Budapest Letters #26
👋 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 #26, 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: ✍️ Grammarly, a digital writing assistant from the Ukraine, re-imagined English spelling support and both users and investors adore them for it ✍️ Payhawk, Bitrise, Fonoa and Gelatex raises 💵 ✍️ Netherlands’s Serket shows how to make pig farming better ✍️ Once laggers in this regard, CEE startups start buying up international rivals and start raising funds by going public, customs reserved for more developed market players.
🔥 Story of the Week
While not part of the CEE region per se, at least according to the official OECD definition, Ukraine is a neighbor and a fasciniating market for startups. Home to the likes of GitLab, Preply and People.ai, the country is a breeding ground for successful technology companies. But even among these, Grammarly, a digital writing assistant, clearly stands out. And with its new, €176M funding round that values the company at roughly €11.5 billion (!!!), this is even more the case.
According to the startup, it currently serves 30M people across the globe and as such, it is the go-to-platform for anyone looking to improve their English writing skills. Pretty cool achievement from three non-native English speakers…
Show Me Da 💶
👏 Payhawk, a UK-based fintech startup with 🇧🇬 roots, received almost €100M, led by Greenoaks (🇫🇷), with participation from existing investors QED Investors (🇺🇸), Earlybird (🇩🇪) and Eleven Ventures, a Bulgarian VC firm. The startup, whose entreprise software solution simplifies company expenses and payments, will use the fresh funding for international expansion and new product development.
👏 Bitrise, a mobile DevOps startup from 🇭🇺, bagged ca. €53M, led by Insight Partners (🇺🇸), with participation from existing investors Partech (🇺🇸), Zobito (🇸🇪), Open Ocean (🇫🇮), Fiedler Capital (🇦🇹) and Y Combinator (🇺🇸), the famed startup accelerator. The company, that provides business organizations with an end-to-end platform for mobile development (i.e. automating core workflows, shortening release cycles), will use the new money for expansion and product development.
👏 Fonoa, a Dublin-based tax automation platform with 🇭🇷 roots, nabbed ca. €18M, led by Index Ventures (🇬🇧), with participation from OMERS (🇨🇦), FJ Labs (🇺🇸) and several other investors, including many fellow tech founders / business angels. The startup, that helps business (big and small) with taxes on online transactions, will use the funding to fine-tune its tech and expand.
👏 Gelatex, a foodtech startup from 🇪🇪, received €1.2M, led by Change Ventures, a well known local VC firm, and Crosslight Partners (🇸🇪). The company, that supports the scaling and enhancing of nanofibrous materials production (i.e. helping to grow cell-cultured meat), will use the fresh funding to fine-tune its tech.
🚨 Startup Alert
This week’s alert is on Serket, a Dutch agrotech startup with a 🇭🇺 founder (Kristóf Nagy) which is - according to the company - “developing a sensor-free artificial intelligence that uses camera vision to enhance farm operations in real-time.”
Serket’s goal is “to help the livestock management process by optimizing labor, reducing antibiotics use, promoting individual animal health, and improve day-to-day operational challenges.” Noble and forward looking goals in an industry that is ripe for change.
And which, btw, also happens to be super important for all of us and our globe.
PS: Here is an interview with Serket’s founder on his company via TechEU
🧠 Food
There is an age old perception in the business world (at least in CEE) that Anglo-Saxon and Asian startups are the ones aggressive and savy enough to, on the one hand, to buy other startups outside their home markets. And on the other hand, to go public (home or abroad) and raise additional funds this way.
Well, this might have been true in the past, i.e. 10 years ago or so. But thankfully, nowadays more and more regional startups expand via acquisitions or raising fresh money by going public. Two such cool examples, just from this past week, are that of Docplanner’s (🇵🇱) and Dronamics (🇧🇬).
The former, a Warsaw-based online healthcare marketplace that reached unicorn status in September, acquired Jameda, a Munich-based startup that digitally connects patients with physicians, complemeting its already strong offering.
While the later, a Sofia-based developer of unmanned cargo drones, announced that it seeks to raise €3M via an IPO on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange’s specialist SME growth market, BEAM. A big success for local capital market development.
Hope to see more of these deals and moves in near future!