#24
ππ» Longtime readers, great to have you back! Newcomers, big shout out to you and welcome on board, hope you will enjoy visegrad.now, my newsletter covering startup and small business stories from the Visegrad countries (π΅π±, π¨πΏ, πΈπ°, ππΊ). If you like what you read, do not forget to subscribe, share and recommend us to curious minds π Cheers!
PS: I am always open to new ideas, corrections, colabs and suggestions that could make this newsletter better, so DM me at hello.visegradnow@gmail.com, anytime.
π’ TL;DR
Top stories this week: βπ» ZAKA VC, a Czech family office turned VC fund, opens office in Silicon Valley πΎ βπ» ElevanLabs (π΅π±), Wealthon (π΅π±) and Kodesage (ππΊ) received πΆ βπ» CulturePulse, a behavioral modeling startup from πΈπ°, aims to ensure better understanding of customers for businesses βπ» Open positions at startups & Good reads, like a report on the π΅π± VC market from PFR and Inovo
π¨ Intro
ZAKA VC, a Prague-based family office turned venture capital firm (here is a great profile on the company via The Recursive) has announced the opening of its office in Silicon Valley, and with it, the official expansion of its operations to the North American market (πΊπΈ & π¨π¦). The office will be headed by Filip Orth.
Love it. Big news. I am honestly not sure how many other VC firms from the Visegrad region have an actual office in the States, but I guess not too many. Credo Ventures, another well known Czech firm comes into mind, but no other. Of course, launching in the US is one thing. Succeeding in probably one of, if not the most competitive startup / VC markets on the planet, well, that is a different one.
But hey, where there is will, there is a way. And ZAKA VC has proven it. Here is a short interview with the newly appointed US office head, courtesy of AIN.
πΆ Funding corner
ππ» ElevanLabs, an AI audio startup from π΅π±, snatched ca. β¬174M led by ICONIQ Growth (πΊπΈ), with participation of several existing investors, including a16z. Financing will aim at expanding product offering and serving new industries.
Founded: 2022; HQ: New York; Founder(s): Mati Staniszewski, Piotr DΔ bkowski; Total funding (until now): ca. β¬260.0-275M range (π¦ status, naturally)
ππ» Wealthon, a fintech startup from π΅π±, raised a princely β¬115.5M from 3TS Capital Partners (π¦πΉ) and local investors, including Fortress Investment Group. Financing will aim at product development, boosting sales and expansion.
Founded: 2019; HQ: Warsaw; Founder(s): Aleksander Majchrzak; Aleksander Przetakiewicz; Funding: ca. β¬130M (but out of this, trad VC π° is ca. 12.0M)
ππ» Kodesage, another AI startup but from ππΊ, bagged ca. β¬2.3M led by PortfoLion, a well regarded local VC firm, with participation from several business angels. Financing will aim at boosting its platform and grow, grow, grow, obviously.
Founded: 2024; HQ: Budapest; Founder(s): MiklΓ³s Szurdi, Gergely Dombi, GyΓΆrgy SzilΓ‘gyi; Funding: This was the first round of raise from the startup
π₯ to all founders and teams on the fresh raises!
π In focus
This weekβs profile is on CulturePulse, a behavioral modeling startup from πΈπ°, that developed an AI-driven simulation platform that can predict human behavior/sentiment. The Bratislava-based company claims that its platform can detect numerous behavioral categories (anxiety, personality, racism, etc.) in more than 80 languages with ca. 95% correlation. If true, it can save tons of time and money - to say the least - of businesses as they can test new products and services on their customers, without actual IRL testing, before each launch. Pretty cool stuff.
The πΈπ°/πΊπΈ startup was founded in 2021 by Justin E. Lane, F. LeRon Shults, Brian Swichkow and Maja Roknic, here is in an interview with the latter, and up until now it has raised ca. β¬2.4M from Rockaway Ventures (π¨πΏ) and Zero Gravity (πΈπ°).
π Role play
30+ open roles at ElevanLabs, e.g. Growth Marketer - Germany.
π Outro
And as always, before parting ways, some goodies to check:
In 2024, 142 Polish startups raised β¬493 million β reports the new PFR Ventures and Inovo VC market analysis for Poland. Kudos π΅π± startups!
Simpact Ventures partners with NCBR Investment Fund to co-invest up to β¬2M in early-stage startups - more news on this via AIN.
Top tech/startup conferences to attend in CEE, compilation by AIN.
Still few days to apply for ReaktorXβs pre-seed 2025 CEE accelerator.
That is it, see you on 24 February!
