About Fintech Farm

• Fintech Farm was founded by three Ukrainians Dmytro Dubilet, Oleksandr Vityaz, and Mykola Bezkrovny in 2020. It is a platform for launching neobanks in partnership with traditional banks around the world.
• The first Fintech Farm project was Leobank, which the company launched in Azerbaijan with the local bank Unibank. In March 2023, the startup launched Liobank in Vietnam. The third market for Fintech Farm was Nigeria, where Fibo was launched in the beta stage, which so far only works in Lagos.
• Dmytro Dubilet and Oleh Horohovskyi (as well as several other co-founders) jointly launched Fintech Band and monobank. Subsequently, Dubilet left the Fintech Band team. Fintech Farm is one of his new projects.
• In January 2022, Fintech Farm raised $7.4 million in an investment round led by the Ukrainian venture fund Flyer One Ventures and Solid. African marketplace Jiji and funds TA Ventures, u.ventures, AVentures Capital also participated. Additionally, a year ago, Fintech Farm secured another $22 million round led by the Nordstar fund.

• The fresh investment was led by the London Stock Exchange-listed Bank of Georgia, a UK incorporated financial services holding company. The group comprises a retail banking and payments business, and a corporate banking and investment banking business.

Fintech Farm plans to use it on building out its fintech product and expand its operations to India.

• Founded in 2020 by Marco Lobba, Ph.D., Geo Guillen, and Matthew Francis and spun out of the laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, CatenaBio has developed a platform, that allows the creation of novel biomolecules and further synthesizes them in any structure, combination, or orientation. Using naturally occurring amino acids, the startup’s technology allows coupling proteins to create novel therapeutics in autoimmune diseases, oncology, and vaccine development.
• LongeVC is a venture company with offices in Riga and Lugano. It was established in 2016 by Garri Zmudze, Sergey Jakimov, and Ilya Suharenko. A €35 million fund supports biotech and longevity-focused startups at the early and seed stages across the US and Europe.

CatenaBio is rapidly escalating the effectiveness and usefulness of antibody-drug conjugates. ADCs are one of the most dynamic fields when it comes to fighting age-related diseases and are being actively explored across multiple vectors, including for oncology treatments,

Sergey Jakimov, founding partner at LongeVC, said.

• The seed round was backed by existing investors California Innovation Fund, Civilization Ventures, and Pioneer Fund, and brought in new investors, Freeflow Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, and BrightEdge.

With the seed extension, Catena plans to accelerate development of its lead asset while launching scale-up activities with leading CROs and continuing efforts in support of its existing BD partnerships with Biotech and Pharma collaborators. The startup also aims to raise its next Series A later this year.

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

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

Investment details

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

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

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

• Leanpay was founded in 2016 by Janko Medja, Misa Zivic, and Tilen Zugwitz, has over 120,000 users and 1,500 merchant partners. It develops Buy Now Pay Later 3.0, providing instalment payment solutions for vendors and consumers.
• The startup employs a team of 70, serves more than 120,000 customers and 1,500 merchants, and has issued around €103 million in loans across Serbia, Slovenia, Romania, and Hungary.

Investment details

• The investment was led by BlackPeak Capital, a Bulgarian private equity firm that invests in Southeast European startups like Bianor Holding, GenePlanet, and Pick&Pack.
• The firm currently manages two funds with a total of €150 million in assets. The round was also co-led by Catalyst Romania, a private equity and venture capital fund platform from Bucharest.

• BlackPeak Capital’s Managing Partner, Niklas Pichler, will join Leanpay’s board to guide the company in reaching its growth goals. 

The shift in consumer behavior towards flexible payment methods like BNPL is increasingly influencing daily life for all generations as well as reshaping the e-commerce landscape, being pivotal for both businesses and customers alike. We are excited to partner with Leanpay, a Slovenian leader in responsible lending and a pioneer in the 3rd generation BNPL solutions in our region operating an asset-light model, — Niklas Pichler said.

This funding will allow Leanpay to expand its operations, launch new services, and recruit new talents to strengthen its market position.

About Myriad AI

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

Investment details

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

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

Marek Moravec commented.

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

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

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

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

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

Fabian Sacharowitz, CEO of ecop, commented.

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

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

• Founded in 2017, Finbee is a Vilnus-based online p2p lending platform led by CEO Tomas Mačiulaitis. The company specialises in providing financial solutions to small and medium enterprises.
• Finbee has supported nearly 3000 customers for the last 5 years, and 2000 of them are currently active, and has seen a consistent annual growth of 60% in loan originations over the last five years.

“First of all, we will be able to pay out business loans much faster. Until now, it used to take over a week to crowdfund larger loans, while now it will take just a few hours from signing the contract to the money being in the account,”

Tomas Mačiulaitis, CEO of Finbee Verslui, comments.

• The round was led by Pollen Street Capital, the service from London. Tomas Mačiulaitis says that the company financed more than €27 million in loans last year alone, and with the new investment, they are set to maintain this growth momentum, projecting over €40 million in new loan originations this year.

The fresh investments will help to cover a funding gap which occurred owing to increased customer requests, and to work with larger businesses which was limited until now.

• Launched in 2022 and based in Zielona Góra, Sportano has already expanded into 12 countries, including Poland, Germany, Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Italy. The company achieved revenues of PLN 52.1 million (around €12 million) in 2022, which surged to PLN 188 million (around €44 million) in 2023.

“Sportano aligns perfectly with our investment strategy. By collaborating with the company’s ambitious management team, we are providing the capital needed to realize their bold vision of becoming Europe’s leading sports e-commerce platform,”

Michał Bartosz, Partner at bValue, commented on the investment.

• bValue stated that Sportano’s strategy focuses on an underserved segment of sports enthusiasts who actively engage in various sports and seek branded products. This approach provides Sportano with stable revenue throughout the year and fosters a loyal customer base that consistently returns for new products.

