquired the Budapest-based software developer for artificial intelligence and autonomous driving aiMotive. The amount of the deal was not disclosed either.

About GlycanAge

• GlycanAge was founded in 2020 with the aim to commercialize the 20-year glycobiology experience of its co-founder Nikolina Lauc. The startup offers a cutting-edge biological age test that utilizes glycan biomarkers to enable early health risks prevention strategies for both consumers and healthcare professionals.
• The startup is based on the Human Glycome research project, which studies the critical role of glycans in the body’s biological functions, which may undergo changes in over 70 diseases. In some cases, studying these biomarkers can reveal vulnerability to certain diseases a decade prior to symptoms and diagnosis. 

We are thrilled to have the support of LAUNCHub Ventures and Kadmos Capital, who share our vision for a healthier future. This funding round marks a significant milestone for GlycanAge, and we are excited to continue our journey towards transforming healthcare and empowering individuals to take control of their well-being,

Nikolina Lauc, CEO of GlycanAge, commented.

Who are the investors?

The €3.9 million funding round was co-led by LAUNCHub Ventures and Kadmos Capital. This endeavor was aided by significant grant support, including a $140,000 grant from Mubadala’s accelerator program HUB71, and an additional $220,000 from an EU AI grant.

• LAUNCHub Ventures is a Sofia-based early-stage VC fund, supporting technology startups in the Seed and Series A funding stages across SEE and CEE. Its initial investments are between €300,000 and €2 million, leading investment rounds up to €4 million. Also, the fund oftentimes continue supporting the funding needs of its portfolio companies in future rounds.

• Kadmos Capital is a London-based Venture Capital Firm, focused on early stage investments in deep tech and impactful technologies.

Further plans

The fresh capital injection will help GlycanAge fuel the strategic shift from the longevity space to the broader diagnostics market. The funding will enable the company to establish a clear regulatory strategy and product pipeline.

• Founded in 2016 by Patrick Short, Charlotte Guzzo, and William Jones, Sano Genetics combines genetic testing, recruitment, and long-term engagement in one platform, accelerating and simplifying operations for precision medicine teams driving breakthroughs for patients. The startup connects patients in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia with pharma and biotech companies conducting clinical trials.
• The startup also drives trial recruitment processes with advertising via social media and healthcare providers. The platform can also be used to manage the various aspects of a trial, such as participant communication and returning results.

Precision medicine is going to transform how healthcare is delivered but it needs seamless software tools like Sano Genetics’ to accelerate its impact. My own experience in the difficulty of running clinical trials during my time leading HelixNano helped me understand profoundly just how sorely a platform like Sano Genetics is needed,

Carina Namih, partner at Plural, commented.

Who are the investors?

• The fresh investment was led by Plural, a European early-stage investment fund, based in Tallinn, London, UK. The firm is on the mission to drive GDP-level impact across the whole of Europe. Recently, Plural raised €400 million for its second fund, reaching €660 million in total.

• Other investors included MMC Ventures, a European venture capital firm with a focus on early-stage companies across sectors like enterprise AI, fintech, data-driven health, and cloud & data infrastructure.
• Episode 1, a London-based VC firm investing in B2B software startups at pre-seed and seed stages.
• Seedcamp, Europe’s major seed fund, who also participated in the round.

In 2022, Sano Genetics already raised £8.4 million in its Series A round. The current investment will help the startup meet the market demand and further automate its processes.

About ElevenLabs

• Established in 2022 by two Polish engineers Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowsk, ElevenLabs is a voice technology research company developing text-to-speech software for publishers and creators. Its features are powered by an in-house developed deep learning model for speech synthesis which realistically renders human intonation and can adjust delivery based on context.
• So far, ElevenLabs’ users have generated over 100 years of audio materials. The firm grew from 5 to 40 employees. According to Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs technology is currently being used by employees at 41% of Fortune 500 companies. 

Our ambition remains the same – to transform how we interact with content by breaking down language and communication barriers. We’re building cutting-edge technology to make content accessible across languages – and voices – to enable everyone to connect with information and stories that matter. Our progress so far is a testament to our dedicated team and investors, and while it’s still only the beginning of our journey, together we’re helping shape the future of accessibility and communication,

Mati Staniszewski, CEO and co-founder of ElevenLabs, said to EU-Startups.

