#4
ππ» Hi All! Great to have you back. This is 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 friends π Cheers!
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π’ TL;DR
Top stories this week: βπ» Polandβs PFR Ventures and Inovo VC published their annual report on the local VC market with loads of interesting insights βπ» Omnetic (π¨πΏ), Colossyan (ππΊ), Saleor (π΅π±) and Mindgram (π΅π±) have all received πΆ βπ» Hungaryβs Qneiform aims to support headhunters with a propreitory AI-driven tool βπ» Open roles at startups in this edition, and some good reads
π¨ Intro
Polandβs PFR Ventures and Inovo published their yearly overview of the local VC market. Startups, VC firms, investments, trends and all other yummy stuff.
Here is the report. But what stands out to me, are these bits:
In 2023, local and intl. VC firms invested β¬466M (42% decrease vs. 2022);
Biggest raise (ca. β¬74M) came from ElevenLabs (more here via ed. #3) - much of it came from high flying US VC firms, like a16z, not local sources;
Seed rounds (biggest share of all investments) decreased just slightly, Series A increased, while Series B collapsed, falling by 70% vs the previous year;
VC funds mostly favored healthcare startups (15.8% of all deals), a trend going steadily since 2020, and SaaS business models (more than 50% of all deals).
πΆ Funding corner
ππ» Omnetic, a digital omnitool platform for car dealerships and garages from π¨πΏ, snatched a whopping β¬100M from Kartesia (π«π·) and CVI (π΅π±). The fresh financing will aim at boosting further expansion (chiefly Poland, Germany and France).
Founded: 2019; HQ: Prague; Founder(s): Jakub Ε ulta, Pavel SvoreΕ and Petr KratochvΓl; Total funding (until now): β¬100M - previous rounds N/A
ππ» Colossyan, an AI startup from ππΊ, bagged ca. β¬20.4M led by Lakestar (π¨π) with participation from existing investors, including Day One Capital (ππΊ). The fresh financing will aim at product development, mostly, and international growth.
Founded: 2020; HQ: London; Founder(s): KristΓ³f SzabΓ³ (exited), ZoltΓ‘n KovΓ‘cs (exited), Dominik KovΓ‘cs; Funding: ca. β¬26-28M range
ππ» Saleor, an e-commerce platform startup from π΅π±, nabbed β¬7.4M led by Target Global (πΊπΈ) and e-commerce giant Zalando (π©πͺ). The investment will fuel its international growth, fine-tune its platform and expand its agency program.
Founded: 2020; HQ: WrocΕaw; Founder(s): Mirek Mencel, Patryk Zawadzki; Funding: β¬8-10M range
ππ» Mindgram, healthtech startup from π΅π±, landed β¬2.5M led by Smartlink Partners (π΅π±) with participation from Market One Capital (π΅π±), Credo Ventures (π¨πΏ) and PortfoLion (ππΊ). The financing will aim at scaling the business further.
Founded: 2020; HQ: Warsaw; Founder(s): Adam Plona,Β Jakub ZieliΕski, andΒ MaΕgorzata Ohme; Funding: ca. β¬10M
π₯ to all founders and teams on the fresh raises!
π In focus
This weekβs profile is on Qneiform, an AI-driven HRtech startup from ππΊ, that was founded in 2023 byΒ Thomas Percy, who spent his prior years as a headhunter.
Qneiform platform - according to itself - is built as a single source of truth for headhunters and talent professionals, that already counts 25+ leading recruitment firms and talent teams across the finance and legal sectors as customers.
Thanks to Qneiform, which is powered by proprietory industry datasets combined with talent specific AI models, users can instantly benchmark teams, identify talent gaps and find the ideal candidate for their strategic goals. In addition to finding the right talent to the right position, companies can also understand themselves like never before, forecasting departures and developing succession planning (and identifying competitor activity) to gain market edge.
π§ Personal take: Despite AI being a buzzword across the startup universe, I am pretty bullish on companies that are lead by experts/insiders of a given vertical and who are backed by investors that are also knee deep into that specific area. In the case of Qneiform, it seems that both of these attributes are checked. Its founder is an experienced headhunter, while its investor, Samen Slimmer Alliance, is a strategic venture fund that provide funding (typically up to β¬700k), but more importantly a dedicated engineering team so that exceptional founders are able to bring their AI-driven product to market in aΒ few months, instead of years.
π Role play
Mindgram has 1 open position, i.e. Senior Sales Account
Saleor has 11 open positions, e.g. Principal Product Designer
Colossyan has 17 open positions, e.g. Senior Product Manager
π Outro
And before we bid farewell, some goodies to check:
Romaniaβs How to Web published its Venture in Eastern Europe 2023 report in cooperation with BCR Seed Starter and underline ventures, a local VC firm.
Full Speed Ventures, a Polish rooted VC firm, announced the launch of its second, β¬50M tech fund that will support startups with initial β¬1-2M tickets.
Google for Startups announced the second cohort of 17 startups for its Growth Academy: AI for Cybersecurity program, incl. Authologic (π΅π±) and Talsec (π¨πΏ).
ΔSOB, one of Czechiaβs main commercial banks, and Mastercard, the global payments giant, launched its Fintech Challenge for aspiring CEE startups.
That is it for today, see you on 4 March!