“We are thrilled that bValue shares our vision for growth in the branded sports products market. With their support, we aim to surpass PLN 300 million in sales in 2024. Despite challenging market conditions, we continue to grow rapidly and execute our plans successfully,”

Marcin Grzymkowski, founder of Sportano, stated.

Thanks to the funds, Sportano aims to exceed PLN 300 million (€70 million) in revenue this year, maintaining a year-over-year growth rate of 90%. The business is approaching profitability and expects to achieve a net profit by 2025.

• Investors include Outlier Ventures (the leading web3 accelerator), Web3.com Ventures, Moonhill Capital, Contango, as well as a number of angel investors from Zero Gravity, Aethir, EigenLayer, Bagel, SwissBorg, and Particle Network.
• The Assisterr platform helps users build their own niche AI models. Registered users can add their own data to the AI model of their choice, making it more accurate and monetizing their knowledge and intellectual property.
• Crowdsourcing of data collection, data ownership, and decentralized coordination of community efforts is based on the Solana blockchain.

Assisterr uses small language models which, unlike large language models, require less data and can run on phones, laptops, and small servers. The main component of the success of small models is a significantly higher quality data set and a focus on narrow tasks.

Crowdsourcing data collection for small models is the basis of the solution offered by the Assisterr team.

The startup has already won several international competitions such as AI x Crypto organized by BeWater, OKX and Binance Labs. Assisterr also made it to the Google for AI Startups program with $350,000 in funding for the startup’s GPU/CPU and cloud infrastructure needs.

About RobosizeME

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

Investment details

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

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

BrightCap’s representatives commented on the deal.

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

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

About Phyron

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

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

Investment details

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

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

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

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

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

About Digital First AI

• Founded by Michał Tokarski, Grzegorz Gracz, Rafał Tromczyński in 2021, Digital First AI develops a Future-proof marketing platform. The company offers SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions that leverage AI to select marketing strategies and create advertising content, thereby saving time and optimizing budgets.
  

• Digital First AI’s current solutions represent a milestone towards fully autonomous marketing, where AI creates, manages, and optimizes online advertising campaigns without human intervention. The company currently serves over 900 clients from 60 countries, with more than 50% of its revenue coming from the USA, as well as significant markets in Poland, the UK, the UAE, and India.

Investment details

• The current seed round was executed through Digital First AI Holding Inc. registered in the USA, that is responsible for the startup’s international structure.
• The funding round was spearheaded by 4growth VC, with notable participation from Plug&Play and Sher Ventures (USA), Hub71 (UAE) and the owners of creative agency McCANN Poland, founders of 45Avenue Group.

“We invested in Digital First AI due to the innovative nature of its marketing campaign automation product, which fits perfectly into the current AI revolution. The scaling potential is immense. The motivated and dynamic team, with extensive industry experience, understands the market’s needs well. The company has been global from the outset, serving clients from 60 countries. Moreover, the strategic partnership with McCANN Poland and the involvement of renowned international investors strengthen Digital First AI’s position,”
Marcin Jaszczuk, Managing Partner at 4growth VC, commented.

This investment will bolster the company’s international presence and facilitate the deployment of its solutions for large enterprises and corporations.

• Founded by Cornel Amariei, .lumen is a startup dedicated to enhancing pedestrian mobility through itsflagship product, .lumen Glasses, and the underlying PAD AItechnology. According to the startup, these products were designed to provide visually impaired individuals with unprecedented levels of independence and safety.
• On July 16, Cornel Amariei, CEO and founder of .lumen, presented the company’s vision and technology to over 600 investors. According to him, .lumen’s Glasses for the Blind leverages Pedestrian Autonomous Driving (PAD AI) technology to replicate the functionalities of a guide dog.

This record round on SeedBlink is a testament to the potential for innovation in Romania. Despite being ranked as the least innovative country in the EU by the official Innovation Scoreboard, we believe Romania can deliver life-changing innovations to the world. Thank you for sharing this belief, — Cornel Amariei, CEO & founder of .lumen, stated.

Details of the investment:

The investment was led by the European private investors via the Romanian SeedBlink, an all-in-one equity and investment platform that provides the infrastructure, financial services, and network coverage for European tech companies.

.lumen’s was also supported by key co-investors, including the European Innovation Council and Venture to Future Fund, which have contributed €4 million to the €5 million funding round. The funding round will support .lumen’s strategic goal, including the limited-series launch in Q4 2024 and the entry into the US market in Q4 2025. The company aims to sell 10,000 units by the end of 2026.

About the startup:

• MaPanda offers an approach to learning and therapy using animated characters guided by trained teachers or psychologists in real time. This format immerses children in the cartoon world, which reduces the stress of interacting with adults and increases the level of trust and involvement.
• According to the founder of MaPanda, Michael Goncharov-Goryanskiy, this technology solves two key problems: mobile games, which are interesting but do not provide system knowledge, and Zoom-learning, which has a hard time holding the child’s attention. In this way, MaPanda combines the gaming world with quality education or therapy.
• The MaPanda platform is used to teach subjects such as foreign languages, school preparation, development of soft skills, logic, mathematics, emotional intelligence and.creativity. Additionally,the startup cooperates with schools, educational initiatives, public organizations, teachers and psychologists.

The fresh funding was provided by Michael Goncharov-Goryanskiy, the founder of Bini Games. The investments enables to develop an MVP and test it with partners. Currently, the team is focused on the development of technology in the Ukrainian market, and later in the USA.

About Jeff

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

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

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

Roman Novacek, Partner at Presto Ventures, commented.