Who are the investors?

• Prominent global investors Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross co-led the Series B round.
• Investment funds including Sequoia Capital, SV Angel, Smash Capital, BroadLight Capital also joined the round along with Czechia’s early-stage VC fund Credo Ventures, which has been supporting the startup since its pre-seed round.

What’s next?

Following the Series B round, ElevenLabs’ valuation has reached $1 billion in under two years making it another successful unicorn company founded by Poles. The company will utilize the fresh capital to further cement its position as the global leader in voice AI research and product deployment.

• Sky Engine AI is a generative simulation and deep learning platform that produces fully annotated synthetic data and trains AI computer vision algorithms in parallel at scale. The platform is architected to procedurally generate highly balanced imagery data of photorealistic environments and objects, and provides advanced domain adaptation algorithms.
• The company leverages synthetic data with applications ranging from AI Drones and UAV navigation, to crowd analytics, military simulation, and training to help companies get to market faster and with greater accuracy. According to the company, in the last 18 months it has tripled the revenue and scaled the team to over 40 members.

The list of investors in the round:

• Cogito Capital Partners, a Warsaw-based venture capital firm which supports growth of later-stage B2B tech companies from CEE in 3 key sectors: enterprise software, fintech, and healthtech.
• Edge, a VC firm from London which invests in seed and Series A stage UK companies in rounds of up to £5 million.
• Taiwania Capital, a venture capital which focuses on investing in technologies and biotech areas startups that are Taiwan or US-based with disruptive and advanced technology.
• Movens Capital, a Warsaw-based VC firm oriented on AI-driven companies, fintech, SaaS and platforms (marketplaces), deep tech, and industry 4.0 companies in Europe and the US.

We first invested in Sky Engine A in the 2021 seed round. It aligned perfectly with our focus on early tech startups with the link to CEE poised for European and global impact. With an exceptional team, led by Bartek Włodarczyk and Jakub Pietrzak , and a unique IP, Sky Engine AI is not just creating a product but pioneering a fundamental shift in how AI models are developed,

Artur Banach, Partner at Movens VC, commented on Linkedin.

• The list also included the German seed investor, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) which finances tech startups with growth potential and has already supported more than 700 startups since 2005.

Sky Engine AI will use the fresh capital to accelerate the startup’s growth as it helps data scientists, machine learning, and software engineers working on computer vision projects.

• Launched in March 2022 by Aiden Rushby, Amy McKechnie, Roman Sumnikov, and Ihor Hordiychuk, Carmoola identifies as a neo car finance company. While its main office is situated in London, most of its developers are based in Lviv, as indicated on the company’s LinkedIn profile.
• The company is transforming the complex car finance market by putting the power back in the hands of buyers and removing the knowledge imbalance that comes with traditional and outdated lending models. The company already boasts an average Trustpilot rating of 4.9 out of 5, from over 1,100 verified customer reviews.
• The significant raise follows an £8.5 million Series A round and a £95 million debt facility (both secured in February of 2023). Back then, the round was led by the current investors, US-based fintech specialists QED Investors, VentureFriends, and InMotion Ventures.

• New York-based AlleyCorp and Kyiv-based u.ventures are the new additions to the pool of investors. u.ventures, in particular, is the venture capital arm of Horizon Capital, focusing on early-stage deals with $15 million in assets.

Through our VC fund, u.ventures, we are glad to have joined Carmoola’s new round. Aidan Rushby thank you for having us! A UK-Ukrainian startup, Carmoola is an FCA-regulated, app-based used car finance lender in the UK, operating based on the direct-to-consumer business model. The company provides customers with a seamless, cost-efficient, and fully automated way to finance used car purchases in minutes and without a middleman,

Bogdan Svyrydov, Venture Director at u.ventures, commented.

• This investment takes Carmoola’s total funding to date to £146 million (including a £95 million debt facility).

