Budapest Letters #50
👋🏻 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 #50, 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, share + subscribe 👇
Cheers, Aron
📢 TL;DR
Top stories this week: ✍🏻 Milestone alert: Budapest Letters, with today’s fresh piece, has reached its 50th edition ✍🏻 Certific, Salto X, The Village Network and 99maths raised 💶 ✍🏻 Slovakia’s DNA ERA aims to make DNA analysis and health prevention based on its results more accessable for people ✍🏻 The EU announced a so-called “New European Innovation Agenda” that hopes to ensure that the bloc will be able to compete with the likes of the US and China
🔥 Story of the Week
While self-promotion is not something I fancy, this week’s 🔥 story is about Budapest Letters. Friends, I hope you do not mind, but here comes a bit of…
In my defence, I feel that it is not without merit since with today’s edition BL has crossed its 50th mark 🥳 Honestly, when I launched it roughly a year ago, the only thing I was obsessed with was the creation of a newsletter that does not exist on the market; or one which I did not come across 🙂 Namely, a weekly newsletter that is easy-to-read, funny (not overtly), professional and focused on the small business scene of Central and Eastern Europe (= a region that is usually referred to as post-Soviet Europe by Anglo-Saxon media outlets), that I am from.
On the sequence and the regional focus, I kept the inial target. On quality, I think I am fairly okey but I still need to improve. Thankfully, with your continous support, feedback and attention, that can also happen. So I am confident.
What comes next? I have a bunch of ideas. We also ideate on possibilities with Csongor from Startup Hungary. Nonetheless, I would love to hear from you, the Budapest Letters community. For this, I am planning to send out a questionnaire (sometime in the coming weeks) in which I will seek your honest feedback on what works, what not, what could be enhanced and what you are missing.
Based on these, and my own ideas, I will thrive to make BL better.
Show Me Da 💶
👏🏻 Certific, a fintech startup from 🇪🇪, received €7.4M led by Plural, with participation from Specialist VC (🇪🇪) and business angels; fun fact: Certific is co-founded by Liis Narusk, Jack Kreindler and Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, who, through Plural, also happens to be an investor in the firm. The company’s solution enables remote medical testing, diagnostics and monitoring for numerous health conditions and it will use the funding for its expansion.
👏🏻 Salto X, another fintech startup from 🇪🇪, bagged €5.2M co-led by byFounders (🇩🇰) and Blockwell (🇩🇪), with participation from other VC firms and business angels. The company, whose platform provides opportunity for startups to provide equity compensation to remote workers via blockchain technology, will use the newly raised sum to expand globally and boost its team.
👏🏻 The Village Network, an edtech startup from 🇵🇱, nabbde €3.4M from a group of 🇨🇿 VC firms (Movens, Credo and Tilia) and 500 Startups (🇺🇸). The startup, that aims to create an all-in-one platform for childcare development (incl. an app for running nurseries and schools for small kids), will use the fresh raise to grow its user base, further improve its tech and expand, for starters, within CEE.
👏🏻 99maths, an edtech startup from 🇪🇪, snatched ca. €2M led by Play Ventures (🇸🇬), with participation from Flyer One (🇺🇦) and Change Ventures (🇪🇪), both existing investors. The startup, that provides an educational platform that helps children learn math through gamification, will use the fresh raise to fine-tune its tech and expand internationally (special focus on the US and South American markets).
👏🏻 Additional investment news that you should know about:
Labplus, a healttech startup from 🇵🇱, raised ca. €1.48M (mostly) from LT Capital, a French venture capital firm: more via MamStartup
LiveKID, an edtech startp from 🇵🇱, acquired Dinantia, a Spanish competitor, in a deal worth several millions: more on this via MamStartup
BADideas.fund, a recently launched VC firm from 🇱🇻, announced its first investment in Breezit, a startup from 🇱🇹; more via the fund’s Linkedin page
Bogdan Iordache, the founder of the How to Web conference, announced the launch of his micro VC fund, Underline Ventures; more via The Recursive
🥂 to all founders and teams on the fresh raises!
🚨 Startup Alert
This week’s alert is on DNA ERA, a biotech startup from 🇸🇰, that was founded by Michaela Šišková (geneticist) and Jakub Šiška (mathematician), her husband.
The company focuses on direct genetic analysis of DNA, using its own software, with which it can reveal predispositions to diseases, genetic risks and detect sporting potential. This might sound a bit futuristic but it is not radically new. Internationally, there are already quite a few startups and scale-ups that work in this field (e.g. 23andme, Prenetics, Helix, Color Genomics). Still, DNA ERA’s part focus on sports and CEE, at a minimum, makes its potential very promising.
Local investors surely agree with this sentiment: CB Investments, a local investment fund, already provided it €250k last year. And now, via Crowdberry (a crowdfunding platform for the Czech and Slovak markets), the startup snatched an additional ca. €400k for expansion (Poland, chiefly) and fine-tuning its product.
So how it all works? Easy peasy.
Pick your test: Customers need to pick a DNA test of their choosing. Currently, there are three options: Complex / Health / Lifestyle. After this and the payment, a courier delivers the kit to the provided home address.
Sample: I think you all know the deal here, after years of COVID 😉 But in practice, one must take a saliva sample from his/hers mouth and then register the collection as per the enclosed instructions.
Analysis: A prepaid courier takes the sample to the startup where they sort out the analysis and the detailed interpretation of results.
Discovery: After 5 weeks (tops) personalized DNA results, interpretations and recommendations are shared with clients. That is it.
Cool stuff. Rooting for the team!
🧠 Food
The European Commission unveiled its long awaited innovation / startup strategy, called “New European Innovation Agenda“ that aims to make the Union on pair with tech market heavyweights like the US and China; more details here & here.
On a positive note, the overall document and approach looks decent. It has many good and much needed points that the Commission had to address, like ages ago.
But here we are and so the 🇪🇺 can now act on strategic goals such as…
Improve access to finance for startups and scale-ups;
Create regional innovation valleys across the continent;
Attract and retain European talent = reverse brain drain;
Harmonize policy-making through clear terminology and indicators.
All sounds jolly-good, right? Well, not exactly. You see, in strategies, policies and position papers, so all that is on paper and does not really count as hard achievement, the EU was always good. But what was missing, and frankly still is, was the delivery part; especially compared to 🇺🇸 and 🇨🇳, both who deliver. If you do not believe me, which is fine, check these stats below via the EIU:
What this two chart tells us is that Europe is trailing the US in innovation, and by a wide margin. US VC funding is ten times that of Europe, and US firms are much more active in acquiring innovation in Europe than vice versa. Ouch.
And honestly, I am not sure if this new plan will help us counter these figures. Sure, as a European, I certainly hope so. But based on past experiences, I doubt it.
Still, if you are positive, that is great and you should be. Fingers crossed that the Eurocrats, including EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel will prove me wrong.