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Doctor.One was established in 2021 by Tomasz Rudolf and Maciej Malenda. It develops an application, a secure medical messenger replacing informal communication via text messages, e-mails and social media, allowing doctors to be in contact only with their regular patients whom they know from stationary visits. The startup claims that application also enables doctors to organize communication with patients, and gives patients the opportunity to contact the doctor and get help, remunerating the doctor in a subscription model.
• In May 2022, Doctor.One secured a €2.1 million in funding led by Atlantic Labs. Earlier, in 2021 the startup raised a €440,000 pre-seed investment from Movens Capital.

• The fresh round was led by Smartlink Partners, a Warsaw-based venture capital fund that invests in early-stage e-commerce, fintech, AI and ML, medtech, and hardware startups. The fund’s average ticket size ranges from €433,000 to €1,733 million (PLN 2 million to PLN 8 million). It’s most recent investment was HRtech OstendiHR which secured €433,000 in October 2023.
• Smartlink Partners is currently joining the company using the CLA instrument (convertible loan) with a commitment of €500,000. In addition to Smartlink Partners, the company is also joined by the Vesna Capital, an investment fund created by Andriy Fedoriv, Viacheslav Klymov, and Volodymyr Popereshniuk.

The fresh round will help Doctor.One intends to introduce further software features, such as: care teams (the ability to manage the patient by a group of specialists), integration with external systems and diagnostic service providers, as well as the introduction of elements of artificial intelligence and automation to support doctors in more effective patient support.

About Granta Autonomy and its work in Ukraine:

• Granta Autonomy was founded in 2015 by former military engineers Gediminas Guoba and Laurynas Litvinas. The company has developed reconnaissance remote-controlled aircraft, lightweight gimbals, and its Datalink software. Now, Granta Autonomy supplies NATO forces across Europe with its range of Hornet UAVs, while also supplying several partners with its lightweight micro-gimbals.
• After the start of russia’s full-scale invasion Ukraine in February 2022, a Vilnius-based Granta Autonomy started supplying its UAVs to the Ukrainian front. Today, the Ukrainian army operates a battery of Granta Autonomy UAVs funded by the Lithuanian and other European defence ministries.

However, our focus goes beyond just numbers; our team works directly with soldiers on the battlefield, testing our products and software in combat zones and collaborating on solutions that excel in the toughest conditions. This battlefield experience, valued by our Western partners, fuels our mission to revolutionize drone reconnaissance for global militaries,

said Gediminas Guoba, founder and CEO of Granta Autonomy.

Granta Autonomy’s latest UAV, the Hornet XR’s key features’ include:

• 3-hour electric flight duration;
• 160 km (99.4 mi) range;
• 1.6 m (62.9 in) wingspan;
• 2.9 kg (6.3 lb) weight;
• Hand-launched capability;
• Autonomous operation in radio silence or GNSS-denied environments.

The round was led by the Lithuanian ScaleWolf. The fund invests in companies that have already developed products or services and are looking to improve their products and expand into other markets. The managing partner of the fund is Edvinas Kerza. The Lithuanian Brolis Defense and the US-based HFL Holdings also participated in the deal.

The startup will use the costs to accelerate the development and production of its surveillance technology.

• Bear Room develops an app to provide stress relief using techniques like EMDR, vocal practices, tapping, and breathwork. Since its soft launch, the app has garnered over 10,000 downloads. Bear Room’s unique approach stands out in the digital mental health space.
• The app offers various exercises that users can complete in just 3-5 minutes via its interface where users can select comforting objects in a virtual room to begin their stress-relief exercises. The startup claims this approach provides an immediate and personalized sanctuary during stressful moment.
• Bear Room added that it has a 31% monthly growth rate and a substantial increase in organic traffic. In the past month, Bear Room has observed a six-fold increase in users reporting severe psycho-emotional states during onboarding.

DŌBRA, the Lithuanian Impact Venture Studio, focuses on developing solutions for mental health being. Bear Room is the flagship product of DŌBRA’s mental health bunch, which includes other projects currently in the soft launch stage.

More than half of respondents of our surveys aren’t aware or use any self-help tools. And when people feel under pressure, stress piles up, leading to bigger crises and major life challenges. That’s why we decided to work with this topic of instant stress relief: to help people right here, right now.

says Jane Makarevich, product owner and co-founder of Bear Room at DŌBRA.

DŌBRA has raised over €500,000 for the development of its mental health startups, with Bear Room receiving a part of this investment. Bear Room currently focuses on coping, to help those with daily/chronic stress avoid further damage.

In the coming months, Bear Room plans to enhance its preventive aspects by encouraging users to integrate stress-relief exercises into their daily routines. Additionally, the app will introduce customization features, allowing users to personalize their virtual safe spaces to better suit their preferences and needs.

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

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

Indrė Viltrakytė, CEO and co-founder, commented.

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

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

• Ailand Systems is a Ukrainian defense startup specializing in the development of smart autonomous drones for detecting mines and explosive devices. Before to the full-scale invasion, the team was developing a drone for phytosanitary control of agricultural pests with the aim of reducing the use of toxic pesticides. However, with the start of russia’s full-scale invasion, they adapted their work for humanitarian demining purposes.
• The company’s main product is the ST1 unmanned minesweeper, capable of quickly surveying large areas with detection accuracy comparable to human performance. Ailand Systems claims its drones could significantly accelerate this process, making it cheaper and safer for sappers.

Unbroken is an Ukrainian investment fund created by Uklon co-founders Dmytro Dubrovsky, Viktoriia Dubrovska, Serhii Smus, and Vitalii Diatlenko. The fund focuses on seed round projects that develop the defense tech industry. The total volume of the fund is $2 million. A month ago, they also invested $200,000 in Buntar Aerospace.

The current investment will help to improve the technology and set up production of ST1, which is being prepared for state certification.

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

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

Dr. Sebastian Blatt, CTO of planqc, said.

The funding details:

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

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

• Led by CEO Yunus Emre Ozkaya and CDO Arash Lowni, FreeBnk operates as a neobank offering services for crypto investors such as investment in fractional property ownership, stocks, bonds, and gold. It offers trading gas fee-less crypto transactions globally, lending, and secure custody solutions thanks to MPC technology backed by $30 miilion insurance coverage.