• Gin was founded in 2022 in Reading, a suburb of London, by Ukrainian Maryna Vlasenko and Indian Rahul Pushp. Gin produces hybrid bikes for long-distance trips.
• The £510,000 investment from Toloka.vc will help to increases production and sales.
• Also, Toloka.vc is joining the startup’s board of directors. Due Diligence is conducted by Baker Tilly.
• The agreement contains a debt component, which means quarterly interest payments to investors.

Thanks to the investment, Gin is planning:

• to increase the production and sales to 200 units per month by the end of 2024;
• to expand into Polish and Ukrainian markets;
• to launch a cargo bike model specifically designed for delivery drivers (Glovo, Uber Food) and equip all bikes with carbon and folding frames to increase portability.

About Toloka.vc

The investor, Ukrainian syndicate Toloka.vc was founded by Oleksandr Kolb, Ihor Shoifot, and Taras Kyrychenko in May 2023. Its debut investment was approximately $1 million in US-based medical service Forta Health, which helps with the treatment of autism using AI.

• Fiat Republic was founded in 2021 by experts in fintech and banking, Adam Bialy, Martyna Lewinska, and Sophie Guibaud. The company develops a Banking-as-a-Service platform that lets crypto platforms easily embed and automate fiat flows for their end-users and their internal treasury teams.

“It’s great to back the best team in the Fintech/Web3 space, that wants to solve this problem. Why it matters? They provide what the Web3 industry needs, the entire layer of compliance, AML and security with access to multiple currencies, local payment rails and FX all via a single API. They reduce the risks and hassle related to using digital currencies including scams,”

Karol Lasota, Principal at Inovo VC, comments.

• The seed extension round saw first-time investments from the Polish venture capital firm Inovo VC, along with Kraken Ventures, Fabric Ventures, Arca, and Pretiosum Ventures.
• The new investors joined the cohort of existing investors like the Austrian venture capital fund Speedinvest, the Czech venture capital company Credo Ventures, and Seedcamp.

Fiat Republic will use the funds to fuel its growth and expansion in the key initiatives including strategic hires, strengthening banking partnerships, and expanding to new territories. The company also plans to improve the accessibility of the services on its platform.

• Founded in 2023 by Thanasis Mandaltsis and Aariffa Hajamaideen, Magic is a London-based GDPR-compliant identity network that allows organizations to exchange identity verification credentials among them while remaining fully compliant with data protection regulations.
• The Magic Network comprises three key components: AI-powered identity verification tools, digital IDs compliant with the highest security and privacy standards, as well as a privacy-first marketing suite. The Network safeguards the information flow using cryptographic techniques, so no identity data is exposed until a transaction is completed.

“At Presto, we’re always excited to back startups that create solutions we would love to use ourselves – and Magic is no exception. I personally remember a number of instances when I didn’t not have my passport or some other information on me, which prevented me from completing a KYC process. With Magic, there would be no such issue. We believe the need for reusable identity will only grow as more and more businesses require verification. Even services where anonymity has been the default for a long time, such as social networks, are slowly gravitating towards verifying the majority of their users,”

Milan Lupac, Partner at Presto Ventures, comments.

Who are the investors?

• Presto is one of the investors this round. It is a Prague-based VC firm investing in fast growing tech startup across the broader CEE region. We focus on early-stage B2B software startups and online marketplaces and has a portfolio of over 50 companies.
• SFC Capital is the other prominent investor. It is a leading early-stage investment firm providing capital and support to British startups. Apart from the funds, the startup managed to get funding from several angel investors.

• Founded in 2019 by CEO Karen Burns and CTO Taavi Tammiste, Fyma is an AI enterprise specializing in analysing real-time video feeds. The company’s software operates with existing camera networks, delivering extensive insights to commercial real estate developers, asset owners, and managers.
• The solution enhances property management through monitoring, occupancy analysis, footfall tracking, and parking management. It also offers data for tenant experience applications. The company serves clients worldwide, including QuadReal, Grosvenor Estates, and Technopolis.

“Fyma stands at the forefront of AI automation, delivering fresh insights to global property and real estate firms. Their commitment to deployment simplicity and scalability, along with a user-friendly interface, distinguishes Fyma from traditional offerings. We are eager to support Fyma’s growth with Quadri’s extensive market support and cloud expertise,”

Andrew Drylie, Investment Manager at Quadri Ventures, comments.

