Budapest Letters #24
👋 Hi All! Great to have you back. This is Budapest Letters, my newsletter covering startup and small business stories from the CEE region, or interesting developments that might have something to do with this part of Europe. Hope you will enjoy it!
Before we jump into edition #24, big shout out to our new subscribers, good to have you here. And one more thing before we roll, if you like what you read, subscribe + share 🙏
Cheers, Aron
📢 TL;DR
Top stories this week: ✍️ Croatian cloud communication provider Infobip acquires US rival, while securing $500M from global investors ✍️ FlowX.AI, Fairown and Softbinator raises 💵 ✍️ Czechia’s Miton intends to make a huge bet on crypto ✍️ The new EU-wide crowdfunding regulation came into force
🔥 Story of the Week
Infobip, a cloud communication platform provider from 🇭🇷, acquired Chicago-based VoIP provider Peerless Network in cash + share deal, making it Infobip’s 4th acquisition in less than 12 months. On top of this, the Croatian company also announced that it has secured $500M in fresh funding via direct loan replacement from Blackrock, an asset management giant from 🇺🇸, and Ares Management.
This is big news in two ways. Firstly, with this acquisition, Infobip will process ca. 30 billion monthly customer interactions for its global clientele (incl. several Fortune 500 companies) in over 190 countries, making it one of the top dogs in the corporate comms space; competing against the likes of Twilio and Link Mobility. Secondly, thanks to the new financing, it will accelerate its international growth and further strengthen its already wide and trusted service offering.
All this coming from a company that is still based in Vodnjan, a small town in Istria, where it was founded by Izabel Jelenić (CTO) and the Kutić borthers, Roberto (COO) and Silvio (CEO), back in 2006. Conclusion here folks…
Show Me Da 💶
👏 FlowX.AI, an enterprise platform provider from 🇷🇴, received €7.35M, led by PortfoLion (🇭🇺), with participation from Day One Capital (🇭🇺), and local investors via SeedBlink. The startup, which helps banks and financial institutions in building digital experiences regardless of complex IT structures, will use the funding for international expansion (Europe + US) and fine-tuning their tech.
👏 Fairown, a fintech startup from 🇪🇪, bagged €4.2M, led by Main Incubator, the early-stage investment arm of 🇩🇪 banking giant Commerzbank. The startup, which enables business to offer their products on a monthly subscription basis (i.e. supporting sustainability and the building of a circular economy, will use the fresh money to develop new services (e.g. old product revival) and expand.
👏 Softbinator Technologies, a software developer and consultancy startup from 🇷🇴, landed €1.2M from the Bucharest Stock Exchange, ahead of its IPO later this year. The company offers business of all sizes tailor-made tech solutions, like developing cutting-edge digital products and services, that otherwise would not be possible (i.e. due to lack of IT talent, complex tech stack) for these firms to create. Along with this news, Softbinator also annonunced the acquisition of software developer WiseUP, a smaller local rival.
🚨 Startup Alert
This week’s alert is not on a startup but on Miton’s (🇨🇿) intention to invest more than 1 billion Czech korunas (= ca. €40M) in crypto-related projects. Huge news considering that up until now, at least as far as I know, there was no such bold commitments made by other CEE investment firms; ps: if you did hear about something, feel free to throw it in my face at hello.bpletters@gmail.com 🙏
According to Ondřej Raška, co-founder of Miton, the investment signals their belief that crypto will change the way we live, work and interact for the better. The company will invest anything from $0 to $10M in crypto native projects that support this aim. However, while having a diverse cryptocurrency portfolio of its own, Raška underlined that Miton is looking for genuine projects, not currencies.
More on this story, unfortunately only in Czech, via CzechCrunch
🧠 Food
Crowdfunding has grown rapidly in recent years across the globe and in this, thankfully, Europe is no different. What fuels this process is pretty straightforward. On the one hand, investors (i.e. people, organizations and businesses) are looking for yield-generating opportunities in a global economy where traditional investments do not bring in much. On the other hand, investment seekers (i.e. people, organizations and businesses) are looking for faster, simpler and more easily obtainable financing than what banks offer.
And crowdfunding, via digital platforms, is serving this double need, perfectly. However, an EU-wide regulation was badly missing that would harmonize the European crowd market and boost adoption. Not anymore though…
The Regulation on European Crowdfunding Service Providers for Business (here), that enable crowdfunding platforms to offer their services across (!!!) the EU, was finally introduced on 10 November, making way for a revolution in investments. No suprise that that one of the leaders in the space, Crowdcube from 🇬🇧, already announced on the very same day that it aims to expand across the continent.
I really hope that the new regulation will also support the growth and European expansion of similar platforms from CEE, like SeedBlink and Funderbeam 🤞