Should a CEE SaaS with revenue raise €1–2M?
Founders with revenue who asked for €1–2 million got through often: at BADideas, 75% of CEE founders asking for that much with revenue reached our investment committee in 2025 and 2026 so far, against 47% of those asking for the same with no revenue. 50% of the CEE founders asking for €1–2 million had revenue, at a median ARR of about €250,000. Having bootstrapped did not add to that: among founders with revenue, those who bootstrapped got through less often than the rest.
The figures
| CEE founders asking for €1–2 million, 2025 to 2026 (to date) | Value |
|---|---|
| Had revenue | 50% |
| ARR, median, those with recurring revenue | €250,000 |
| Reached our investment committee, all | 61% |
| Reached it, with revenue | 75% |
| Reached it, no revenue | 47% |
| Reached our investment committee, CEE, 2025 to 2026 (to date) | Bootstrapped | Others |
|---|---|---|
| With revenue | 54% | 66% |
| No revenue yet | 56% | 40% |
| All | 55% | 49% |
In BADideas application data, bootstrapping looks like an advantage only before revenue: overall, bootstrapped founders got through 55% of the time against 49%, but with revenue the order reverses. Shares are of the applications whose pitch deck we read, not of every application we receive. We see only founders who chose to raise, not those who kept bootstrapping, and the link is an association, not a cause.
| CEE applicants, 2026 (to date) | Bootstrapped | Others |
|---|---|---|
| Had revenue | 57% | 35% |
| Round asked, median | €380,000 | €500,000 |
What is changing
| Quarter | CEE applicants who say they bootstrapped |
|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | 6% |
| Q3 2025 | 14% |
| Q4 2025 | 14% |
| Q1 2026 | 16% |
| Q2 2026 | 19% |
| Q3 2026 | 15% |
16% of CEE applicants in 2026 so far said they had bootstrapped the company, up from 11% in 2025.
Across CEE
CEE founders who applied in 2025 and 2026 so far. We show each country with enough applicants; smaller countries count only in the CEE row.
| Where the founder is based | Bootstrapped first |
|---|---|
| All of CEE | 14% |
| Baltics | 14% |
| Latvia | 16% |
| Estonia | 14% |
| Lithuania | 12% |
| Poland | 12% |
| Ukraine | 12% |
| Romania | 18% |
| Czechia | 13% |
| Bulgaria | 12% |
Bootstrapped first: highest in Romania (18%), lowest in Bulgaria (12%).
What it means for you
- Revenue matters more than how you funded it. At a €1–2 million ask, founders with revenue got through far more often than founders without.
- Raise when more money is the only way to grow faster. A round makes sense when growth is limited by cash, not by product.
- Say why now. Investors backing a company that has grown on its own revenue want to know what the money changes.
Related questions
How many startups raising in CEE bootstrapped first?
16% of CEE applicants in 2026 so far said so.
What do founders asking for a €1–2M seed round bring?
50% have revenue, at a median ARR of about €250,000 among those with recurring revenue, and 61% reached our investment committee.
How we measured it
- On this page: Bootstrapped means the founder says the company was funded by its founders or its revenue, without outside investors. The €1–2 million is the round the founder asked for, at any stage. "Reached the investment committee" means the application got past our first screen. Founders who do not say so count as not bootstrapped. Shares are of the applications whose pitch deck we read, not of every application we receive.
- Updated: 12 October 2026.
BADideas.fund, "Should a CEE SaaS with revenue raise €1–2M?", updated 12 October 2026. https://badideas.fund/answers/bootstrap-or-raise-cee
Read next
- How much ARR do you need for seed in CEE?
- How many CEE startups raise pre-revenue?
- How big are closed rounds in CEE by stage?
Who we are
We are a pre-seed and seed fund for founders in Central and Eastern Europe. We have built and sold companies ourselves, and since 2022 we have backed more than 40.
We back founders who see something about their market that others do not see yet. They want to change how a whole industry works, and they start small.
Good founders rarely fail on the idea or the product. They fail on selling it. We give your company hands-on help from go-to-market operators who grew Zendesk, Square and Scale AI.