The Recursive’s weekly roundup aims to cover key tech developments across Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the growing impact of CEE-born founders on the global stage. Take a look at the latest news in funding, startup milestones, and emerging trends tied to the region’s innovation potential.
The Polish Decacorn
Polish-founded ElevenLabs has raised $500 million (€425.28 million) in a Series D round, valuing the AI voice and conversational technology company at $11 billion. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz quadrupling its investment and ICONIQ Capital tripling down.
As part of the round, Andrew Reed of Sequoia Capital will join ElevenLabs’ board. New investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Evantic Capital, and BOND also participated, alongside continued backing from BroadLight Capital, NFDG, Valor Capital Group, AMP Coalition, and Smash Capital. The company added that it plans to announce additional strategic partnerships later in February.
CEE news & deals
Croatian-founded Daytona announced it has raised €20.4 ($24) million in Series A funding. The round was led by FirstMark Capital, the New York venture firm that backed Airbnb, Pinterest, Shopify, Discord, and Riot Games in their early stages. Previous investors Pace Capital, Upfront Ventures, Darkmode, and E2VC participated, alongside strategic investments from Datadog and Figma Ventures, while angels include founders from Fal, T3, Factory.ai, and Neon.
Polish Nomagic, a provider of AI powered robotics for warehouses and the fulfillment sector, announced securing €8.51 million ($10 million) Series B round.
Romanian Kinderpedia raised €2.2M as part of a €3.5M funding round. The round remains open to strategic co-investors supporting its international growth. Funded by Simpact Ventures (lead investor), with participation from Early Game Ventures and ROCA X.
Czech deep-tech firm Tensor Ventures, alongside UK-based Begin Capital and Spain’s Adara Ventures, has invested €3.4 million in London-based startup AppFactor as part of a seed funding round. The round was led by Tensor Ventures and marks another investment from its recently closed second fund.
Czech-Slovak fairy-tale storytelling app Readmio secured a €1M funding round from a Polish Simpact Ventures. It will be spent on global expansion into Asia (including India and China), the United States, and Latin America, as well as faster product development and scaling.
Resoloon, a Budapest-based company building AI-driven high-altitude balloons for real-time, high-resolution Earth observation, has secured €550,000 in pre-seed funding from Project Europe and Day One Capital.
Albanian-founded kidsday, an AI-powered childcare management and early-learning platform, today announced a strategic investment from Plug and Play, the Silicon Valley-based global innovation platform. The size of the round isn’t publicly communicated.
Other news
Polish Fitatu, a calorie-counting and nutrition-tracking app, has completed ownership and management changes after a consortium of private investors acquired a 53% stake in the company. Jakub Biczkowski, formerly with Wakacje.pl and Invia CEE, has been appointed CEO. The changes are intended to support the company’s international expansion. Fitatu reports 1.2 million monthly active users, 240,000 active subscriptions, and a 45% year-over-year increase in net revenues.