Its product line includes:

• FreeBnk RealWorld: Users can invest in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), including fractional property ownership, stocks, bonds, gold, and other physical assets through a unified, user-first interface.
• FreeBnk Crypto: Alongside gas fee-less cross-chain transfers, users can also access crypto trading in 150 countries with multiple on/off-ramp options including card and bank transfers. 
• FreeBnk Transfer: FreeBnk provides users with a cheaper and faster overseas fiat money transfer service utilizing blockchain technology. 
• FreeBnk Pay: Through low transaction fees, FreeBnk offers merchants and consumers an alternative to traditional card and cash payments.
• FreeBnk Lending: Users can access competitive rates for mortgages, lending, and savings.  
• FreeBnk Safe: Hassle-free access to digital assets through advanced inheritance plans, complemented by crypto portfolio insurance.

First and foremost, we see ourselves as the pioneers in the RWA industry, as we built a product where real people can interact with physical assets, not just institutions. As the real estate market expands, we see substantial value in investors expanding their portfolios to include RWAs, benefiting from its inherent stability while enhancing their investment prospects,

Yunus Emre Ozkaya, CEO of FreeBnk, says.

• The investment round was backed by Founderheads, a Vilnius-based boutique web3 VC, ChaiTech Ventures, a blockchain-focused funding database, the Australian VC firm LVT Capital, and Lavender Capital, a growth-oriented Web3 and blockchain venture capital investment company.

FreeBnk will use the $3 million in funding to continue updating its interface and app experience for crypto newcomers. Part of this includes round-the-clock in-app customer service, granting direct access to human representatives for quick and transparent solutions.

• The company was founded in early 2024 by Joonatan Laulainen and Thibaud Martin, Altrove focuses on developing AI-driven materials to find optimal recipes for industrial-scale production. Their proprietary characterization technology aims to accelerate the discovery process significantly, aiming to replace elements like gallium, cobalt, and nickel.
• Altrove has already begun collaboration with the sourcing, manufacturing, and R&D departments of customers in the automotive, defence and electronics sectors. It also works to replace piezoelectric materials used in sensors, touchscreens, energy harvesting, and many other industrial and customer technologies. 

The round was led by an early-stage VC for climate generation, mobilising resources for climate action in Europe & Israel with offices in London, Vilnius, and Berlin. Founded in 2017 by ex-investment bankers Rokas Peciulaitis and Tomas Kemtys, Contrarian Ventures utilises a collaborative, founders-first approach to support future climate-oriented founders.

A key driver for our investment in Altrove is the team’s exceptional blend of industrial expertise and technological excellence. Having conducted over 100 customer interviews with leading component developers across Europe, they have developed a solution that truly bridges the gap between AI material discovery and industrial applications,

Rokas Peciulaitis, Founding Partner at Contrarian Ventures, said.

Emblem, Entrepreneur First and angel investors, including Thomas Clozel (CEO of Owkin), Julien Chaumond (CTO of Hugging Face ), and Nikolaj Deichmann (3Shape), also participated.

With this funding, Altrove plans to advance its core technology, targeting industries such as automotive, defense, and electronics. By collaborating with these sectors, Altrove aims to reduce dependency on rare earth elements and foster a more sustainable and autonomous supply chain.

• Daytona was founded in 2023 by ex-Chief Developer at Infobip Ivan Burazin, together with Goran Draganic, and Vedran Jukic, and develops an open source development environment manager. It aims to simplify the process of creating standard and secure environments, automates environment setups on branches, and shares environments seamlessly.
• According to the startup, since launching its enterprise developer solution in late 2023, Daytona has nearly doubled its Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). Recently, the company released an open-source version forced on individual developers.

The funding round details:

This investment was led by Upfront Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that has been investing in the US and Europe since 1996, and is one of the largest and longest-standing firms in Southern California.

The round also included participation from the existing investor 500 Global which has doubled down on its investment in Daytona. With $2.7 billion in assets under management, 500 Global has funded over 35 billion-dollar companies, including GitLab, Twilio, Algolia, and many others.

Daytona’s vision of simplifying and democratizing development environments aligns perfectly with our investment philosophy. The most forward-thinking companies in the world have landed on cloud developer environments to achieve a uniform developer environment for their teams. The Daytona founders have been working towards this since their prior startup Codeanywhere. Their subject matter expertise and passion uniquely position them to build a beloved developer experience that also satisfies even the strongest security requirements,

Kevin Zhang, Partner at Upfront Ventures.

Additionally, the startup announced that Kevin Zhang, Partner at Upfront Ventures, joined its board. The startup also added that the new funding will be used to accelerate the expansion of its solution, and to hire new marketing, sales and engineering roles.

About RedStone

• Founded in 2021 by Jakub Wojciechowski and Marcin Kazmierczak, RedStone creates a multichain database that provides pricing information for smart contracts and DeFi protocols. 

• The company has two data-focused products, RedStone Oracles and Warp. RedStone Oracles is a new generation of blockchain oracles with a novel architecture that optimizes the way data is delivered to decentralized Apps. And Warp is a data-processing Smart Contract layer on top of the Arweave data storage chain.
• Over the years, RedStone elevated its Total Value Secured (TVS) from $250 million to over $4 billion, expanded to over 60 chains, and served over 100 clients including Pendle, Morpho, and Venus. In addition, RedStone claims that it is the sole production-ready Oracle building an Actively Validated Service (AVS) on top of EigenLayer to utilize up to $18 billion of restaked value.

