At the midpoint of 2023, the Romanian innovation ecosystem has garnered two Series A’s, several early-stage rounds, and a few M&As, fuelled by a mix of international, regional, and local investors.
2023 debuted with a $10 million Series A by pet tech startup Digitail, led by UK -based investor Atomico. Mid-way, the largest Series A of 2023 was raised by enterprise software company Flowx.ai, with $35M from UK-based Dawn Capital, Romania-based investment platform SeedBlink, and others.
Overall, the top 10 largest funding rounds managed to bring home nearly $63M and pave the way for future later stage rounds in 2024. A big chunk of the funding went to enterprise software, and AI and ML applications. Among the most active investors in the top funding rounds we noted Czech VC Credo Ventures, investment platform SeedBlink, and local funds GapMinder VC, Early Game Ventures, and Underline Ventures.
Continue reading to find out which are 10 biggest funding rounds in Romania in the first half of the year, as well as the top M&As in the tech sector.
10 biggest funding rounds in Romania in H1 2023
Flowx.ai
Stage: Series A
Investors: Dawn Capital (lead), PortfoLion, SeedBlink, and DayOne Capital
Total funding: $43.5M
Founders: Ioan Iacob, Serban Chiricescu
Vertical: Enterprise Software, AI
About: Flowx.ai is an AI-enabled enterprise application modernization platform for large financial services organizations.
Digitail
Stage: Series A
Investors: Atomico (lead), Partech, Gradient Ventures, byFounders
Total funding: €13M
Founders: Ruxandra Pui, Sebastian Gabor
Vertical: pet tech, health care
About: Digitail is a pet tech offering a platform that automates veterinarians’ daily tasks.
Veridion
Stage: Seed
Investors: LAUNCHub Ventures, OTB Ventures, Underline Ventures, Day One Capital, and GapMinder Venture Partners
Total funding: $7.5M
Founders: Florin Tufan, Mihai Vinaga, Sorina Vlasceanu
Vertical: AI, ML, big data
About: Veridion specializes in providing data for business decision automation, having 70+ data points on more than 80 million companies worldwide.
Videowise
Latest round: $3M
Stage: Seed
Investors: Slack Fund (lead), Founder Collective, Underline Ventures, MuVentures, Ratio Ventures, and others
Total funding: $4.1M
Founders: Claudiu Cioba
Vertical: e-commerce, video
About: Videowise offers end-to-end video infrastructure for brands and retailers, designed for scale and peak commerce performance.
Kubeark
Stage: pre-seed
Investors: Credo Ventures (lead), Seedcamp, LAUNCHub Ventures, 500 Emerging Europe
Total funding: $2.8M
Founders: Bogdan Nedelcov, Teofil Harapcea
Vertical: software development, software lifecycle management, SaaSification
About: Kubeark offers a platform that can simplify software operations management across clouds and infrastructures.
Pluria
Stage: Seed
Investors: Eleven Ventures (lead), Croton Capital, WIT Angels Club, Venture Fund
Total funding: $2M
Founders: Andrei Cretu, Gabriela Draghia
Vertical: software development, workplace management
About: Pluria is a remote and hybrid work solution for companies that want to recruit teams and develop businesses internationally, while enjoying the flexibility of a network of co-working spaces where they can rent desks and meeting rooms.
Bloomcoding
Stage: Seed
Investors: Credo Ventures, Inovo VC, u.ventures
Total funding: €1.1M
Founders: Emil Chichioi, Mihaela Kawinska
Vertical: edtech, e-learning, VR, AR
About: Bloomcoding is a Moldovan edtech company teaching children to code through an online after-school platform, using AR and VR technologies.
Undelucram
Latest round: €1M
Stage: Late seed
Investors: Sofia Angels Ventures, Gapminder VC, Head North, SeedBlink
Total funding: €1.8M
Founders: Costin Tudor
Vertical: human resources services
About: Undelucram is an online community of employees in Romania and the wider CEE region.
Milluu
Latest round: €1M
Stage: Seed
Investors: Cofounder Zone (lead), EGV, ROCA X, RCB Investors, Growceanu, Simple Capital, Netopia Ventures, Mihai Rotaru
Total funding: €1.9M
Founders: Florin Stoian
Vertical: proptech
About: Milluu is a rental platform that has digitized the apartment rental process.
Fagura
Latest round: ~€780K
Stage: Seed
Investors: Seedrs
Total funding: €1.4M
Founders: Tudor Darie
Vertical: fintech
About: Fagura is a digital bank where people can manage their entire financial life online.
Vatis Tech
Latest round: €650K
Stage: Seed
Investors: Early Game Venture, Sparking Capital, Mălin Ștefănescu
Total funding: €850K
Founders: Adrian Ispas, Alexandru Topală, Emanuel Nazare
Vertical: AI, ML, voice recognition
About: Vatis Tech’s API offers advanced speech-to-text technology that automatically converts audio or video files into text with over 95% accuracy, using proprietary deep-learning speech recognition algorithms.
Top tech M&A’s in Romania in 2023
GPS SRL gets acquired by AROBS Transilvania Software
About: The biggest technology company listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange acquired Centrul de Soft GPS SRL, a Romanian company specializing in fleet management software solutions.
Romanian software engineering services provider Softelligence gets acquired by Encora
About: Softelligence offers insurtech, automation, AI, ML, and software engineering solutions to companies in insurance, banking, and other industries. The company signed a definitive agreement to get acquired by Encora group, a US-based product engineering provider, to become Encora’s first European delivery center.
Romanian e-fulfillment company Helpship gets acquired by euShipments
About: Founded in 2019, Helpship has developed a modern warehouse management system (WMS) in Oradea, Romania, to increase the efficiency and simplicity of operation and optimize the customer experience. Through this partnership, euShipments wants to solidify their market position and provide additional benefits to customers such as next-day delivery in Romania and Hungary, and 48 hours to Bulgaria.
