News & deals

UFORCE, the Ukrainian company behind the MAGURA sea drones, has raised €630 million ($700 million). The round was co-led by Valor Equity Partners and the UK National Wealth Fund (NWF). New investors include the US–Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund (URIF), Menlo Ventures, Xantium and Hiro Capital. Existing backers Shield Capital, Ballistic Ventures, Lakestar and Squadra increased their stakes.

Worker.ai, a company operating system for small businesses backed by Veeam founder Ratmir Timashev, has acquired DeltaGen, a Prague-based startup that builds real-time voice AI. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. All three of DeltaGen’s founders are moving to Worker. DeltaGen’s team of around 10 people will stay in Prague.

Vilnius-based Biomatter, which uses AI to design enzymes, has raised an oversubscribed €16.2 million ($18 million) Series A. The round was led by Astanor, with existing investors UVC Partners, Inventure and Metaplanet also taking part. Founded in 2018, Biomatter designs enzymes by starting from the chemical reaction a customer needs.

Czech medtech startup Kardi AI has raised €5.3 million in a Series A round led by German healthtech fund Callisto Health. According to the company, this is the largest round a Czech medtech startup has raised to date. Česká spořitelna and Slovenská sporiteňa joined through their corporate venture programmes. Earlier backers BrightCap Ventures, Purple Ventures, DEPO Ventures and Garage Angels also put in money. After the round, Kardi AI is valued at €23 million.

Hedepy, the Prague-based online therapy platform operating in nine European countries, has secured €4 million in venture debt from Orbit Capital to fund acquisitions and expand into clinical care and AI tools — aiming to consolidate Europe’s fragmented mental health market.

Valkyrie Dynamics, the Ukrainian-Lithuanian defense startup building a 100-gram radar seeker that lets low-cost drones intercept targets through cloud and fog, raised €1 million in a pre-seed round led by Paris-based venture studio Hexa — developed and field-tested alongside operators in Kyiv.

Romanian edtech company Kinderpedia, which has developed a management and communication platform for schools and kindergartens, has secured a €500,000 investment from BCR Seed Starter, the corporate venture capital arm of BCR. The investment completes Kinderpedia’s €2.7 million funding round, led by Polish fund Simpact Ventures, with participation from existing investors Early Game Ventures and ROCA X.

Italian-founded legal AI company Lexroom has launched lex, an AI-powered personal assistant for lawyers accessible through WhatsApp, just two months after acquiring Bulgarian legal tech company Praven Intelekt. The new product aims to help legal professionals manage administrative tasks, conduct legal research, and prepare documents directly through a messaging app.

New funds launching

BlackPeak Capital, a private equity firm that invests growth equity in Southeast Europe, has announced the first close of BlackPeak Southeast Europe Growth Equity Fund II (BPSEEF II) at €125 million. That is almost as much as the €126 million its first fund raised in total. The Luxembourg-domiciled fund is targeting €150 million, has a hard cap of €200 million, and expects to hold its final close in 2027. BPSEEF II will invest between €7 million and €20 million per deal in fast-growing companies. Its primary markets are Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia, and it may also invest opportunistically in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Baltic states and other Western Balkan countries. 

Polish venture capital firm Bitspiration VC is preparing to launch a new €50 million biotech fund, supported by investors including Snowflake co-founder Marcin Żukowski and Tomasz Onyszko, co-founder of Predica and CTO of Morning Brew. The firm has already secured investor commitments for a first close of €15–20 million, scheduled for November.

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