Artificial intelligence represents one of the main drivers of global technology development today. From personal assistants, enhanced medical diagnostics, and automated processes at work to an improved understanding of your customers and a focus on higher energy sustainability, AI is starting to touch and transform our everyday life. Moving the AI trend focus from the SEE region to the V4 area in Central and Eastern Europe, The Recursive is beginning to map the landscape of AI startups in Central Europe.
The European AI market
According to a recently published report by International Data Corporation (IDC), despite the political situation, high inflation, various budget costs, and layoffs, the AI market is expected to reach $191 billion in 2026, growing annually at 25% CAGR.
While the AI-based hardware market may experience greater difficulties, the report further states the next five years will be significant for the commercial adoption of AI software as many entities are investing more to make their processes more agile, efficient, and resilient.
Central European V4 region: Startup ecosystem and industries
The CEE region is one of the fastest-growing European regions by enterprise value and VC funding. Considering the V4 region (CZ, PL, SK, HU), The Czech Republic and Poland exhibited the highest value growth over the past five years.
Here is the current state of the startup ecosystems in the four countries:
- The Czech Republic is leading in the V4 region, ranking 32nd globally and 4th in Eastern Europe (EE). Its most vital industries are marketing & sales, software & data, and hardware & IoT.
- Poland falls right behind the Czech Republic in 33rd place globally and 5th in EE. Top Polish industries are e-Commerce & retail, marketing & sales, and healthcare.
- Hungary has lost its position among the top 50, placing 51st globally and 13th in EE. Unlike other countries in the region, its top industries are education, food tech, and transportation.
- Slovakia‘s startup ecosystem was ranked 58th globally and 15th in EE. The country’s most prominent industries match the Czech landscape, including marketing & sales, hardware & IoT, and software & data.
The CEE – V4 region is becoming recognized for its vibrant and growing AI startup landscape with a talented and well-educated workforce, as well as lower costs. With a growing number of startups focused on AI, machine learning, and data science, we will explore the most AI-dense industries and verticals of the V4 region.
This article presents only the beginning of mapping out the AI startups in Central Europe – V4 region. Please, feel free to contact our newsroom with updates or companies we should add to the list: [email protected]
AI startups in Central Europe: 90+ solutions
AI in Healthcare
Healthcare represents one of the most AI-tackled industries in the V4 region. AI solutions are utilized to improve diagnostics, enable personalized medicine, and optimize patient care, promoting safety and longer life expectancy. AI-powered technologies such as wearables, health monitoring devices, and diagnostic tools can collect and analyze vast amounts of data to help diagnose and treat medical conditions more effectively.
Infermedica
Infermedica (Wroclaw, Poland) is a digital health company specializing in AI-powered solutions for preliminary diagnosis and patient triage to minimize inappropriate use of medical services and misdiagnosis.
Founders: Irving Loh, Piotr Orzechowski, Roberto Sicconi
Highlight: The startup raised a Series B funding of $30M led by One Peak Partners.
Proteon Pharmaceuticals
Proteon Pharmaceuticals (Lodz, Poland) is a biotech company using microbiome protection to improve animal and human health, increasing environmental sustainability and eliminating unnecessary use of antibiotics.
Founder: Jaroslaw Dastych
Highlight: The biotech startup closed a €21M venture round in 2021 led by Nutreco and Aqua Spark.
Turbine
Turbine (Budapest, Hungary) develops a cell behavior simulation platform that understands the inner mechanisms of cancer, enabling the discovery of novel protein targets, precision biomarkers, and better translation to patients.
Founders: Dániel Veres, Kristóf Zsolt Szalay, Szabolcs Nagy
Highlight: In 2022, Turbine closed a €20M Series A round led by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and Mercia Fund Managers.
Telemedi
Telemedi (Warsaw, Poland) provides a plug&play digital healthcare platform including modules like telemedicine, automated triage, AI, medical devices monitoring, and API integrations.
Founders: Paweł Sieczkiewicz, Piotr Słomian
Highlight: The startup secured a $6.6M Series A round in 2021.
Powerful Medical
Powerful Medical (Bratislava, Slovakia) is a medical AI solution that allows professionals to accurately diagnose and treat cardiovascular diseases.
Founders: Martin Herman, Robert Herman, Simon Rovder, Viktor Jurasek
Highlight: The startup raised €6.2M seed round in 2022 led by Venture to Future Fund.
Hilbi
Hilbi (Bratislava, Slovakia) is an AI-enhanced platform that virtually connects physicians and patients to save time and bring new possibilities in personalized healthcare.
