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In the Investor’s Den: Mapping Romania’s VCs and Angel Groups

In the Investor’s Den: Mapping Romania’s VCs and Angel Groups, TheRecursive.com
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In the entrepreneurial arena, active VCs and angel investor groups emerge as essential pillars, very much needed for the sustenance and growth of startups.

In 2023, at the European level startups received $45 billion in investments, according to Atomico’s report. The number is indeed lower with 45% compared to 2022’s $82 billion. Yet, according to our survey of VCs in CEE, it looks like 2024 might be a better year, with 70% of VCs planning to allocate more funds.

At the Romanian level, following the global trend, the investment amount decreased, yet 54 startups had capital injected, according to Activize Tech, a business intelligence provider for the CEE startup ecosystem. Noteworthy funding rounds were secured by FlowX, Digitail, Creatopy (Series A), and Druid AI (Series B).

To provide an overview of the Romanian investment landscape and who are VCs and angel investor groups ready to invest in 2024, we put together the following list.

Activе Romanian VCs and Angеl Nеtworks

Catalyst Romania

Managing Partner: Marius Ghenea
Starting year: 2012
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A
Fund size: €15M in Fund I and €50M in Fund II
Ticket size: €1M – €3M
Sectors: Enterprise IT, SaaS, E-commerce and Marketplace, Media and Communications
Portfolio: ESX, Hunch, Omniconvert, Code of Talent

Cleverage VC

Managing Partners: Georgios Sofianos, Voicu Oprean, Wargha Enayati, Sergiu Negut, Alexandru Popescu
Starting year: 2020
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Fund size: N/A
Ticket size: €50K – €500K
Sector: Healthcare
Portfolio: KardiAI, Rayscape, Medicai, LANGaware, FindMeCur, RepsMate

Early Game Ventures

Managing Partner: Cristian Munteanu
Starting year: 2019
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A
Fund size: €26M in Fund I and €60M in Fund II (yet to be closed)
Ticket size: €50K (accelerator stage) – €4.5M (Seed, Series A)
Sector: Enterprise, Consumer Tech, DeepTech & AI
Portfolio: Druid, Bunnyshell, Kinderpedia, Questo, Ogre AI

Fortech Investments

Managing Partner: Valentin Filip
Starting year: 2021
Investing in:  Seed, Late-Seed
Fund size: N/A
Ticket size: €100K- €500K
Sector: Energy, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Automotive, and FinTech
Portfolio: UpLyft, Telios Care, KFactory, Sinaptiq

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Gapminder

Managing Partners: Dan Mihaescu, Sergiu Rosca
Starting year: 2017
Investing in: Seed, Series A
Fund size: €46M
Ticket size: up to €6M
Sector: FinTech, Cybersecurity, Enterprise, Data
Portfolio: FintechOS, Yarooms, Veridion, Cyscale, Finqware, VoxiKids

Impact Capital

Managing Partners: Matei Dumitrescu, Daniela Aldescu
Starting year: 2020
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Fund size: N/A
Ticket size: €10K – €100K
Sector: Agnostic
Portfolio: Telios Care, SanoPass, SeedBlink, Procesio, iFactor

Roca X

Managing Partners: Andrei Cionca, Alexandru Bogdan, Sonia Fedorovici
Starting year: 2018
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Fund size: €12M
Ticket size: avg €250K
Sector: Agnostic
Portfolio: Codewell, Licenseware, Miluu, iFactor, Kinderpedia

Simple Capital

Managing Partner: Andrei Pitis
Starting year: 2019
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Fund size: N/A
Ticket size: €50K-€100K
Sector: Agnostic
Portfolio: Millu, Hyperhuman, KIM, Softbinator, Feexers

Sparking Capital

Managing Partners: Cristian Negrutiu, Vlad Panait
Starting year: 2019
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Fund size: N/A
Ticket size: up to €300K
Sector: Consumer Internet, MarTech, Supply Chain, FinTech, PropTech, Circular Economy
Portfolio: Vatis Tech, Questo, KFactory, Bright Spaces, EverToys