Investment details

• The round is led by Arrington Capital, a venture capital firm based in Washington that focuses on blockchain-based capital markets. 
• Other investors like SevenX, IOSG Ventures, Spartan Capital, White Star Capital, Kraken Ventures, Amber Group, Protagonist, gumi Cryptos, Christian Angermayer’s Samara Asset Group also participated in the financing

Today’s announcement further underlines RedStone’s status as the undisputed leader in yield-bearing assets price feed delivery. This Series A round gives us ample financial runway to broaden our suite of services while bringing reliable real-world data to a host of blockchain-based protocols. Sincere thanks to our investors and community for their fervent support, and believe me when I say that – we are just getting started,

Jakub Wojciechowski, CEO of RedStone Oracles, said.

The fresh capital will help the company to expand its Marketing and Business Development teams to drive substantial growth in the third and fourth quarters of the year. Currently, RedStone conducts tests for the implementation of Oracle Extractable Value (OEV). Additionally, the startup plans to launch its native token later this year.

• Founded in 2021 by Dawid Kowalski, Moniti offers a system for digitizing and automating the work organization of deskless teams. The application is used by companies from the construction, catering, field services, and even local government organizations.
• The startup also provides photo confirmation of attendance and preparation for work, information where your employee started and finished work thanks to geolocation, accurately measured working and break times, and notifications about irregularities in time or place of work. This will help to
  eliminate peer-to-peer reflections and inaccuracies while working.

Our goal is for entrepreneurs and managers to forget about the process of organizing and supervising the work of teams. Moniti will do it for them, proactively and effectively. Thanks to Smartlink’s support, we will accelerate our marketing and sales activities and maintain dynamic growth of 400% year on year. We are already in talks with VC funds from New York and London about the A round,

Dawid Kowalski, CEO of Moniti, said.

• The Smartlink Partners fund from the JR Holding ecosystem provided the investment of $450,000 (PLN 1.2 million) in exchange for 24 shares. The Warsaw-based fund is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage software startups.

Moniti will use the current round to scale the activities that will allow the company to grow by 600% since the last investment round in January 2023. In the future, the team will fully automate processes related to teamwork thanks to AI, which will enable companies to create work schedules, delegate tasks, and communicate with employees using Senior Employee Moniti.

We will remind that at the end of April this year the startup raised $600,000 investment within the pre-seed round. Its valuation increased to $5 million. At that time it was known that the funds were raised from angel investors from Ukraine, England, Germany, France and the USA. Accelerator OnDeck Ventures, Google for Startups and Daniel Gross, ex-partner of YC, also participated in the round.

Now AIN has learned that among the investors were members of the United Angels Network. They shared why they invested and what they looked for in the startup.

How Bluedot raised funding from United Angels Network angels

• The first investor was the manager of Codility, Grzegorz Jakacki, who was also Ruslan’s former manager.
• Next, Bluedot presented a prototype product at Web Summit. This made it possible to cooperate with the second angel investor from London.
• After that, the startup entered the acceleration program at OnDeck Ventures, which provided them with seed capital of over $100,000.
• Later, the group of angel investors United Angels Network joined the circle of Bluedot investors.
• It is said that Vladyslav Khychko, a member of the United Angels Network, played an important role in this cooperation. He wrote to Bluedot on LinkedIn and offered to participate in the UAN demo day.

What UAN investors paid attention to

Investor Zhenya Husarov said the importance of three key factors: the viability of the team, their expertise, and a clearly defined market. Team communication also plays a crucial role.

Investor Ivan Kohut said that the one of the startup’s main advantages is the team of founders, who made the impression of people who “know what they want and have considerable experience.” The second factor was the niche in which they work.

Investor Andrii Skoropad liked that the startup was already successful. He also named the experience of the founders an important factor. Another plus was the clear and thought-out legal structure.

A foreign investor, whose name has not been disclosed, drew attention to the low security of the product (it is not so difficult to reproduce). But on the other hand, he appreciated the product differentiation, well thought out roadmap and projected revenue.

About Bluedot

Bluedot is the product of two IT specialists, Ruslan Khalilov and Dmytro Yeriomin. They saw the problem that consultants and recruiters often forget the details of conversations with clients and candidates, and that’s when they came up with the idea to create a product that summarizes the meetings.

Bluedot now has over 1,000 paying customers, including The New York Times, Etsy, UserTesting, SalesForce, and more. The current team of the startup consists of four people, three of them are co-founders.

About Rohlik

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

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

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

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

Investment details

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

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

Investments details

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

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

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

Jan Davídek, general partner at Purple Ventures, commented.

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

About Purple Ventures

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

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

• Esper Bionics is an engineering and technical company that manufactures bionic prosthetics. The headquarters of the company is located in New York, and the engineering, design, and production units are located in Kyiv.
• Esper Hand bionic prosthetics use artificial intelligence and cloud data storage. In 2022, it was featured on the cover of the Times as one of the best inventions of mankind. 

• The main market for Esper Bionics remains the USA, but they also have operations in Ukraine. According to the company, it provided more than 80 bionic hands to Ukrainian veterans.

Esper Bionics’ goal is to create the first bionic ecosystem of connected devices that pushes the boundaries of human potential. After a successful launch in the US market, the company intends to go global,

Esper Bionic’s team commented.

• The fresh investment was led by YZR Capital, a €100 million Munich-based investment firm with a European early-stage health tech focus.
• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s together with and u.ventures, established by Ukraine-Moldova American Enterprise Fund to invest in early-stage technology startups, also participated in the financing.

Future plans

Esper Bionics plans to ramp up production of its flagship product, the AI-embedded self-learning Esper Hand. The prosthesis costs $22,000 and is covered by insurance.

The engineering company will also add new devices to its ecosystem, including controllers for wearable prosthetics and a cloud-based ML platform. Esper Bionics cites research showing that prosthetic users had difficulty switching functions during normal control and experienced poor mechanical strength of their multifunctional prostheses.