• Quadri Ventures spearheaded the funding round. It is a UK-based cloud-focused investment firm that provides technical and investment services for B2B SaaS businesses. Second Century Ventures, a US-based real estate-focused VC fund, also participated in the round.
• Fyma will use the funds to perform its go-to-market strategy and enhance product development through dedicated research and development. This involves strengthening integrations with LLM providers and utilizing generative AI tools for faster object detection learning.

• Founded in 2015, Drovo develops a proprietary software platform that pairs vehicle owners with advertisers to deliver highly targeted and measurable out-of-home (OOH) advertising and digital engagement campaigns.
• The company has a growing client base, including Deliveroo, Paco Rabanne, Uniqlo, and American Express, enabling these fleet operators to passively earn additional income while carrying out their usual business.

“The resourceful founder duo of Artjom and Jason have applied layers of novel technologies on top of what might otherwise seem like a basic business. The resulting solution is a win-win-win scalable model that brings together advertisers, fleet operators, as well as drivers and incentivises all parties to collaborate in an orchestrated manner. If we project this years into the future, it becomes evident how this could evolve into one of the largest moving media networks,”

Change Ventures comments.

• Change Ventures is one of Drovo’s investors. It is a Tallinn-based venture capital firm backing ambitious founders from the Baltics with €100,000 — 500,000 in pre-seed capital initial investments.

• Maven Capital Partners is the lead investor in Drovo. Caygan Capital , Venturian Funding & Investment Group, Growthdeck, and a league of strategic angel investors, including Dan Heron and Rob Atkinson, also participated in the funding.
• Over the last four years, Drovo has raised close to £2 million to help develop its technology and commercial proposition. This latest funding round will enable the company to scale and seize the clear market opportunity.

• Move AI is a London-based company that allows anyone to bring human motion to the digital world at scale. The company makes it easy to animate characters by turning 2D video into 3D motion data with its proprietary technology that uses advanced AI, computer vision, biomechanics, and physics — technology previously only available to major studios
• So far, the company has made significant progress in developing and scaling its motion capture products. Their single-camera motion capture solution, Move One, is currently in an invite-only beta, and enables motion capture with just an iPhone.

“Our goal at Move AI is to democratise 3D animation. We are excited to use this funding round to double down on our efforts to reduce the cost of 3D animation and make it more accessible to creators,”

Tino Millar, Move AI’s co-founder and CEO, comments.

• Among the company’s investors are Play Ventures, a VC firm that invests globally in games and game services startups, Warner Music Group, a global music entertainment company, and Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based game software company and VC firm.
• RKKVC, a Warsaw-based family office venture capital fund, participated the round as a follow-on investor. In November 2022, the firm made its first investment in Move AI. Another VC firm founded by the Polish partners, Level2 Ventures also joined the round.

“Despite the ‘difficult’ times in the VC and tech market, we made a big follow-on in Move AI, our portfolio company in a financial round of over $10 million. In this deal, we also created a syndicate of investors consisting of great business angels, with whom we are trying to develop an ecosystem of international investments in RKKVC… I still believe that the best companies will always find financing :)”

Mateusz Bodio, Founder at RKKVC, comments.

• This fresh funds strengthens Move AI’s leadership position in markerless motion capture and advances its products to digitise human motion.

• Founded in 2007, Questers specializes in designing, building, and managing IT teams for clients in a variety of industries. The majority of Questers’ customers are located in the UK, as well as in the US, Germany, Belgium, Norway, and Switzerland.
• The Questers company is based in the UK with offices in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania.
• The deal’s goal is to strengthen Nortal’s position in the US and UK markets, as well as reinforce its current business of building international IT and engineering teams for clients around the world.

“The acquisition of Questers will strengthen our pwrteams business, which focuses on building specialized international teams for our clients,”

Priit Alamäe, CEO and founder of Nortal, comments.

