CEEfarers - October 2024 Edition

Ahoy CEEfarers! We summarize the most notable events in venture capital in CEE and news from the team at KAYA VC. Enjoy the read!

💸 Early stage rounds in CEE

During the previous month (September 2024), more than 25 CEE startups successfully raised their early rounds with an aggregate deal value of €61.9m (€2.48m per deal on average). Key rounds:

• 🇸🇰 Sloneek (Purple Ventures, Vision Ventures, Venture to Future; €3.6m)
• 🇺🇦 Osavul (SMRK VC, 42CAP, U.ventures; €2.8m)
• 🇭🇷 SplxAI (Inovo VC, South Central Ventures, Runtime Ventures; €1.8m)
• 🇪🇪 ÄIO (SmartCap, Voima Ventures, Nordic FoodTech VC, ...; €6.1m)

*Early stage round = publicly disclosed round prior to Series A

🤩 New investments

🧮 We are pleased to announce the expansion of our portfolio with another ambitious company, this time focused on a step-change improvement to AI model architecture through a unique mathematical approach. Its Czech founder chose to stay in the stealth mode for now, and we'll share an official announcement when available.

📸 Portfolio in the news

• 📧 A few months ago, ZetaLabs made waves by launching the beta version of their product Jace. Starting with the automated workflows around your inbox, you can join the waitlist here!

• Founders from our portfolio won all three main categories of CzechCrunch Startup Awards 🥳
  • 🚀 After Better Stack and Upheal, E2B is our third company in a row that won in the category of young startups of the year. The whole team was working on the product in SF at the time, so Tobik was called to collect the prize instead.

• 🚀 On the same night, Better Stack was awarded in the main category as the most promising startup in the Czechia. For this occasion, Juraj also appeared in CC's podcast MoneyMaker.

Šéfuje nejnadějnějšímu startupu v Česku. Nechci být jednorožec, ale gorila, co vydělává peníze, říká Juraj Masár

Jak myslí muž, který vede nejnadějnější startup v Česku? Poslouchejte Juraje Masára, spoluzakladatele Better Stacku, v podcastu Money Maker.

CzechCrunch

• 🚀 And last but not least, Tomas Cupr placed first in the category of startup personality of the year. Coincidentally, a few weeks ago, Rohlik celebrated its 10th anniversary. Congratulations!

Rohlík.cz slaví deset let. Očekává obrat miliardu eur a chce se rozrůst Evropou | Forbes

Farmářský trh, pekárna, hračkářství a lékárna v jednom. Internetový obchod Rohlík.cz slaví deset let. Letos míří k obratu pětadvacet miliard korun a má ambici stát se hegemonem Evropy.

ForbesJana Divinová

• 💰 In addition to winning the awards, E2B made headlines with the announcement of their closed $11.5M seed round!
  Big congratulations, Vasek & Tomas!

📚 What caught our eye

• ✨ We're excited to share our KAYA AI Opportunity Paper. This document summarizes our insights and the current landscape of several key AI topics, providing you with a deeper look into our thinking and approach.

🫠 What made us smile

🎉 Events and conferences