Founders: Patrik Kmec, Roman Kučera
Highlight: In 2020, the startup closed a seed round of €5M.
Molecule.one
Molecule.one (Warsaw, Poland) is a pharmaceutical startup developing software for organic synthesis design to predict chemical reactions accurately for faster drug discovery.
Founders: Paweł Włodarczyk-Pruszyński, Paweł Łaskarzewski, Piotr Byrski
Highlight: Molecule.one closed a $4.6M seed round led by Atmos Ventures in 2021.
Aether Biomedical
Aether Biomedical (Poznan, Poland) is a medical robotics startup specializing in AI-based biomedical signal processing and the development of Zeus, a cost-effective, high-efficacy multi-action bionic limb to address the need for affordable rehabilitation robotics devices.
Founders: Dhruv Agrawal, Faith Jiwakhan
Highlight: The startup secured a ~€3.9M seed funding in 2021, led by Story Ventures.
StethoMe
StethoMe (Poznan, Poland) is a telemedicine system detecting abnormal sounds in the respiratory system to assist parents with child care at home.
Founders: Honorata Hafke-Dys, Jędrzej Kocinski, Marcin Szajek, Paweł Elbanowski, Wojciech Radomski
Highlight: In 2020, the startup raised $2.5M Series A + a $1.2M grant.
Talkie.ai
Talkie.ai (Warsaw, Poland) provides scalable voice bot services to support medical contact centers using AI-powered virtual assistants pre-trained for healthcare services.
Founders: Ada Andruszkiewicz, Pawel Lipinski, Wojciech Przechodzen
Highlight: Talkie.ai closed a seed round led by NCBR Investment Fund and 4growth VC in 2022, raising €2.5M.
Diagu
Diagu (Poznan, Poland) evaluates the results of laboratory tests of patients and other collected data, such as medical history, previous diagnoses, or medications taken, to assess diseases and suggest further treatment.
Founder: Anna Rybka – Krysiak
Highlight: Diagu raised a $2M seed funding from FasterCapital in 2021.
Cardiomatics
Cardiomatics (Krakow, Poland) is a cloud-based AI ECG analysis technology to bring advanced cardiac diagnostics closer to patients.
Founders: Mariusz Masior, Rafal Samborski
Highlight: In 2021, the health tech solution secured a €1.9M seed round led by Czech KAYA VC together with a €850K grant from National Center for Research & Development.
AILIS
AILIS (Krakow, Poland) is a breast cancer prediction technology using Parametric Dynamic Imagining, AI, and telemedicine to detect cancer and predict the possibility of cancerous changes.
Founders: Jacek Gruca, Mateusz Moderhak, Michal Matuszewski
Highlight: AILIS closed a seed round of $1.6M in 2020 from National Center for Research & Development and a business angel and received a grant of $185K in 2021.
Aireen
Aireen (Prague, Czech Republic) is a non-invasive AI-based medical device company that screens chronic diseases by analyzing digital images of the retina.
Founder: Jan Hlaváček
Highlight: The startup was backed by tech-focused Czech VC Tensor Ventures in 2021, raising $1M.
BioCam
BioCam (Wroclaw, Poland) creates an endoscopic capsule with AI-powered software for detecting potential digestive system issues in real time, aiming to lower gastrointestinal examination costs, enhance patient comfort, and promote capsule endoscopy.
Founders: Maciej Wysocki, Marek Langner, Robert Stachurski
Highlight: In 2023, BioCam raised ~€450K in seed funding from Level2 Ventures.
Additionally, we have recently spotted 5 AI-powered Czech health tech and med tech startups to watch in 2023. Read more about the mental health platform Upheal, the personal well-being app VOS.Health, the cardiac home monitoring solution Kardi AI, the computer-aided diagnosis of chest X-ray images Carebot, and the Slovak-Czech portable diagnostics medical device S-Case.
AI in Finance & Insurance
Due to the ability to analyze vast amounts of data quickly and accurately and make predictions based on that data, AI has found extensive applications in the finance and insurance sectors. AI startups in Central Europe from the V4 region cover areas of fraud detection, risk assessment, and other sectors helping to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and provide better services.
SEON
SEON (Budapest, Hungary) is an online fraud prevention platform that detects and stops fraud in real-time through transactional data analysis using ML and human intelligence algorithms.
Founders: Bence Jendruszak, Tamas Kadar
Highlight: SEON is one of the most notable Hungarian startups, raising a Series B round of $94M in 2022, led by IVP.