About Submix

• Led by the CEO Paul Jeszenszky, Submix is a music technology company aiming to streamline remote collaboration for musicians, producers, and audio pros worldwide. The platform enables users to create, share, and collaborate on music projects in real-time, regardless of what tools, software or operating platform they use.

Investment details

• The fresh investment was supported by Angel Invest Ventures, a Berlin-based angel fund with over 50 investments per year, SCNE, a German VC fund backed by the entrepreneurs behind developer site Github, TSIC (Tiny Supercomputer Investment Company), a London-based venture capital firm, investing in pre-seed and seed stage technology and software companies.
• Vesna Capital, an investment fund created by Andriy Fedoriv, Viacheslav Klymov, and Volodymyr Popereshniuk, is also one of the investors in the startup.

We have invested in Submix because they are building software that will bridge not one but two gaps in the Audio Tech space: geographical remoteness and software incompatibility.

Submix’s tech allows music and audio professionals to collaborate remotely in real time, seamlessly, and overcome network latency. This will improve local artists’ access to the global music and audio industries, enriching them and bringing down costs. The software will also allow for real-time collaboration between users of different Digital Audio Workstations — a feature unavailable for many DAW users until now.

Finally, behind Submix there is a brilliant team with extensive experience in audio tech engineering and deep connections within the music and audio industry. They are well-positioned to deliver on the mission they have set out for themselves,

Petro Sovyak-Krukovskyy, Investment Director at Vesna Capital, said in a comment for AIN.

According to Submix, the investment will help to accelerate its mission to streamline remote collaboration for musicians, producers, and audio pros worldwide, fundamentally changing their access to opportunities, and ability to make a living.

About SprayVision

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

Investment details

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

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

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

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

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

About Vertus Energy

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

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

Benjamin Howard, co-founder and COO, said.

Investment details

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

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

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

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

About Entrio

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

Investment details

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

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

Entrio’s founder and chief executive Berislav Marszalek said.

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

Following the investment, Creatio becomes the sixth unicorn with Ukrainian roots after GitLab, People.ai, Grammarly, Unstoppable Domains, and airSlate.

About Creatio

• Creatio is a leading vendor of a no-code platform to automate CRM and enterprise workflows with a maximum degree of freedom. Creatio’s founder and CEO Kateryna Kostereva comes from Kyiv, Ukraine, but currently lives and builds her business in the United States of America.
• The company is now directly present in 25 countries, including a large R&D center in Kyiv. The company’s headquarters are located in Boston (USA). The official press release states that Creatio has been experiencing rapid business growth of around 50% every year, increasing its customer base and partner network through the development of the product side and investment in R&D.

Investment details

The minority round was led by Sapphire Ventures with participation from StepStone Group. In addition to Horizon Capital, existing investor Volition Capital also participated in the investment.

Creatio will use the fresh funds to strengthen the company’s global expansion. Furthermore, thanks to the fresh capital, the team will be able to strengthen three strategic directions:

• Increased investment in no-code and artificial intelligence. The company plans to use AI to automate processes and increase user productivity. To simplify the process of building applications, Creatio will also continue to develop no-code development management tools, the company said. Creatio also plans to expand its portfolio of pre-built components and templates for various industries to help organizations build applications even faster.
• Expand its partner network. According to the company, it now has customers in 100 countries around the world.
• Team growth. The company plans to expand its team in all key areas (R&D, support, marketing, sales, etc.).

Moreover, the parties to the agreement assured that the strategy, vision, and management of the company would remain unchanged.

About Prewave

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

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

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

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

Investment details

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

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

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

About Ability AI

• Ability AI was founded by Eugene Vyborov in 2023. Later down the line, Eugene was joined by Oleksiy Osypenko, who is now the co-founder and CTO of Ability AI. The startup is dedicated to solve tasks for full-cycle processes, including strategy, creative content, media buying, and analytics.
• The potential audience of Ability AI are small and medium-sized companies with an annual turnover of about $15-20 million. The company is registered in Delaware, USA, and its valuation is already estimated to reach $10 million.
• According to Ability AI, it helps automate many tasks related to paid marketing, from strategy development to analytics. The platform consists of agents responsible for strategy, content, landings, media buying, analytics, and overall marketing management. Its UX solution based on interface for communicating with agents via chat or voice commands, as well as widgets with real-time information updates.

I envision a world where people can run multiple businesses from a single device, with AI handling daily marketing decisions. This allows you to focus on strategy, product, and unique creatives. For this, new systems are needed where AI sees the full picture about your products, campaigns, and competitors, and can act within defined boundaries. The technology is here, and it’s now about execution. We created Ability AI as a reliable tech tool with a clear vision, a product development roadmap, and effectively proven technology. Our agents use top tactics in paid marketing to achieve the best ROAS, revolutionizing digital commerce for marketers and business owners,

Eugene Vyborov, the CEO and co-founder of Ability AI.

Investment details

• The fresh round was led by SMRK, a global VC founded in 2013 focusing on seed through Series B stages. It provides $500,000-$1.5 million checks to startups with a clear connection to Ukraine and a high potential to bring positive economic, social, and environmental impact.
• Among other participants are Anthony Venus, Catherine Dahl, Nick Bilogorskiy, Andrey Akselrod, Dominic Schiavone, Vital Laptenok, Deborah McGargle, Joseph Lemay, Kendall Hope Tucker, and SID Venture Partners.

The company has just released a Strategy Agent for beta testing, and once this testing is finished, Ability AI will introduce paid packages to access more sophisticated features. The rest of the platform is in active development stage, but users can already sign up to receive a priority on the waitlist. The initial system’s release is targeted at small batches of companies.

The current investment will help the company to expand the team, update product development, and release the system for public clients in the US and Europe.

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.

About Dynamiq

• Dynamiq builds an operational platform for corporate gen AI applications. The platform simplifies the development cycle of AI applications by providing a set of features for rapid prototyping, testing, deployment, monitoring, and more.
• The founder and CEO of Dynamiq is Vitaliy Duk. The startup’s team is based in Ukraine, the core of which consists of former employees of Careem, which was previously acquired by Uber.

