While Southeast Europe might be a small region compared to the rest of the continent, it has a rich history of innovation and recent years have seen an increase in the number of startups originating from these countries.
However, the region hasn’t stayed immune to current macroeconomic developments and many startups have felt the consequences of investors and VCs becoming more cautious with their investments.
Therefore, for most regional startups fundraising in a downturn has proven to be quite of a challenge. However, these circumstances haven’t prevented them from being innovative, as more and more startups are coming up with new products and services in verticals such as Fintech, HRtech, and AI.
In this article, we are sharing some of the regional startups fundraising right now by getting seed capital, funding from angel investors, or venture capitalists.
Startups Fundraising in North Macedonia
FinqUp
FinqUP is an investing app for beginners that provides an intuitive program where only one click separates the potential users from hundreds of verified and profitable trading strategies. The app looks to simplify the way that users can find strategies and invest their money, resulting in more responsible decision making. After bootstrapping for the first year, the promising startup is now raising a seed round which it’ll use to develop its platform and expand to global markets.
Task ’N Go
Task ’N Go is a North Macedonia-based platform for automation of existing task management platforms, with metrics, analytics, and prediction. After a year and a half of bootstrapping and an initial investment of $150K, the startup now has two angel investors along with the local BAU accelerator. The fundraising round is still open, as the company plans to use the funding to launch its second version and focus on marketing and sales.
Konceptiva
Founded in 2019, Konceptiva is a startup working in the intersection of edtech and HRtech. Its main product is called Coach, a micro-learning platform that detects and fixes knowledge gaps, and allows corporations and their HR departments to provide interactive training with elements of gamification to their employees. After getting an initial investment of €100K at the end of 2021, the Macedonian startup is now raising a seed round in order to scale its business and expand to markets such as the US.
Read more: How a former refugee from Kosovo built the fastest-growing company in the Western Balkans
Startups Fundraising in Albania
Rubicon
Rubicon is an Albania-based fintech company engaged in providing financial solutions and developing a payment processing network. In May last year, the company raised €450K in pre-seed to launch its innovative FinTech platform in Albania.
Earlier this year, the Albanian company also announced a new expanded partnership with Mastercard that sees Rubicon become a principal member as a payment’s technology company.
Startups Fundraising in Bulgaria
Humans in the Loop
Humans in the Loop is a social enterprise specialized in data annotation for the computer vision industry. Their employees perform manual labeling and verification to train machine learning models, working on projects in the field of autonomous driving and flights, medical AI, Agri-tech, robotic vision, and others. The Bulgarian company is currently raising a seed round targeting €1M, led by Sofia Angels Ventures.
NitroPack
NitroPack is a Bulgaria-based startup that helps ecommerce, content publishers and web agencies achieve outstanding website speed optimization results. So far the company has had one seed round worth €200K, back in 2018 and led by Eleven Ventures.
Startups Fundraising in Slovenia
Culturate
Culturate is a SaaS platform integrated with Slack&Teams purposefully built to bring hybrid workers together and maintain strong team culture. The Slovenian startup’ solutions help companies boost engagement, enhance virtual culture and improve communication.
Founded by entrepreneurs Goran Gasic and Sabina Veronika Golob, the startup has already raised around €500K from the Croatian VC Fil Rouge Capital, Startup Wise Guys and public Slovene Enterprise Fund.
Startups Fundraising in Romania
TypingDNA
TypingDNA is Romanian fintech that seeks to improve security without compromising user convenience with their suite of Continuous Authentication and 2FA products.
The startup’s patented typing biometric technology aims to become the most accessible authentication technology on the market and works with any keyboard, on any device, runs passively behind the scenes, and begins identifying intruders with only one previous typing sample.
Ronin
Ronin is a Bucharest-based blockchain crowdfunding platform for companies that want to scale. Ronin’s mission is to facilitate the connection between entrepreneurs and crowd-type investors and allow anyone to become an investor with a minimum investment of just 100 euros.
At the end of last year, Ronin got an initial investment of €500K and launched their platform, working on supporting entrepreneurs in developing a promotion campaign to draw funds.
Nestor UP
Nestor is a Romanian-founded HR software startup based in the US that aims to deliver 50% more employee performance by linking people with technology.
Launched in 2018, the smart coaching tool helps organizations build their leadership-driven company culture. The software gives AI insights to managers about the performance of their team members.
The Romanian company is currently targeting €2M in an effort to expand on existing markets.
RepsMate
RepsMate is an AI & Data Analytics startup that analyzes customers’ needs and behavior, in order to transform representatives that interact with customers into top performers. The Romanian startup deploys its virtual coach for industries like retail, finance & banking, healthcare, insurance, and BPO, as well as communications.
Sense4FIT
Sense4FIT is the first Romanian Fit2Earn project on Elrond Blockchain, with a mission to revolutionize the wellness Industry and help its users discover the benefits of an active and healthy lifestyle, by making fitness fun, exciting and accessible.
The project uses technologies, like blockchain, AI and VR to gamify fitness and create a new, amazing experience, through fit to earn (F2E), competitions with friends, and rewards.
Our list is not final so please feel free to send us your updates about startups from various different ecosystems.