Nethone
Nethone (Warsaw, Poland) is an ML-based fraud prevention SaaS company that allows online merchants and financial institutions to screen and understand their end-users to minimize risks.
Founder: Kacper Szcześniak
Highlight: In 2021, Nethone secured a $6.7M Series A round and was acquired by Luxembourg-based online payment company MANGOPAY in late 2022.
Self Learning Solutions
Self Learning Solutions (Warsaw, Poland) is a global technology company providing software for FinTechs to automate and organize business workflows with low-code/no-code solutions.
Founders: Karol Dziasek, Przemyslaw Kaminski
Highlight: The startup closed a seed round of $1M in 2022, backed by Polish WP2 Investments and SMOK Ventures.
Wflow.com
Wflow.com (Prague, Czech Republic) provides secure and verifiable transfer of accounting documents, including approval and secure electronic archiving, with ELIS integration supporting automated invoice processing.
Founders: Robert Soudný, David Groh, David Daněk
Highlight: In 2022, Wflow.com raised over €900K from Czech Seed Starter ČS.
Flowpay
Flowpay (Prague, Czech Republic) provides data-driven financial services for SMEs embedded within their platforms, offering lending through platforms such as point of sales, e-commerce & payment providers.
Founders: Daniel Hastik, William Jalloul
Highlight: In 2022, Flowpay secured two convertible notes from DEPO Ventures (€150K) and Techstars ($20K).
In our recent Czech AI FinTech startups trending in 2023 article, we have covered three additional startups; a digital lending platform Lemonero, a fast financing solution to underserved businesses in logistics 4Trans, and FinTech/cybersecurity software Resistant AI that utilizes automated financial systems to protect from manipulation and attack.
AI in Insurance
Tensorflight
Tensorflight (New York, US, but offices in Bialystok, Poland) is an InsurTech solution automating commercial property inspection, underwriting, and risk assessment via computer vision and AI.
Founders: Robert Kozikowski, Zbigniew Wojna
Highlight: Tensorflight raised a Series A round of $4.4M in 2021, led by Australian QBE Ventures.
Quantee
Quantee (Warsaw, Poland) is a SaaS AI-based platform for dynamic insurance pricing, helping insurers improve the accuracy of pricing models, deliver more targeted results, and enable instant deployment and monitoring in real time.
Founders: Dawid Kopczyk, Mateusz Gintrowski
Highlight: The startup closed its seed round led by Nunatak Capital in 2022, raising $700K.
AI in Cybersecurity
Artificial Intelligence has a significant role in cybersecurity, as it can help organizations detect, prevent, and respond to cyber threats. The Czech Republic has made its name in the industry with quite a developed cybersecurity sector and a globally-recognized company, Avast, originating in the country. Additionally, to the previously mentioned FinTech/cybersecurity Resistant AI startup, we have shortlisted the following two startups.
Whalebone
Whalebone (Brno, Czech Republic) is a cybersecurity startup developing zero-disruption products for Telcos, ISPs, and enterprises, providing seamless DNS security.
Founders: Lubos Cerny, Richard Malovic, Robert Sefr
Highlight: Whalebone raised $3M in a Series A round in 2021, backed by Hungarian Day One Capital.
ThreatMark
ThreatMark (Brno, Czech Republic) is a fraud prevention service provider delivering real-time client recognition solutions, enabling banks to build completely trusted and safe online banking systems.
Founders: Kryštof Hilar, Michal Tresner
Highlight: Deloitte listed the cybersecurity solution among the 2021 Top 50 Technology Fast 50 for CE. The startup raised $3M venture round from a Czech VC Springtide Ventures.
AI in Enterprise
Transforming the way businesses operate, AI plays a significant role in the enterprise industry. Some of the most common AI applications are automating repetitive tasks, enhancing customer experience, improving decision-making, or optimizing operations.
Rossum
Rossum (London, UK, office in Prague, Czech Republic) is an AI-based cloud document software for automated business communication, processing invoices, purchase orders, claims, and other documents.
Founders: Petr Baudis, Tomas Gogar, Tomas Tunys
Highlight: Rossum closed its last Series A round in 2021, raising £72M with a lead investor General Catalyst. The promising startup is on the way to becoming a unicorn.
Neptune.ai
Neptune.ai (Warsaw, Poland) solution helps companies manage model-building metadata, track experiments, register models, and integrate workflows.
Founder: Piotr Niedzwiedz
Highlight: Neptune.ai was named among the 2022 CB Insights AI 100 List of Most Promising AI Startups and raised $8M Series A in 2022 led by Almaz Capital.