• Questers employs more than 300 people. All of them will join pwrteams’ 350 employees, who mainly work in Ukraine and Poland. There are also representatives in Serbia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Mexico.
• The outsourcing company pwrteams was created in 2022 after Nortal acquired the IT company Skelia with offices in Ukraine (Kyiv, Lviv) and Poland (Krakow). pwrteams works with clients in Europe and the US, including TUI and Thomas Cook Group. The company’s service centers are located in Ukraine, Poland, Serbia, Lithuania, Estonia, Mexico, and after the acquisition of Questers, now also in Bulgaria.
• Nortal became widely known thanks to the Estonian government’s digital transformation project (“e-Estonia”). The company recently announced the creation of a service center in Guadalajara, Mexico, to be closer to its customers in North America. In addition, with the appointment of Thomas Hedley as the CEO to expand the company’s global capabilities in the UK, Nortal has entered the UK market with both public and private sector offerings.

• Founded in 2016 by Polish entrepreneur Dariusz Mankowski, United Robots merges space-age innovation with practical industrial requirements. The company focuses on developing advanced autonomous robots for safe navigation in crowded commercial areas.

• The smart AI-driven system prevents cleaning overlaps, conserving water, detergents, and energy. The startup’s main goal is to transform industrial cleaning, ensuring efficiency, safety, and sustainability across the automotive, manufacturing, and warehouse sectors.

“Our investment in these floor scrubbing robots signals a paradigm shift where machines enhance human tasks rather than interrupting them. It proves that deeptech offers solutions even for warehouse, automotive, and manufacturing managers seeking solutions for staffing shortages,”

Piotr Sławski, Managing Partner in Aper Ventures, commented.

• Aper Ventures, a Warsaw-based VC fund, provided the funds for the investment round, the amount of which is yet undisclosed. On average, the firm co-invests around €1-5 million in startups, focusing on deeptech solutions at the beginning of commercialisation and hardware scaleups.
• With the fresh funds, United Robots is preparing for an expansion into other European markets.

• Founded by Jake Laver, Gary Palmer and Richie Murray, Electric Sheep is pioneering a solution to automate flawless background removal for TV and film. This process, known as rotoscoping, is essential before adding special effects. Currently, the only way to deliver the detail needed for the big screen is to manually cut around foregrounds frame-by-frame.
• This process takes around 6 hours for 1 second of footage and costs the industry over $1.5 billion per year. Electric Sheep’s cloud-native solution, Spotlight, is 360x faster, processing 1 second of footage in less than a minute.

“Electric Sheep’s cutting-edge cloud and AI platform are poised to revolutionise several core VFX workflows. They’re taking a smart and pragmatic approach to accelerate some of the most tedious post-production tasks,”

Steven Sullivan, Partner at Spatial Capital and former Senior Technology Officer of LucasFilm, says.

• The $500,000 round was led by the US-based fund Dasein Capital, and joined by Spatial Capital, also from the US, as well as Look AI Ventures, the first investment fund in the Czech Republic that focuses exclusively on AI startups worldwide.

“We are excited to partner with three investors with considerable experience in AI, VFX, and building at scale. Flawless background removal negates the need for onset green screens, empowering creatives to capture the energy of the scene without compromising the final image,”

Gary Palmer, CEO at Electric Sheep, comments.

• Electric Sheep will use this capital injection to build and enhance Spotlight, the industry’s first AI rotoscoping tool capable of the detail needed for Hollywood.

• Founded in 2020 by Emilia Molimpakis and Stefano Goria, thymia develops an online platform that empowers clinicians, so they can assess depression faster, more accurately, and objectively. To achieve that, the startup utilizes AI tools inside video games that analyse patients’ voices, facial expressions, movement, and behaviour.
• The startup’s seed round was led by Kodori Ventures, a private investment company in Switzerland, who was joined by the new and existing investors including Entrepreneur First, SyndicateRoom’s Access, and Form Ventures.
• Vienna-based early-stage VC fund Calm/Storm also participated in the funding as one of the existing investors. The fund invests in digital health, femtech, and tabootech, with a hard focus on female founders. In July 2023, the fund also backed Ada Growth, an Austrian microlearning platform.
• So far, thymia is already used for non-clinical mental wellness assessments. With the latest capital injection, the startup will scale the technology in the clinical space through medical device approval.

