Romanian Startup Ecosystem Radar (16 – 22 January 2023)

Venture capital, M&A and funding-related news

1. NLX, an artificial intelligence startup based in New York and founded by Andrei & Vlad Papancea, obtained a $4.6M investment. The funding round was led by IAG Capital Partners, with participation from investment funds JetBlue Ventures, Flying Fish Partners and other investors (link).

2. The American investment firm Sequoia, in which the Romanian investor Luciana Lixandru is also active, has launched a new venture capital fund, worth $195M, to finance technology startups in the US and Europe (link).

3. CaptainBook.io, a Greek online platform that connects providers of travel activities and experiences with resellers such as hotels, Airbnb and travel agencies, has raised €250K in a pre-seed round on SeedBlink, and wants to expand to Romania, Poland, Spain, Italy and the rest of Greece (link).

4. Ringhel, a Romanian startup that launched a platform where employees without technical knowledge can build their own software products for the ones that they manage, has secured a €100K investment from the Ascendis Group (link).

5. AROBS Transilvania Software, the largest technology company listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, announces the full takeover of Centrul de Soft GPS SRL, known on the market under the CDS brand, a Romanian company specialized in providing solutions for data management fleet (link).

6. Graphein, a surveying and 3D scanning business for building and public infrastructure projects, announces the attraction of a strategic minority investment from Cascada Investments, a financial solutions manager for companies (link).

Meme break

News related to programs and events

7. Deep tech startups in Europe can enroll in Ventures Thrive, an 8-month accelerator program where they will receive mentorship from companies, investors and mentors. Registrations are open until 16 March (link).

8. Startups from Europe, including Romania, can apply to participate in the TechChill Fifty Founders Battle competition within the TechChill conference which will take place between 26-28 April in Riga, Latvia (link).

Various news related to startups

9. Ciprian Stancu, the founder of the Republica Bio online store, and Viviana Corneţeanu, the company’s COO, have launched a brand of natural products, whose active substance is cannabidiol (CBD), the phytoactive extract extracted from the hemp plant. The brand under which the CBD-based products are sold is called Hempaid, and the initial investment in its launch on the Romanian market exceeded €200K (link).

10. ContentSpeed, the e-commerce platform specialized in creating online stores for traditional retailers and B2B portals for manufacturers and distribution companies, helps SMEs in obtaining European funds for digitalization and business development (link).

Other news in the ecosystem

11. The Agency for Financing Rural Investments has launched a free mobile application AFIR info, with the aim of communicating more easily with the beneficiaries of European funds in agriculture (link).

12. The best environmental and sustainable projects in Romania were awarded, on 18 January, during the second edition of the Green Report Gala, the most prestigious annual event dedicated to the recognition of initiatives in the field of sustainability carried out in Romania by companies, public institutions or individuals (link).

13. United Media Services is the first full-service media agency in Romania to become a Google Marketing Platform Partner (link).