Applica
Applica (Warsaw, Poland) offers an AI-based solution to translate business documents into computer-readable data, overcoming challenges like document variability, semantics, complex tables, and graphical elements, ultimately reducing the human workforce’s need to process such documents.
Founders: Adam Dancewicz, Piotr Surma
Highlight: In 2022, Applica raised a €2M Series A round and over €4.5M venture round. Later that year, the startup was acquired by US Snowflake.
Colossyan
Colossyan (London, UK, R&D center in Budapest, Hungary) AI-powered solution enables users to create videos from text using Generative AI focused on the learning & development sector.
Founders: Dominik Mate Kovacs, Kristof Szabo, Zoltan Kovacs
Highlight: Colossyan closed a Series A round in early 2023, raising a $5M investment led by Bulgarian LAUNCHub Ventures.
Time is Ltd.
Time is Ltd. (Prague, Czech Republic) is an AI-powered platform that enhances the everyday productivity of large corporations by integrating data from various cloud tools to provide valuable insights on successful working patterns.
Founders: Cyril Hoschl, Jan Rezab, Ulf Zetterberg
Highlight: Time is Ltd. raised a seed round of €4.6M in 2021, led by business angel Mike Chalfen.
CodeNOW
CodeNOW (Prague, Czech Republic) is a software platform as a service enabling businesses to automate cloud-native software development lifecycle.
Founder: Petr Svoboda
Highlight: In 2022, CodeNOW closed a €3M seed round led by Czech J&T Ventures. The startup was named among the top Technology Fast 50 2020 startups by Deloitte.
MATSUKO
MATSUKO (Kosice, Slovakia) is a B2B software company bringing realistic holographic communication for virtual company meetings to revolutionize them using AR, VR, and XR.
Founders: Maria Vircikova, Matus Kirchmayer
Highlight: The company raised €2.5M seed round in 2019.
Alphamoon
Alphamoon (Wroclaw, Poland) helps companies automate document processing and extract essential data using an AI-based platform.
Founders: Adam Gonczarek, Michał Staśkiewicz, Michał Walczak, Paweł Świątek
Highlight: The startup secured €2.1M seed round in 2022 led by Sunfish Partners.
dream.jobs
Dream.jobs (Prague, Czech Republic) provides a recruitment solution free from biases and discrimination through an AI ecosystem that eliminates human bias, empowering organizations to lead in fair hiring practices.
Founder: Milan Mahovsky
Highlight: Dream.jobs secured a pre-seed investment from Zero Gravity Capital in 2022, raising €1.6M.
BinarBase
BinarBase (Bratislava, Slovakia) simplifies data analytics workflow for enterprises, enabling smarter decision-making based on data by connecting information, reducing operation costs, increasing revenue, and faster planning, using AI and BI to make relevant data-backed decisions.
Founders: Peter Augustin, Tomas Tiefenbach
Highlight: BinarBase raised a pre-seed round of €400K in 2022 from Zero Gravity Capital.
WeBoard
WeBoard (Prague, Czech Republic) presents a training technology that enhances employee quality and performance through immersive digital media, personal experiences, VR, and AI while addressing attention, engagement, individualization, centralization, safety, and reporting challenges for HR managers.
Founders: Radim Tvrdon, Martin Moznar, Jan Sebesta
Highlight: The startup closed a pre-seed round of €400K in 2022, backed by Czech VC Nation 1.
Amio
Amio (Prague, Czech Republic) helps enterprises improve customer experience by implementing automation into customer support with a virtual assistant.
Founder: Matouš Kučera
Highlight: In 2021, Amio secured €390K pre-seed funding led by Business Angels Fund, raising a total of €490K in 3 pre-seed rounds.
SmartyMeet
SmartyMeet (Warsaw, Poland) leverages AI technology to enhance video meetings by creating automatic notes during calls and real-time language translation.
Founders: Monika Wyszynska, Rafal Fic, Slawomir Kroczak
Highlight: In early 2023, the startup raised a pre-seed funding of over €200K from LT Capital and Amazon Web Services.
Emplocity
Emplocity (Warsaw, Poland) is a deep-learning software company developing chatbots that combine virtual assistants’ functionality and process automation platforms.
Founders: Krzysztof Sobczak, Arkadiusz Talun
Highlight: Emplocity is recognized in the CESA Awards 2019 as the Best AI/ Machine Learning Startup and cooperates with companies like DPD or ING.