• Founded in 1999 by Rafał Brzoska, InPost is a last-mile delivery company offering a parcel locker that allows to securely collect, return, and send parcels with just a codescan. The company launched its product in 2006, and, after going public, its valuation reached $5.1 billion. To date, InPost employs over 5,250 people.
• Thanks to the deal, InPost secured access to the nationwide distribution network of Menzies. The partnership will allow the company to handle growing volumes of shipments 7 days a week, as well as bring a number of benefits to consumers and e-commerce stores.

“This investment is a milestone for the development of our business in the UK market. Together with Menzies, we will be able to offer parcel deliveries 360 days a year, which is a unique offer on the British e-commerce market,”

Rafał Brzoska, President of the Management Board and founder of InPost, commented.

• Menzies is a logistics company handling deliveries to more than 47,000 locations every day. It has 100 branches in the UK and Ireland and manages a fleet of over 3,200 vehicles, employing over 5,000 people.
• Furthermore, as part of the deal, InPost also secured a 3-year option to acquire the remaining 70% stake in Menzies.

• Founded in 2013 by Kaidi Ruusalepp and Urmas Peiker, Funderbeam aimed to solve the liquidity problem of angel and venture investments. The company’s infrastructure is built to help investor networks, accelerators, and other venture investors manage their syndicated investments, post-investment flows, and handle secondary transactions across borders.

“This transaction creates a powerful platform to fast forward Funderbeam’s vision which is to serve venture investments across borders and create a unique secondary market for private assets. The timing of the transaction couldn’t be better – we are strong at a time when the market is ready for our solution,”

Kaidi Ruusalepp, founder and CEO of Funderbeam, says.

• VentureWave, an Irish-based venture private equity group, provided the majority of the funding. The group will take an active and strategic leadership role in scaling Funderbeam’s ground-breaking technology across venture assets.
• Other prominent co-investors included Mistletoe, a Japanese hub for startups and the overall entrepreneurial ecosystem, and Draper Associates, a global venture capital firm for industry transforming companies. Kaidi Ruusalepp, the founder of Funderbeam, also participated in the round.
• Following the transaction, Funderbeam will now additionally serve institutional clients – VC funds, family offices, brokers, and investment banks. The deal is currently pending approval by the regulators in the UK, Singapore, and Estonia.

• Founded in November 2014 by a Romanian entrepreneur Răzvan Creangă and his college colleague Mark Chaffey, hackajob develops a full stack technical hiring platform. It connects digital and tech talents with the most innovative companies, utilizing the power of their proprietary AI matching engine, globally.
• According to the company, hackajob earns $10 million in annual recurring revenue. It has about 500,000 users and 200 paying customers, who are mainly large companies that are constantly hiring. The company currently employs over 120 people.

“We’ve built a product that people love, and we want to take it global to the biggest technology hubs in the United States and Europe, with the first offices in Paris and Berlin. We will become a fully global company at the beginning of next year and I am happy that we will be able to develop especially in Romania, where the local market is rich thanks to talent and IT and thanks to the huge technological potential,”

Răzvan Creangă, chairman and co-founder of hackajob, commented to start-up.ro.

• Boston-based firm Volition Capital led the $25 million funding round, which also saw participation from Axa Venture Partners, Foresight, and Future Fund. In total, hackajob received about $33 million in investments.
• The fresh capital will help hackajob with further development and growth, as well as introducing new solutions for the tech recruitment market.

• Founded in 2021 by Rashid Mansoor and Tobin Ireland, MetaGravity is a deeptech startup that is solving the issue of distributed compute infrastructure required to support metaverse-scale gaming. The company says it will offer unlimited scale of supporting more than 1 million concurrent players (CCUs) plus associated AI and interactive objects.

“MetaGravity’s proprietary IP has the potential to completely change the possibilities the metaverse holds. Its next-generation technology is unconstrained by the mathematical limitations of existing infrastructure, delivered in a cost-efficient and flexible way. The best and brightest metaverse simulations of the future will be built on MetaGravity’s next-generation platform,”

Ian Wittkopp, Chief Operating Officer at Sino Global Capital, comments.