Underline Ventures

Managing Partner: Bogdan Iordache
Starting year: 2022
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed, Late Seed
Fund size: €18.3M
Ticket size: €500k
Sector: Agnostic
Portfolio: Turneo, Veridion, Videowise, Nestor, Trickest, Sera

V7 Capital

Managing Partner: Iulian Circiumaru
Starting year: 2015
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Fund size: N/A
Ticket size: N/A
Sector: Agnostic
Portfolio: EasySales, FlowX, Collabwriting, SeedBlink, Flip

Other Investors

Bravva

With a community of 650 professionals and 35 active investors, Bravva Angels is a business angel group that invests in tech enabled solutions by female founders. Their main focus is HealthTech, EdTech, FinTech, Housing, and the Future of Work. Since July 2022, Bravva invested almost €800K in 10 startups.

Founder: Ilinca Paun
Started in: 2022
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Ticket size: €5K – €50K
Portfolio: Charger, Zitamine, Profluo, Procesio, Vestinda, Spark School, Vent d’Est, Outdid, Vintello

Growceanu

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Growceanu is a business angel platform where the members invest with their expertise, network, and money in tech startups. Since 2018, the community has over 150 names and invested in over 20 startups.

Founders: Adrian Erimescu, Adrian Gheorghe, Ciprian Man, Dan Bugariu, Radu Ticiu, Valentin Muresan
Started in: 2018
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Ticket size: €50K – €300K
Portfolio: Oveit, Sypher, Plateaway, MediNav, Codewell, Aqurate, Licenseware

SeedBlink

SeedBlink is a financing and equity management platform that invests in European tech startups, backed by a network of angel investors. Their community is formed from almost 100,000 investors from 96 countries and together they invested €67M in +250 startups.

Founders: Andrei Dudoiu, Carmen Sebe, Ionut Patrahau, Radu Georgescu
Starting year: 2019
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B
Ticket size: €100K – €5M
Portfolio: Alcatraz, Dronamics, Jobful, Oncochain, Protio, Swisspod

TechAngels

Founded in 2013, TechAngels is an angel investor group that actively contributes to the development of tech businesses from Romania and SEE. With 132 members, TechAngels has invested more than €40M since 2013.

Founders: Andrei Pitis, Radu Georgescu, Bogdan Iordache
Started in: 2013
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Ticket size: €10K- €200K
Portfolio: Tokinomo, TypingDNA, Aggero, VatisTech, InnerTrends

Transylvania Angel Network (T.A.N.)

T.A.N. is a community of 80 angel investors who invested ~€3M in 30 startups over the last 5 years. In 2023, T.A.N organized 13 meetups, analyzed 86 startups, and invited 35 of them for pitches.

Founders: Emmett King, Mircea Vadan
Started in: 2018
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Ticket size: €20K – €800K
Portfolio: Telios Care, Cyscale, AiVA, iFactor, Licenseware, MyBenefits, Nordensa, Finqware

WIT Angels Club

WIT Angels Club is a community of female business angels investing in tech startups at a very early stage. With offices in Bucharest, Paris, and San Francisco, the community has +70 members. Since its founding, WIT invested €600K in 8 impact startups from France, Spain/US, Israel, and Romania.

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Founders: Ruxandra Muys-Stoian, Andreea Saia
Started in: 2021
Investing in: Pre-Seed, Seed
Ticket size: €50K – €200K
Portfolio: Pluria, StatInf, Synaptiq, Adapta

NB1: The organizations are displayed in alphabetical order within the two categories.
NB2: Part of the VCs have the fund size undisclosed, thus are marked with N/A.
NB3: The information from this article is from public sources or the representative’s answer. If you notice a mistake or have feedback for us, contact Elena on LinkedIn or at [email protected].

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https://therecursive.com/author/elenaghinita/

Elena is a Startup Community Editor at The Recursive. In other words, she keeps close to the startup ecosystem in CEE and makes their stories heard. She creates educational and informational content about innovation, funding and startup growth.