AI in Retail & E-Commerce
AI technologies help retail and e-commerce businesses enhance the customer experience, optimize operations, and increase revenue. The applications include inventory management, personalization, pricing optimization, and chatbots.
Cosmose
Cosmose (Singapore, office in Warsaw, Poland) empowers retailers by synergizing offline and online for omnichannel, helping them understand offline consumer behavior, delivering predictive analytics for businesses to optimize their marketing strategies, and boosting revenue.
Founder: Miron Mironiuk
Highlight: Cosmose raised $15M Series A in 2020, led by Tiga Investments. The solution influences how 1B+ consumers shop.
Zowie
Zowie (Dover, US, office in Warsaw, Poland) empowers e-commerce teams with an AI-powered chatbot automating customer service to boost sales.
Founders: Maja Schaefer, Maciej Ciolek
Highlight: In 2022, the startup secured a $14M Series A funding led by Tiger Global Management.
SALESmanago
SALESmanago (Krakow, Poland) is a customer engagement platform for e-commerce marketing teams using AI-driven solutions.
Founders: Grzegorz Blazewicz, Konrad Pawlus
Highlight: SALESmango raised $6M in 2016 and announced new client acquisitions in 2022, including Toys “R” Us and 100 new European brands.
Nethansa
Nethansa (Gdansk, Poland) offers AI-driven e-commerce automation solutions and services through their software platform, enhancing Amazon shop and Kaufland.de efficiency across the entire customer lifecycle and various retail aspects, including pricing, marketing, sales, taxes, logistics, returns management, and customer service.
Founder: Sascha Stockem
Highlight: Nethansa closed a Series A round of €4M in 2022 led by Warsaw Equity Group.
Talk-A-Bot
Talk-A-Bot (Budapest, Hungary) is an IT company that provides an enterprise chatbot to corporate professionals, companies, and brands for consumer and employee communication.
Founders: Akos Deliaga, Gergely Kalydi, Laszlo Papp
Highlight: The startup closed a venture round earlier in 2023, raising €3.5M from Széchenyi Capital Fund Management.
Yosh AI
Yosh AI (Warsaw, Poland) is a deep tech company automating communication between enterprises and users with AI voice and text assistants.
Founder: Kasia Dorsey
Highlight: The startup secured a $2M seed round in 2021.
Prefixbox
Prefixbox (Budapest, Hungary) utilizes generative AI to enhance the shopping experience by helping users discover retailers’ product catalogues through fully managed discovery, chat, and insights solutions, increasing conversion rates and revenue on messaging platforms and e-commerce websites.
Founder: Istvan Simon
Highlight: In 2023, Prefixbox raised €2M Series A investment from its previous investor, Euroventures.
Yieldigo
Yieldigo (Prague, Czech Republic) is a retail pricing tool based on chain-specific customer behavior captured from live transactional data and selected pricing strategy using AI.
Founders: David Klecka, Jiri Psota, Radim Dudek
Highlight: Yieldigo closed a seed round of €2M in 2020 led by J&T Ventures.
Inventoro
Inventoro (Prague, Czech Republic) is an Al-driven inventory forecasting, replenishment, and industry-standard inventory management.
Founder: Tomas Formanek
Highlight: In 2022, the startup secured a 20M CZK (~€850K) seed round investment from Czech VC Presto Ventures.
AI in Marketing, Media, & Sales
Technology has transformed the marketing field over the past two decades. In 2021, the global marketing tech market utilizing AI accounted for $15.84 billion, with projections to reach more than $107.5 billion by 2028. From advertising, promotion, content, experience, commerce, and sales to socials and relationships, artificial intelligence is often used for data analysis, content generation, Natural Language Processing, personalization, and automation of processes.
See our recently-picked 6 CEE AI marketing startups to be aware of this year, including a Polish e-commerce CRM platform edrone and a personal growth assistant Digital First AI, Czech modular CMS Kontent.ai, and a platform for the advanced digitalization of contact centers Born Digital, as well as Hungarian media monitoring and text analysis solution Neticle and an AI-based solution to improve companies’ online presence iERP.ai.
With the ability to simulate human-like conversations, AI-powered chatbots, and conversational tools have become strategic assets for businesses seeking to enhance customer interactions, drive conversions, and gain a competitive edge. Follow our list of CEE Marketing startups utilizing conversational AI, including the Polish data-driven revenue intelligence platform, VoiceLab, and a Slovak startup developing conversational platforms, Nettle.ai.
ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs (NYC, US; Polish-founded) develops a generative voice AI technology to create enjoyable content in diverse languages and voices, with the aim of making content universally accessible to new audiences and viewers.
Founders: Mati Staniszewski, Piotr Dabkowski
Highlight: Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs has closed a Series A round of over €17.3M in 2023, led by a US VC Andreessen Horowitz and two business angels.
SentiOne
SentiOne (Gdansk, Poland) is a multichannel customer service automation platform that provides real-time consumer insights, helps find online sales leads, protects online brand reputation, improves customer support with integrated communication channels, and offers easy-to-use conversational AI bots, enabling businesses to enhance customer experience.
Founders: Bartosz Bazinski, Kamil Bargiel, Michal Brzezicki
Highlight: To date, SentiOne has raised over €3.7M, securing the latest investment of an undisclosed amount in 2021 from Nunatak Capital.
SentiSquare
SentiSquare (Pilsen, Czech Republic) is an AI-powered service for digital marketing managers using deep semantics to discover and summarize opinions hidden in multilingual content, reporting on the main issues customers face.
Founders: Tomáš Brychcín, Josef Steinberger, Peter Kesch, Stanislav Rejthar
Highlight: SentiSquare was founded as a university spin-off and raised €1M in a venture round in 2021 led by Fazole Ventures and IXPERTA.
CulturePulse
CulturePulse (Bratislava, Slovakia) offers an AI system that helps businesses create resonating messages for their target market by analyzing social media and internal company data, working with Reddit, Twitter, raw text inputs, or CRM software.
Founders: Justin E. Lane, LeRon Shults, Brian Swichkow, Maja Roknić
Highlight: CulturePulse raised over €900K seed round in 2023 from Slovak VC Zero Gravity Capital.
Semantic Visions
Semantic Visions (Prague, Czech Republic) provides advanced open-source intelligence technology powered by ML and linguistic expertise to analyze global online news, detecting disinformation and helping businesses stay ahead of the curve and risk-free in real time, regardless of their size or distribution.
Founders: Frantisek Vrabel, Petr Krajicek
Highlight: The startup won a UK-US competition Tech Challenge in 2019, receiving a ~€230K grant.
Wingbot.ai
Wingbot.ai (Prague, Czech Republic) specializes in designing efficient, clever, and enjoyable conversational AI solutions for European companies, focusing on customer care, marketing, sales, and HR, leveraging NLP for understanding rates up to 80%.
Founder: David Menger
Highlight: Founded in 2018, the startup cooperates with notable clients, including Die Erste Bank & Česká Spořitelna, Škoda Auto, CZC.cz, or Unicredit Bank.
AI in Manufacturing
Applications in predictive maintenance, quality control, production planning and scheduling, supply chain management, autonomous robots, and process optimization help to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and improve product quality, making AI an essential tool for modern manufacturing. AI is used to monitor machinery conditions, detect defects, optimize production schedules, manage supply chains, control autonomous robots, and analyze data to identify opportunities for process optimization.
Photoneo
Photoneo (Erlanger, US, Slovak-founded) company provides robotic vision sensors and intelligence software, autonomously picking, consolidating, and dispatching orders. The company belongs to Photoneo Brightpick Group.
Founders: Jan Zizka, Tomas Kovacovsky and Michal Maly
Highlight: Earlier in 2023, Photoneo raised a $19M Series B funding led by Taiwania Capital Management Corporation, closing its overall Series B round at $40M.
Elmodis
Elmodis (Krakow, Poland) provides an IoT solution that improves electric-powered industrial machines’ energy and operating efficiency, enabling clients to monitor machines’ performance in real-time remotely.
Founders: Kamil Kozak, Marcin Swiech, Tomasz Hartwig
Highlight: Elmodis is used in over 40 countries and has raised $5.2M in 2 seed rounds.
ReliaSol
ReliaSol (Krakow, Poland) is an AI-driven solution helping manufacturers predict machinery failures and optimize production performance through input data such as operational, production data, and monitoring systems.
Founder: Mateusz Marzec
Highlight: ReliaSol closed a Series A round in 2019, raising €3M in funding from ICOS Capital Management and EEC Ventures.
Neuron Soundware
Neuron Soundware (Prague, Czech Republic) is an AI company using sound recognition for predictive maintenance, using audio analysis to detect broken machines.
Founders: Pavel Konecny, Petr Cernohorsky, Tomas Vacek
Highlight: Neuron Soundware closed its Series A round of €2.1M in 2019, led by Inven Capital and Lead Ventures. The solution was named “Idea of the Year 2016” in the Czech Republic.
