- Startups in Central and Eastern Europe can now tap into the newest, €500M fund of Speedinvest, a pan-European early-stage venture capital fund.
- The fund will continue to focus on pre-seed and seed European startups from six sectors: deep tech, fintech, health, industrial tech, marketplaces & consumer, and SaaS & infrastructure.
- Speedinvest’s portfolio includes 6 unicorns: Bitpanda, GoStudent, Open, TIER Mobility, Wayflyer, and wefox, and plenty of expected future unicorns.
Speedinvest launched from Austria as a €10M micro-fund in 2011. Since then, the team has spread across Europe, with additional offices in Berlin, London, Munich, and Paris.
Today, Speedinvest is one of Europe’s most active Seed investors with more than €1bn in total assets under management (AUM) and one of the largest investment teams: 40+ investors assigned to different geographies and sectors.
The new capital has been raised with help from all existing institutional investors from Speedinvest 3, including New Enterprise Associates, the European Investment Fund, and Bpifrance, founders from the portfolio, and Speedinvest LPs. 90% already committed by the fund’s investors. Out of the total funding, €300m will be invested into new pre-Seed and Seed startups, while the remaining will serve follow-up investments.
“In just ten years, Speedinvest has grown from a small €10M Austrian fund to one of Europe’s largest Seed investors. This new capital proves there is still room to innovate in European VC. As more and more capital and talent floods the ecosystem, further professionalisation of our industry is required,” says Oliver Holle, CEO and Managing Partner at Speedinvest.
Opportunities for Central and Eastern Europe
Several startups from the region have joined Speedinvest’s portfolio over the years. Two of the company’s six unicorns are Austrian fintech Bitpanda, which recently opened a Talent Hub in Bucharest, Romania, and Austrian online tutoring platform GoStudent, whom The Recursive recently interviewed at Web Summit 2022.
Speedinvest’s CEE portfolio also includes cargo drone operator Dronamics and Sendinblue-acquired e-commerce analytics platform Metrillo, both launched from Bulgaria. They have also led the latest funding rounds of Tenyks, a startup working at the forefront of responsible AI, co-founded and led by a Bulgarian entrepreneur, and of Greek maritime startup Harbor Lab.
“As our first institutional, pre-seed investor, Speedinvest has been with us since the very beginning. And the team has never taken a backseat. From supporting with follow-on funding to our growth strategy, and expansion across Europe, they have been instrumental in GoStudent becoming a unicorn and one of the world’s most valuable EdTech companies,” says Felix Ohswald, Founder of GoStudent.
As part of Speedinvest’s portfolio, founders get access to their in-house platform offering tailored operational support to grow their teams and expand internationally.
On the occasion of launching the new fund, Speedinvest also announced closing a €80M Climate & Industry Opportunity fund. This will be a new opportunity for climate tech startups addressing sustainability challenges in the industrial sector.