At Dynamiq, we are committed to helping enterprises reduce the time and effort required to bring their Generative AI applications to production. Our platform empowers engineering teams with the tools they need to seamlessly integrate and deploy AI solutions, driving efficiency and innovation,

the team of Dynamiq commented on its LinkedIn page.

Investment details

• TA Ventures, the Ukrainian-founded early-stage venture capital firm, backing companies in Europe and North America, is the lead investor during the round.
• Other prominent Ukrainian-led venture capital firms including Geek Ventures, u.ventures, and Diaspora Ventures also participated in the round.

Neither the startup, nor the investors agreed to disclose the amount of the deal. However, u.ventures typically invests between $100,000 and $200,000 at the pre-seed stage and $500,000 at the seed stage. Meanwhile, Geek Ventures’ standard investment at the pre-seed stage ranges from $100,000 to $250,000, and at the seed stage from $250,000 to $500,000. So the round is estimated to be at least $200,000.

About Proofs

• Co-founded by Polish entrepreneurs Bartek Pucek and Zbigniew Sobiecki, Proofs develops software that allows companies with APIs to use AI agents to build proof-of-concept apps in minutes, tailored to their prospects’ needs. The startup claims, it reduces the time to build apps from months to minutes, lowers costs, and allows companies to serve more prospects with higher conversion rates.
• With offices in San Francisco and Warsaw, the Proofs team is currently made up of a team of veteran software engineers and AI researchers.

Investment details

• The fresh round was led by Earlybird Venture Capital, a VC focusing on European technology early-stage companies, providing financial resources, strategic support, and access to an international network & capital markets. Earlybird invests out of a family of independently-managed funds. Flagship funds with early-stage focus include Digital West, Digital East, and Health.
• The Warsaw-based VC firm Expeditions Fund, Step Function Ventures, a venture capital firm that funds European and American tech startups, and the London-based VC firm RTP Global, also joined the investment.
• The list of angel investors who participated in the round includes Robin Haak, Jens Lapinski, Tomasz Karwatka, Piotr Karwatka, and Nick Davidov.

Proofs will spend the funding on product development, hiring new talent and preparing the GTM with a focus on mid-market, and enterprise customers in the US.

About Quantum Innovations

• The team of Quantum Innovations is led by Grzegorz Suwalski, M.D, PhD. The startup develops a unique sensor technology for monitoring organs during surgery and for transplantation — Heart Sense. Quantum uses scientific methodology to analyze and monitor the global market, population status, public health dynamics, progress in medicines, therapy guidelines, and incoming technologies.
• The Heart Sense solution enables real-time ECG monitoring directly from the surface of a beating heart. Additionally, Heart Guard technology also tracks tissue metabolism, including during periods when the heart is stopped for cardiac surgery.

Acquiring new and previously inaccessible precise signals from the organs and body parts undergoing surgery pushes the boundaries of our knowledge. Overcoming these barriers opens up prospects for improving medical procedures. Thus, Heart Sense technology makes it possible to examine the ECG of the operated heart, in any of its positions, from any of its walls, directly from its surface. Heart Guard technology, on the other hand, monitors the metabolism-dependent acidification of the heart. Studies indicate that using this data can help cardiac teams overcome knowledge gaps and prevent dangerous complications and fatalities in patients,

Grzegorz Suwalski, founder and CEO of Quantum Innovations, commented.

Investment details

The fresh €10 million funding round was led by the Vinci IQ ASI fund, a Polish fund established by Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowegoand and managed by Vinci S.A., with participation from the company’s existing investor, MedTech Holding.

We were convinced to invest primarily by the groundbreaking product and technology, as well as the practical experience of the team. The solutions proposed by QI address an unmet need in clinical practice during cardiothoracic surgeries. Introducing these solutions into medical standards has the potential to significantly reduce complications and perioperative mortality associated with heart surgeries. Investments in medical technologies like QI fit perfectly with our fund’s mission of supporting sustainable development.

Piotr Woliński, President of Vinci S.A., said.

The funding round will be used to develop and set up a production line in a clean-room environment, as well as conduct necessary certifications, including regulatory and clinical trials on humans, which will help to expand it globally.

About Zerops

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

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

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

Investment details

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

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

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

• Glovo Startup Lab is an initiative by Glovo, a technology company, that supports startups through funding and mentorship opportunities. It typically includes a competition where startups pitch their ideas to receive financial backing and the chance to work closely with Glovo’s team, either through internships or online mentoring. This initiative aims to foster innovation and entrepreneurship within the startup ecosystem.
• Nine startups pitching at this year’s Glovo Startup Lab: UTU, Banani, Birb, GetOrder, Getpin, Howcow, Releaf Paper, ToGether, Uspacy. In addition to funding, winners also received internship opportunities in Barcelona or online mentorship from the Glovo team:

1. First place: €20,000 funding + internship in Barcelona
2. Second place: €10,000 funding + internship in Barcelona
3. Third place: €5,000 funding + online mentoring from Glovo

Three winning startups:

• First place: Getpin, an online marketing tool that helps businesses with physical locations attract customers looking for products or services nearby.
• Second place: Uspacy, a CRM system for small and medium-sized businesses.
• Third place: Howcow, anAI system that determines the best time for cows to conceive and detects health issues.

The main idea of the PowerUp tech conference was the economic recovery of Ukraine and attracting foreign investments into Ukrainian tech companies and startups. Additionally, the initiative was led by Sasha Michaud, co-founder of Glovo. AIN was a media partner of the conference.

About Elin.ai

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

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

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

Investment details

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

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

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

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

• According to Ivan Petrenko, managing partner of Angel One, the fund cannot invest directly in defense technology startups due to internal policies, so it acts as an intermediary between private investors who are looking for and want to invest in Ukrainian defense technology and such startups.
• The fund’s team searches and evaluates startups, communicates with potentially interested investors, and continues to support these startups after agreements are signed, Petrenko said.