• The list of investors in the seed round include include Sino Global, Spartan Group LLC, Gravity Fund, Perridon Holdings, Pancasila, Ex-Capital, Mulana, Cogitent Ventures, Agrippa Capital, K5 Global Ventures, Moonpay, and Project Godijra.
• Market One Capital is one of the participating investors. It is a Pan-European early stage venture capital fund investing into marketplaces, digital platforms, and SaaS projects. In March 2023, the fund joined a €5.1 million round for another British startup, Connect Earth.
• MetaGravity will apply the fresh funds for development of its decentralized metaverse solution.

• Connect Earth is a London-based environmental data company founded in 2021. The startup offers a carbon tracking API, aiming to democratize easy access to sustainability data. It empowers entrepreneurs and organizations to make sustainable choices, by offering their customers transparent insight into their daily climate impact.

• So far, the API has been integrated with large European banking groups such as KBC Bank, community banks like Bank Purely, as well as several fintechs across Europe and the US, including Cogni, Ribbon, and Jules.

“We strongly believe that in the future, sustainability and carbon footprint awareness will become a major factor, influencing decision-making for businesses and customers alike. Connect Earth is working on providing a key piece of infrastructure that will make it a possibility,”

Jakub Ślusarczyk, Partner at Market One Capital, commented.

• The round was led by Gresham House Ventures. The participating investors included Love Ventures, Global Brain, The Norinchukin Bank, Portfolio Ventures, Super Capital, and other strategic angel investors.
• Market One Capital, a Warsaw-based Pan-European early stage venture capital fund investing into marketplaces, digital platforms, and SaaS, joined the round as the existing investor, together with Mustard Seed MAZE and Venista Ventures.
• Connect Earth will use the fresh funds to scale up operations in Europe as well as boost expansion to the US.

Earlier this month, Market One Capital added a German B2B startup METYCLE to its 60+ portfolio companies.

• Superbet Ventures was launched in 2008 and is the corporate venture capital arm of Superbet. It focuses on the long-term investments in technology-powered sports & gaming companies. The group is present in 10 countries, with the most important markets being Romania, Belgium, and Poland. The team gathers more than 4,500 people.
• Other investors in the seed round include Romanian Hellen’s Rock, a single family office managing over €1 billion worth of diversified assets, the global web3 and gaming company Animoca Brands, and other angels such as ex-Manchester United captain Michael Carrick.
• Founded by Will Turner and Phil Steele GoJoe is a hybrid consumer and B2B app which enables workplaces and brands to connect and engage their people. GoJoe combines wearables, expert/celebrity content, and team-based challenges and experiences to socialize everyday solo exercise and help people stick to their sports activities.

“We are excited to become strategic investors, convinced by the vision of GoJoe’s founders. They are exactly the type of start-up that we are looking for in the venture capital market. Having a unique and highly scalable business model, found at the cross-roads of wellbeing, sports and social apps, GoJoe has an impressive potential of organic growth with a wide range of demographics,”

Paul Neagoe, VC at Superbet Ventures says.

• The round will enable GoJoe to scale and internationalize its B2B SaaS product and engage new employees. 

• Antiverse was founded in 2017 by Ben Holland, Murat Tunaboylu, and Rowina Westermeier. It is a biotech company developing a computational antibody drug discovery platform. It exists at the intersection of structural biology, machine learning, and medicine to enable breakthroughs to happen more quickly and cost-effectively.
• The company has announced both the funding news and the successful identification of 8 antibodies with therapeutic potential for human G-protein-coupled receptors. This marks a major breakthrough in the application of their drug discovery platform.

“We see tremendous potential in the Antiverse platform. Their combination of AI-driven antibody design with proprietary laboratory validation shows great promise in targeting historically challenging GPCRs linked to cancer and a wide variety of other conditions. We congratulate the team on their achievement in the pursuit of bringing new treatments to patients,”

Matt Fates, a board member at Antiverse and partner at InnoSpark, comments.