Surveily
Surveily (Wroclaw, Poland) applies AI technology to increase safety in manufacturing plants, detecting threats through existing CCTV in real-time and allowing for early prevention and mitigation.
Founders: Wojciech Tubek, Wojtek Turowicz
Highlight: Surveily secured a €1M seed round investment in 2022, led by Kogito Ventures and SATUS Starter.
Pekat Vision
Pekat Vision (Brno, Czech Republic) provides solutions for automated visual inspection in manufacturing sectors, enabling manufacturers to detect and classify objects or anomalies through neural networks.
Founder: Petr Smid
Highlight: The startup closed its seed round in 2019, raising $750K from Lighthouse Ventures. Pekat Vision was acquired by Italian Datalogic for €16M in 2022.
Kogena
Kogena (Wroclaw, Poland) develops a vendor-independent AI-powered platform, CobotMonitor, for monitoring collaborative robots in manufacturing, enabling cobot surveillance, data analysis, safety improvements, and cost optimization through features like predictive maintenance.
Founder: Maciej Plebanski
Highlight: Kogena raised a second seed round funding of ~€900K in 2023, backed by JR Holding.
AI in Logistics & Transportation
AI is a game changer for the efficiency and sustainability of the transportation and logistics industry, benefiting both businesses and consumers. The advanced technology can help identify which steps in the supply chain can be improved to increase revenue.
Nomagic
Nomagic (Warsaw, Poland) provides intelligent pick-and-place robotic solutions for order fulfillment that offer efficient item handling to pick from storage, sort, or pack a large variety of SKUs.
Founders: Kacper Nowicki, Marek Cygan, Tristan d’Orgeval
Highlight: Nomagic raised a $22M Series A round in 2022 led by Almaz Capital and Khosla Ventures.
VersaBox
VersaBox (Warsaw, Poland) is a smart robotics company that designs and manufactures autonomous, guided vehicles for industrial and consumer applications.
Founders: Jacek Królik, Jakub Michalski, Mateusz Wiśniowski, Michał Walęcki, Rafał Chojecki
Highlight: In 2020, VersaBox raised €2.5M in seed round funding led by FIDIASZ.
CosmoEye
CosmoEye (Lublin, Poland) develops a streaming system for warehouse management and enterprise resource planning, allowing companies to monitor large workspaces with AI and video cameras.
Founders: Kosma Kindlik, Kamil Dudek
Highlight: Founded in 2022, the startup has raised over €830K over pre-seed and seed funding rounds.
Wereldo
Wereldo (Brno, Czech Republic) is a logistics company offering more accessible, faster, and cost-efficient transportation via container ships, planes, trucks, and trains with automation and a monthly service fee for customers to access their services.
Founders: Tomas Zahradnik, Jakub Skopec, Milan Maroszczyk
Highlight: In 2020, the startup secured a seed round funding of €820K backed by JIC Ventures and Patero.
AI in Mobility
Making the mobility landscape more efficient, sustainable, and accessible, artificial intelligence spans in the vertical from autonomous vehicles to traffic management, ride-sharing services, and other areas.
AImotive
AImotive (Budapest, Hungary) builds an ecosystem to aid the deployment of automated driving, developing self-driving software, proprietary simulation tools, and neural network acceleration hardware IP.
Founder: Laszlo Kishonti
Highlight: The company raised $20M in Series C funding in 2022 and was acquired by Dutch Stellantis later that year. With total funding of nearly $70M, AImotive is one of the most notable Hungarian AI startups.
GoodVision
GoodVision (London, UK, R&D center in Prague, Czech Republic) is a B2B SaaS traffic analytics platform automating traffic data collection from existing camera infrastructure, providing smart city solutions for urban traffic monitoring, modeling, and control.
Founders: Daniel Stofan, Lukas Hruby
Highlight: GoodVision raised €2.7M venture round in January 2023, led by Hungarian Lead Ventures accompanied by Czech Credo Ventures and Bulgarian Sofia Angels Ventures.
roboGaze
RoboGaze (Szekesfehervar, Hungary) develops solutions to increase road safety by democratizing AI-driven driver monitoring systems, including face recognition, multi-factor driver fatigue monitoring, and real-time driver distraction detection.
Founders: Arpad Foldesi, Gergely Várhelyi-Tóth, Zoltán Csaba, Ábel Gábor
Highlight: In 2022, the startup secured a Series A round of $1.7M led by Bonitás Ventures.