He also added that Angel One Fund recently raised a new round of investments in the amount of $1 million. The collected amount was put to investment from the start of June 2024. As before, the fund will act as a generalist fund, looking for Ukrainian startups in the pre-seed and seed stages from all industries.

Who received investments?

Startups that have received investments include Swarmer, Mantis Analytics, and Buntar Aerospace.

• Swarmer transforms drone swarm operations, making them more efficient and effective. Swarmer revolutionizes the use of drones through AI-based technologies, including swarm management software, a combat mission control center, and AI co-pilot technology. Swarmer’s vision is to create a system that enables humans to autonomously operate swarms of drones, supporting military operations while minimizing human risk in the most challenging environments. The startup was founded in May 2023 by Serhiy Kuprienko and Alex Fink.
• Mantis Analytics helps organizations identify real-time risks and drive growth with AI. The AI platform provides situational awareness of corporate assets, ensuring their protection and rapid response to crises. The founding team consists of CEO Maksym Tereshchenko, technical director and ML and big data expert Ostap Vykhopnyi, and industry expert Anton Tarasiuk.
• Buntar Aerospace is a Ukrainian defense startup that develops the Buntar One reconnaissance air defense system and Buntar Copilot — software for planning and execution of reconnaissance missions. Founded in August 2023 by Ivan Kaunov, Kateryna Bezsudna, and Bohdan Sas. The team focused on the problem of damage and loss of UAVs during reconnaissance missions and developed a complex solution that includes separate software and hardware products.

About Angel One Fund

Angel One Fund is an angel venture fund that invests in Ukrainian startups and helps develop the startup culture in Ukraine. The fund provides startup capital at the pre-seed and seed stages for scaling startups based on technologies, innovations, and intellectual property developed by Ukrainian founders.

Angel One was created in 2022 by the Ukrainian Catholic University Foundation, with an equity capital of $1.5 million and is currently continuing a fundraising campaign.

• Rozmova (Clearly) is a platform that connects psychotherapists with clients online and offline. The product was created by two Ukrainians, Dmytro Marahovskyi and Dmytro Kovalenko, and was launched two weeks before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine.
• In 2023, Rozmova raised an investment round in the amount of $200,000. These funds were directed to the launch of the product in Poland.
• Following the new round, the valuation of Rozmova reached $8 million.

We managed not only to launch in Poland, but also to completely rewrite the product, adapting it to the target markets that interest us. In regards to support from Google: we have already kicked off the strategy for entering new markets and developing the AI ​​functionality. This will allow us to remove restrictions on target markets and customer solvency,

Rozmova’s team commented.

The fresh investment will help the startup to accelerate its expansion in foreign markets (Poland, Spain, Latin America) and improve the service with the help of artificial intelligence.

The first startups that will receive grants in 2024:

• Ailand Systems — smart autonomous drones for detecting mines;
• BazaIT is an all-in-one recruiting solution for technology companies;
• Carbominer is a Ukrainian climate startup that has developed a new technology for capturing CO₂ from the open air;
• Clearly is a technological platform that effectively connects psychotherapists with clients;
• Eddy — a comprehensive digital space for the needs of teachers, parents and students;
• Eventmate is an all-in-one app that allows event organizers to engage their audience and build community using popular messengers;
• Natively — easy conversion of any website into iOS/Android apps;
• Spendbase is a platform for optimizing the costs of companies for the creation of software, cloud technologies and corporate cards;
• Uspacy is a single digital workspace for small and medium-sized businesses that simplifies communication, collaboration and CRM.

About Google fund

Google created a $5 million Ukraine support fund in March 2022. Its fund selects startups based on predefined criteria and assessment during interviews. The fund seeks to help Ukrainian technology companies develop and contribute to the economic recovery of the country after the war.

• Entry criteria for startups:
  • Have at least one of the entities registered in Ukraine;
  • Must be post-MVP stage with proven traction (product launched, pilots, early revenue);
  • Companies that use AI and have a social impact mission will be prioritized;
  • Founders that will use the non-dilutive cash award to continue growth, resume business, or pivot their products or operations impacted by the war and current crisis;

Applications for the next cohort are open, and Ukrainian startups can apply until July 31.

About Mistral AI

• The company was co-founded by former employees of Meta and Google’s DeepMind, Arthur Mensch, Charles Gorintin, Guillaume Lample. They develop AI models intended to compete with the latest innovations such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, Anthropic’s Claude 3, and Meta’s Llama 3.
• Mistral AI has released pre-trained and finely-tuned open-source models, such as Mistral 7B, Mistral 8x7B, and Mistral 8x22B, under the Apache 2.0 license, which allows unrestricted use and reproduction, except for attribution. Its most advanced models, like Mistral Large, are proprietary developments designed for transformation into API-accessible products.
• Companies can access Mistral Large via an API, with fees based on usage volume. Mistral AI also offers a free chatbot named Le Chat. Additionally, Mistral AI has partnership agreements with Microsoft Azure, a minority shareholder in the company.

Investment details

American VC fund General Catalyst led the fresh Series B round. Previously, it has already invested in the startup. According to the Financial Times, Mistral AI has raised €468 million in equity capital and €132 million in debt (approximately $500 million and $140 million, respectively). The long list of investors also included Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, and Salesforce Ventures.

Other investors include Belfius, Bertelsmann Investment, BNP Paribas, Bpifrance (through the Digital Venture fund), Cisco, Eurazeo, Headline, venture fund Hanwha Asset Management, IBM, Korelya Capital, Latitude, Millennium New Horizons, Sanabil Investments, ServiceNow, and SV Angel.

After this round of financing, the value of Mistral AI reached $6 billion.