If you’ve been tracking the regional tech scene, you know the last few years have felt like a rollercoaster, especially in Serbia. After the dizzying heights of 2021, when funding hit a record $141 million, the Serbian ecosystem spent two years in a cooling-off period.
However, the latest Serbian Startup Funding 2025 Report, published by Serbian founders community Garaža, shows a clear sign of recovery that isn’t just about survival. After lowest point in 2023 for the ecosystem, 2024 saw a bounce back to €22.4 ($26) million, marking a 89% YoY growth, leading to 36% in 2025. The ecosystem is definitely maturing, and we can see a fundamental shift in how startups are built in Serbia.
Quality over quantity
When it comes to startup funding in Serbia, there are few trends to note: more volume, stronger capital concentration, and larger rounds. To understand these dynamics in more depth, I spoke with Milena Milić, Manager at Garaža. According to Milena, this isn’t just a fluke of the market.
“This reflects a positive shift toward quality and stronger conviction,” Milena notes. “Investors are selective, but when they identify strong teams, they are willing to commit larger amounts.”
For the founders on the ground, this means that while the bar for entry is higher, the reward for clearing it is more significant. As Milena points out, “the startups that do secure funding now get more runway and resources to scale… The concentration also helps signal to new founders what kind of teams and traction investors are looking for.”
The most striking data point in the report is the boom of pre-seed activity. The average pre-seed round has grown to approximately €1.55 ($1.8) million. Even more impressive is the speed: 15 new startups emerged in the last cycle (a 60% jump) and eight of them secured pre-seed funding within their first year of operation. For a reference, in the previous year that number was zero.
What are these founders doing differently?
A more mature “Founder DNA”
They are not just pitching product goals, they are proving it in practice. Milena explains that successful pre-seed founders are “fully committed and even if in very early-stage, they have spent significant time with their customers. By doing thorough customer discovery, they can describe the problem with precision that only comes from being close to it.”
With that, these founders learned a crucial lesson: don’t marry your first draft. “They don’t get attached to their original idea; when the market signals something different, they move,” Milena adds. By the time they hit the fundraising trail, they’ve already built relationships within the community and arrived with a “clear ask of how much they need, what it’s for, and what milestone it unlocks.”
Besides external factors increasing available capital, like renewed interest in tech and AI, Milena and team mention a few other internal factors influencing growth in total funding. Presence of second-time founders and operators turned builders also turned out to be one of the Serbian’s ecosystem secret weapons. “They bring not only deeper market understanding but also better fundraising preparation and sharper execution.”
In a nutshell, experienced veterans, alongside newcomers that are doing early customer discovery and are more aware of what investors look for, “is slowly raising the overall quality of teams across the funnel,” Milena concludes.
On the technical side, the report shows that deal-making has become more founder-friendly. SAFEs (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) have become the dominant instrument, used in 14 of the 24 recorded deals. This allows for faster closings and less legal friction at the early stages.
Startup pool and investor appetite
While seed rounds actually dropped by 50%, the increase in average round sizes (from $1.5M to $1.8M) and median rounds (from $805K to $1.3M) indicates that investors are doubling down on their winners. For that matter, we see a healthy combination of regional and European investors: 20VC, ProjectEurope, Inovo, Credo, Fifth Quarter Ventures, South Central Ventures, Omorika Ventures, and Silicon Gardens are increasingly active.
Despite the optimism, there is a catch. The report warns that the total pool of funded companies is “barely expanding”. This suggests that while the startups that do get funded are higher quality and better capitalized, the ecosystem isn’t yet producing a massive volume of high-potential startups.
Milena’s takeaway for founders looking to bridge this gap? The opportunity is there if you are ready to hustle.
To conclude, we can firmly say this report proves the Serbian ecosystem has shed its emerging skin and is starting to look like a serious contender on the regional stage. The path forward is clear: validate early, iterate fast, and don’t be afraid to pivot when the data tells you to. As Milena concludes, “Investors are actively looking for ambitious teams that execute and iterate fast. Startups that are ready to validate and step into the early market to learn and sell have a better than ever chance to fundraise.”