Airvolute
Airvolute (Trnava, Slovakia) offers AI-driven autonomous flight capabilities to businesses and governments through a portfolio of aerospace-grade UAVs and autonomous open-architecture autopilots, with their flagship product DroneCore providing high-level autonomy and supporting various kinds of vehicles in conducting pilotless missions.
Founders: Jozef Rodina, Lukas Palkovic
Highlight: Airvolute raised a €1.1M seed round investment in 2023 from a Slovak VC Vision Ventures.
Sternkraft
Sternkraft Telematics (Lodz, Poland) is an IoT-embedded software company that uploads Computer Vision algorithms on MVR CCTV, specializing in public transportation. Its advanced camera technology identifies, alerts, and deters human safety threats.
Founder: Marcin Lewicki
Highlight: The startup closed its seed round of an undisclosed amount in 2022.
AutonomyNow
AutonomyNow (Warsaw, Poland) develops autonomous hardware and software systems for the automotive bus and coach industry integrating multiple safety features in one system.
Founder: Konrad Sloniewski
Highlight: AutonomyNow raised over €200K pre-seed investment from Carlson ASI EVIG Alfa VC fund in 2022.
AI in Energy
With the rising importance of renewable energy and the currently significantly rising prices in the region, AI will play a critical role in driving innovation and enabling the transition to a more efficient energy future. With the ability to analyze large volumes of data, AI can optimize energy usage by predicting demand patterns and managing supply chain logistics. It can also assist in renewable energy integration by forecasting and integrating renewable energy production into the grid.
Fuergy
Fuergy (Bratislava, Slovakia) provides solutions for energy optimization, developing its own modular battery system and software platform powered by AI, from smart energy storage systems and enhanced utilization of green energy sources to dispatch systems or automated energy trading.
Founders: Branislav Safarik, Radoslav Stompf, Rastislav Kuba, Vladimir Miskovsky
Highlight: The Slovak startup raised €16M in its first venture round in 2023, led by Pro Partners Holding, to develop and expand to markets.
Solwena
Solwena (Gdansk, Poland) is an AI-driven building energy management system that decreases energy consumption in buildings.
Founder: Edwin Dudziak
Highlight: The startup raised a 7.5M PLN (~€1.6M) seed round in 2022 led by EEC Ventures.
Industry-agnostic AI
Discover the industry-agnostic AI startups in Central Europe.
Synerise
Synerise (Krakow, Poland) is a deep-tech company providing advanced and proprietary AI and big data technology solutions in more than 30 markets. The platform allows clients to store and process all their heterogeneous data and automate data-related processes with an AI and a no-code/low-code interface.
Founders: Jaroslaw Krolewski, Krzysztof Kochmański, Miłosz Baluś
Highlight: The startups secured a $23M Series B funding in 2022 led by Carpathian Partners. Synerise is currently the fastest-growing Polish company in the tech sector.
Superface
Superface (Prague, Czech Republic) creates a new category of autonomous business integration as a successor to APIs, offering unified SDK and infrastructure for autonomous self-integrating applications available for CRM, ATS, payments, and more.
Founders: Radek Novotny, Zdenek Nemec
Highlight: The startup announced raising its seed round of €2.6M in 2022 with, led by Tera Ventures.
Filuta AI
Filuta AI (Prague, Czech Republic) offers intelligent automation services that enable faster development in hand-coded modeling, providing observability, scalability, A/B testing, continuous deployment, and testing out-of-the-box.
Founders: Filip Dvořák, Martin Dušek
Highlight: Filuta AI raised ~€2.4M pre-seed round in January 2023, backed by Nation 1 VC, making it the biggest investment relative to the startup’s early stage in the country so far.
Iterait
Iterait (Prague, Czech Republic) develops artificial intelligence-powered solutions to boost productivity, cut costs, drive innovation, and automate routine labor for various industries. The company’s portfolio of solutions includes IsletNet, VIVIDI, and Hear-O.
Founders: Adam Blazek, Petr Belohlavek a Filip Matzner
Highlight: In 2020, Iterait raised over ~€2.2M in seed round funding.
Pointee
Pointee (Liberec, Czech Republic) is an AI-powered RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tool that analyzes robotic processes to identify areas for improvement and enables cost savings, scalability, and success in RPA efforts across various industries.
Founders: Jan Strnad, Ivo Knejp, Martin Vitous
Highlight: Pointee secured pre-seed funding of €1.3M in 2022, led by Czech Tensor Ventures and German Earlybird Venture Capital.
