UK/Romania Business, in cooperation with CMS, Endeavor Romania and How to Web, published their “Technology Report: Understanding and Advancing the UK/Romania Opportunity”.
The report, launched yesterday at the Palace of Westminster in London, offers insights into the UK-Romania tech relationship and provides ways to further strengthen it.
David Webster, Founder and Managing Partner, UK/Romania Business says:
“The UK is a natural destination for Romanian startups as they scale, and British venture capital a critical component to fuel this internationalization. Strengthening ties between the two ecosystems, and by building a UK/Romania Tech Hub, we can help contribute to the success of Romania’s many high potential tech companies, and support investors, corporates and startups from Britain discover new opportunities in Romania.”
The first in a series of sector studies, the document offers an in-depth analysis of the Romanian tech ecosystem and while also examining the constraints shaping the environment. Interviews with Romanian startup founders, venture capitalists, and organizations in the information technology ecosystem reveal the practicalities of the Romanian tech startup landscape, the barriers to further growth, and the opportunities for stakeholders.
13 UK-based VCs invested in 15 Romanian startups
For Romanian startups, raising capital from the local VCs or angel investors is just the first step. Once they prove traction and stabilize the business, the sky is the limit. According to the aforementioned report, 13 UK-based VCs signed checks for Romanian founders. The list includes Dawn Capital (FlowX), Atomico (Digitail), Pilabs (BrightSpaces), Molten (FintechOS), Notion (Cyscale), Connect Ventures (Deepstash), Hoxton Ventures and Smedvig Capital (DRUID), Stride VC (Sessions), MMC Ventures (Ogre AI), Accel (UiPath), Hiro (Machinations) and the one with the most investments in Romania, Seedcamp (Brainient, Cyscale, Machinations, Traderion, Ubervu, UiPath).
To grow and expand outside of your home country, getting on board investors from your targeted country can do wonders for your business, says DRUID’s cofounder, Andreea Pleşea. Currently, DRUID serves 250 enterprises in the US and UK across various industries, including healthcare, banking, retail, and higher education.
“We started raising money from angel investors initially, then we had the first VC investing, Early Game, and a second GapMinder, again, a Romanian VC. These were in the first two years. After that we raised a significant round in 2022 – a €10M investment led by two VC, one an Estonian fund, Karma Ventures, and Hoxton Ventures a US based fund with UK offices. Hoxton pushed us a step forward for US entry helping us to accelerate the process so in 2023 we closed a new round led by TQ Ventures with the support of Endeavor Network and Smedvig Capital.”
19 Romanian startups took the UK path
In all founders’ minds, after starting out the business, their goal is international growth. If some of them go first to the US, others make a stop in the UK for its market size, fundraising opportunities and operational benefits. According to Mihai Stratan, founder of Ogre AI, one of the startups from the list, the UK is “the most competitive electricity market and the most advanced in terms of digitalization – for Ogre AI it’s a good nut to crack because it’s the hardest nut to crack. ”
Other startups mentioned in the report are: Aggero, Bright Spaces, Cord AI, CyberSwarm, Cyscale, Digitail, DruidAI, Fagura, FintechOS, Footprints AI, iFactor, inki, Kfactory, Nordensa, Prime Dash, Smart Fintech, Questo and Tinia.
56 UK-based startups with at least one Romanian founder
Over one million Romanians currently live in the UK, where many have studied and worked. Utilizing the experience and networks they have built there, they embarked on entrepreneurial ventures, often collaborating with other Romanian co-founders or partners from different nationalities.
Among the 56 startups tracked in the report, 14 have fully Romanian co-founding teams, while the remaining startups have at least one Romanian founder.
Collectively, these startups have raised nearly €300M and created over 600 jobs.
