Romanian Startup Ecosystem Radar (19 – 25 September 2022)

In your attention: The State of CEE/SEE Early-Stage Fundraising

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Venture capital, M&A and funding-related news

1. Agista, the first Romanian investment fund, in pending authorization, which invests in local SMEs with the aim of listing them on the stock exchange and making them perform on the capital market, has acquired an additional package of shares in Bittnet, a Romanian group of IT companies listed on the Main Market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (link).

2. Drooler, a Romanian startup that produces in its own factory and delivers cooked food for dogs, has started a funding campaign on the Rōnin crowdfunding platform. The startup aims to attract investments worth €100K up to €200K (link).

3. Videobolt, Serbian video editing startup, is raising a round on Seedblink, where they already reached a €274K investment. The total round is €450K and is led by South Central Ventures (link).

4. The Spotlight competition, dedicated to early-stage startups and held within How to Web, announced its winners from among the 40 selected startups. Braight Technologies from Poland is the company that was considered by the jury to have the best business and the best pitch. The startup will receive €465K in prize money (link).

Meme break – let’s not take ourselves too serious

News related to programs and events

5. European Digital Commerce powered by VTEX has become one of the most important trade events in the region, and on October 12 will bring together hundreds of specialists, dozens of speakers and hours of premium content, both online and offline (link).

6. Core Antivirus, Esave, Field OS and Stage One are the four tech startups entering the Orange Fab accelerator this fall, bringing their total number of collaborations to 40. The application for the next stage of admission to the Orange Fab program is open throughout the month of November, so interested entrepreneurs can register by November 30 (link).

7. 26 entrepreneurs from Arad, Timiș, Hunedoara and Caraș-Severin were selected from among the 200 enrolled in the ADRVest Accel business acceleration program, offered free of charge by the West Regional Development Agency and the Institute for Excellence in Entrepreneurship – IdEA (link).

8. Made in Romania, the program of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, has announced and awarded on September 22 the finalist companies of this year’s edition, the future growth engines of the Romanian economy (link).

Various news related to startups

9. Ullmanna, an Agritech startup from the Czech Republic, Verdefood, a Romanian marketplace, and Proofminder, a Hungarian platform for artificial intelligence in precision agriculture, are the winners of the first edition of Nextcelerator, the agriculture acceleration program run by Agricover, SeedBlink and Microsoft (link).

10. XVision, the medical platform based on artificial intelligence algorithms, which develops products to support radiologists in the analysis and interpretation of medical images, changes its brand identity and becomes Rayscape (link).

11. SmartHuts, an intuitive product that helps in the integrated management of a company’s assets by maintenance teams, has changed its identity and became FieldOS (link).

12. Flip.ro, a Romanian startup funded by eMAG Ventures and which offers a marketplace of refurbished phones, is expanding in Hungary under the rejoy.hu brand, following its recent expansion in Bulgaria (link).

13. Elrond & Opera have announced that they have entered into a partnership which will allow all Opera users direct access to the Elrond ecosystem. This will make EGLD, Elrond assets and applications built on the Elrond network accessible for their massive user base, further increasing adoption avenues (link).

Other news in the ecosystem

14. BCR and the School of Money (Școala de Bani), together with FabLab and the Edupedu Association, launched LifeLab, a program through which teachers of various specializations are supported to become “life teachers” and support their students to fulfill their wishes through financial education (link).

15. Microsoft announced in partnership with the EOS Foundation the expansion of the qualification campaign in the field of cyber security in Romania. The CyberStarter project aims to contribute to reducing gaps in this priority area and to increasing diversity in the professions associated with cyber security (link).

16. The startup community in Timișoara has a new hub where they can meet, work and start impactful tech initiatives. Last week saw the launch of Cowork Timișoara, The Office, a space created with the support of InnovX BCR, right above a BCR branch in the city center (link).