• Tensor Ventures participated in the round as an existing investor. It is a Prague-based venture capital company Investing in deeptech and sustainable innovation in the CEE region and beyond. The firm offers a bridge between seed and Series A stages, with an investment size of up to $2 million per target.
• The majority of the funding was provided by new investors InnoSpark Ventures, AngelHub, Kadmos Capital, and Tomorrow Scale. Apart from Tensor, the existing investors Deep Science Ventures, Ed Parkinson, and the Development Bank of Wales also joined in.
• Antiverse will use the fresh funds to continue in-house development of the antibodies showing the highest affinity blocking function, making them ideal starting points for future therapies.

• SteadyPay was founded by John Downie from the UK and Ukrainian Ivan Istomin in 2017. It develops a progressive lending platform for people with unstable incomes. The AI-based solution analyzes open user data to predict their creditworthiness. According to these forecasts, Steadypay tops up the bank account of a trusted and reliable platform user if their earnings fall below the average monthly income.
• The algorithm calculates how much money can be loaned to a particular client. The average monthly replenishment per person is about £250, and the maximum balance a user can have on SteadyPay at any given time does not exceed £1000.
• The platform operates on a subscription model. Users are charged a monthly fee of £7 per week for the service. The platform currently has 12,000 active users, most of whom are between the ages of 22 and 40.

“We have seen a progressive lending product for the new generation, backed by well-built AI technology. It’s great that Ukrainians worldwide are involved in creating innovations. It makes one want to invest in such startups. The decision was unanimous within the team,”

Nykyta Izmaylov, CEO and founder of N1, comments.

• European venture funds such as Ascension, The Future Fund, and others are among the previous investors in the company.

About the Ukrainian N1 Fund

N1 is a specialized fintech fund established by Nykyta Izmaylov. The fund’s portfolio includes sportbank, the second largest mobile bank in Ukraine, the innovative payment system Asquad, and TRANSENIX, a service with Tap2Phone technology that turns a smartphone into a payment terminal. Now, the UK-based lending platform SteadyPay, is also part of the portfolio.

• Based in Bulgaria and London, Dronamics creates an all-in-one solution for the middle-mile powered by Black Swan cargo drone, a network of drone ports, and fully mobile control cargo systems. The drone Black Swan is able to carry 350 kg at a distance of up to 2,500 km up to 80% faster, 50% cheaper, and with up to 60% lower emissions than alternative modes of transport, including airfreight. 
• Dronamics is Europe’s first licensed cargo drone airline and IATA’s first Strategic Partner for drones worldwide. In November 2022 Dronamics received a €2.5 million grant from the European Commission under the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator program.
• The fresh round was co-led by venture capital funds and angel investors from 12 countries, including the UK’s Founders Factory, Austrian Speedinvest, Bulgarian Eleven Capital, and the Strategic Development Fund. The SDF is focused on financial return and economic impact within the UAE, through equity investment in local and international partnerships.
• SDF venture capital division’s investment in Dronamics will support its plans to create UAE-based joint venture, creating a Dronamics’ operations in the UAE as a hub for the Middle East and North Africa region.

• Founded in 2017 by Daniel Stofan, Lukas Hruby, GoodVision main solution is Video Insights, the B2B SaaS traffic analytics platform automating the traffic data collection from existing camera infrastructure and providing deep traffic analytics for traffic model calibration. Using Video Insights can save traffic modelers up to 95% of their time.
• GoodVision captures traffic insights from activity on roads in the form of multipurpose digital data and allows for collaboration to obtain crucial traffic parameters fully interactively. The startup works in 80 countries across 6 continents and counts distribution channels across Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, USA, Chile, Philippines, Australia, and South Africa.
• The fresh funding round was co-led by Hungarian Lead Ventures, that recently participated in €10 million round for customer loyalty software company Antavo, and Prague-based venture capital company Credo Ventures that closed its €75 million fourth fund in October 2022. The investors were joined by Bulgarian Sofia Angels Ventures, that was among investors for Undelucram, totaling €800,000 in three rounds.
• GoodVision plans to spend this investment to accelerate its growth globally and to become the key traffic insights provider. To date, GoodVision has already raised a total of €3.7 million in funding.