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👋🏻 Hi All! Great to have you back. This is visegrad.now, my newsletter covering startup and small business stories from the Visegrad countries (🇵🇱, 🇨🇿, 🇸🇰, 🇭🇺). If you like what you read, do not forget to subscribe, share and recommend us to friends 😉 Cheers!
PS: I am always open to new ideas and suggestions that could make this newsletter better, so DM me at hello.visegradnow@gmail.com, anytime.
📢 TL;DR
Top stories this week: ✍🏻 Search optimization startup Luigi’s Box (🇸🇰) bought its Czech rival, Persoo, in a deal said to reach several millions of 💶 ✍🏻 CloudTalk (🇸🇰), Meiro (🇨🇿), Elv.ai (🇸🇰) and Multilango (🇵🇱) have all received 💰 ✍🏻 Czechia’s Meiro aims to make it big with its customer data platform ✍🏻 Open roles at startups in this edition, and an overview of great Visegrad startup events
🚨 Intro
When I first read about Luigi’s Box (🇸🇰) expansion, I first thought - based on its name - that it is somekind of a cool pizza startup, like Slice in the US. But in reality, Luigi’s Box has exactly zero connection to 🍕, since it is a search optimization startup for e-retailers (e.g. Under Armour, Alza, Kosik.cz).
And it is not just any player within the small but growing Slovak scene, it is one of the more noteworthy ones, especially after this news. For all of you who are not masters of the Czech language (I am also not, btw), the big story with Luigi is that in entered the 🇨🇿 market with the acquisition of Persoo, a local competitor. And this, as far as I am concerned, rarely happens. The historic flow of acquisitions between Czechia and Slovakia, in any given industry, are usually Czechs purchasing Slovaks, and not the other way around. But here we are 🎉
Luigi’s Box was founded in 2014 by Gejza Nagy, Tomas Kramar and Michal Barla, and in its 9 years it has become the go to product search and recommendations site for ca. 3,500 e-commerce sites, from small to some pretty big ones. While the final deal size is undisclosed, most local outlets agree that is in the few € millions.
So great exit for Persoo founder Jakub Černý, not just money-wise but also business-wise, as his company will team up with a friendly neighbour. And also great exit for local VC firms, like Presto (🇨🇿), Lighthouse (🇨🇿) and Neulogy (🇸🇰).
But in the end, probably best for the ever faster Luigi’s Box 👏🏻
💶 Funding corner
👏🏻 CloudTalk, an AI-powered business calling software startup from 🇸🇰, snatched ca. €25.6M (Series B round) co-led by KPN Ventures and Lead Ventures (🇭🇺). The fresh financing will aim at boosting growth and product development.
Founded: 2016; HQ: Bratislava; Founder(s): Martin Malych, Viktor Vanek; Total funding (until today): ca. €33.5M
👏🏻 Merio, a customer data platform startup with 🇨🇿 founders from 🇸🇬, bagged ca. €2.7M led by Wavemaker Partners with participation from Angel Central’s angel investors. The fresh financing will aim at product development, boosting existing team and international expansion, starting out with a branch in Dubai.
Founded: 2018; HQ: Singapore; Founder(s): Jana Marle-Zizkova, Pavel Bulowski and Vojtech Kurka; Total funding: €2.7M
👏🏻 Elv.ai, a cybersec startup from 🇸🇰, nabbed €500k from CB ESPRI Impact One, a local investment fund. The company, that help organizations fight cyberhate and misinformation, will use the investment to fuel its growth within Europe.
Founded: 2023; HQ: Bratislava; Founder(s): Milan Dubec, Gabriel Tóth, Ľudovít Ďurman and Jakub Šuster; Total funding: €500k
👏🏻 Multilango, an edtech startup from 🇵🇱, landed €400k from Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder, EKIPA Investments and undisclosed private investor. The financing will aim at further developing its product and growing its reach on its current markets.
Founded: 2021; HQ: Wroclaw; Founder(s): Łukasz Skrzypek, Michał Paszko, and Cezary Chałupa; Total funding: ca. €690k
🥂 to all founders and teams on the fresh raises!
🔍 In focus
This week’s profile is on Meiro, a customer data platform based in Singapore, because their story is really unique. Founders Jana Marle-Zizkova, Pavel Bulowski and Vojtech Kurka were working together as consultants in South East Asia (SEA), helping clients understand the client related data pool they were sitting on.
At first though, they were not a team. Pavel worked at a Czech startup’s (Socialbreakers) Singaporean branch but as soon he meet Jana and Vojtech, they hit it off, formed Meiro, and started building the company in the extended region (🇮🇩, 🇵🇭, 🇦🇺) with their own money. The startups initial focus was SEA, but as the COVID pandemic brought Pavel back to Czechia, they also kicked of growing the business in the motherland - previously they did product development there.
Meiro’s platform is pretty straightforward, it helps marketing campaing optimization by making sense who their clients are and how they behave. They are utilizing client’s transactional, web and and app interaction data, as well as any other type of behavioral data that a client collects from its end users.
”Although we have always been self-financed, this investment [ca €2.7M from Wavemaker Partners and Angel Center] will help us significantly accelerate the development of our activities and strengthen our presence on the international stage, where some of our competitors are weakening and retreats,” - Jana Marlé-Žižková
💘 Role play
Luigi’s Box has 5 open positions, e.g. Account Manager;
Meiro has 12 open positions, e.g. Sales Executive for Czechia
CloudTalk has 15 open positions, e.g. Global Partnership Manager
📚 Outro
If you fancy startups, innovation and cutting-edge tech stuff á la conferences, go check out some of these cool events in 2024, all within the Visegrad region:
DevGamm (Poland, 28-29 February)
CEE VC Summit 2024 (Poland, 19-20 March)
Wolves Summit (Poland, May)
Infoshare (Poland, 22-23 May)
Craft Conference 2024 (Budapest, 30-31 May)
Carpathian Startup Fest (Poland, 5-6 June)
Perspektywy Women in Tech Summit 2024 (Poland, 12-13 June)
And that’s a wrap…