VC funding in CEE in Q1 2023 decreased almost by half, to €600M — Vestbee’s report

The global funding in the first quarter decreases to $76 billion, reflecting a 53% decline compared to the same period in 2022, which recorded $162 billion in funding, Vestbee’s report states. In the first quarter of 2023, venture capital investments in the CEE region amounted to slightly over €600 million, demonstrating a significant decrease compared to the previous quarter, which recorded €1.1 billion in investments. AIN.Capital looked through the report and shares key points.

VC funding in CEE 2022 vs 2023

• In the first quarter of 2023, venture capital investments in the Central and Eastern European region amounted to slightly over €600 million.
• Overall funding amount dropping from $15.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022 to $9.8 billion in the first quarter of 2023.
• In 2022, the visible impact of the venture capital market slowdown was partially masked by ongoing investments already in progress. However, the start of 2023 undeniably marked the end of the VC market’s exuberance, as it retraced its path back to pre-pandemic benchmarks. 

Startup investment rounds in CEE in 1Q 2023

• In Q1 2023, 285 VC transactions were recorded (66 in January, 68 in February, and 70 in March). 205 of them are fully disclosed in terms of amount, month, investors, and company details.
• The data shows that among countries with the highest number of funding rounds are Poland – 127 rounds, Estonia – 37, and Bulgaria – 24 rounds. But the largest amount of investment in 1Q of 2023 was received by Romanian startups, over €125 million. 
• Among the most popular sectors were: e-commerce, gaming, fintech, AI, analytics, and SaaS, while among the most active investors were Vitosha Venture Partners, Eleven Ventures, Invento VC, LAUNCHub Ventures, Startup Wise Guys, Carlson ASI EVIG Alfa, Coinvest Capital, Credo Ventures, Czech Founders VC, Merito Partners, Practica Capital, Taiwania Capital, Techstars, JR Holding, Warsaw Equity Group.

Top 10 CEE startup funding rounds closed in 1Q 2023:

• The UK-Bulgarian DRONAMICS, €37.6 million pre-Series A round in February,
• Vue Storefront, a Polish startup with its $20 million funding round in March,
• Slovak Photoneo, $40 million Series B round in January,
• Digitail, a Romanian startup with its $11 million in a Series A funding round in January,
• Czech VOS.health, €1.5 million in January,
• Latvian Trace.Space, $1.5 million in a pre-seed round of funding in February,
• Oxipit, a Lithuanian startup with $4.9 million funding in January,
• Ukrainian FINMAP, €1 million round in February,
• Lithuanian Inbalance grid, €1.3 million of investment in March.