What are startups in CEE building right now?
Tools for businesses lead: developer tools and infrastructure, fintech and marketing and sales tools. Those are the most common sectors among the CEE founders who applied to BADideas in 2026 so far. Across all of them, 57% put AI at the core of the product.
The figures
| Sector, CEE applicants | 2025 | 2026 (to date) |
|---|---|---|
| Developer tools and infrastructure | 11% | 12% |
| Fintech | 11% | 11% |
| Marketing and sales tools | 9% | 10% |
| Retail and e-commerce | 8% | 10% |
| Health | 5% | 9% |
| Consumer and social | 8% | 6% |
| Mobility and logistics | 6% | 6% |
| Property and construction | 6% | 5% |
In BADideas application data, the fastest-growing of the leading sectors is health, up from 5% in 2025.
What is changing
| Quarter | Developer tools and infrastructure | Fintech | Marketing and sales tools |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q2 2025 | 11% | 12% | 6% |
| Q3 2025 | 11% | 9% | 9% |
| Q4 2025 | 13% | 11% | 13% |
| Q1 2026 | 13% | 13% | 9% |
| Q2 2026 | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| Q3 2026 | 11% | 8% | 8% |
Across CEE
CEE founders who applied in 2025 and 2026 so far, and each country with enough applicants to show. Countries with fewer applicants are still counted in the CEE row.
| Where the founder is based | Developer tools and infrastructure | Fintech |
|---|---|---|
| All of CEE | 12% | 11% |
| Baltics | 8% | 12% |
| Latvia | 9% | 12% |
| Estonia | 10% | 16% |
| Lithuania | 6% | 7% |
| Poland | 18% | 11% |
| Ukraine | 9% | 5% |
| Romania | 18% | 9% |
| Czechia | 16% | 16% |
| Bulgaria | 15% | 12% |
Developer tools and infrastructure: highest in Romania (18%), lowest in Lithuania (6%).
What it means for you
- Crowded sectors need a sharper edge. If you are in one of the top three, expect investors to have seen your category this month; lead with what only you can do.
- A less common sector is not a weakness. Investors look for good companies, not quotas; explain the market clearly because fewer will know it.
- Name your category the way customers do. Investors search their pipeline by it, and a clear label makes the comparison with peers easier.
Also answers
What is the most common sector for startups raising in CEE?
Developer tools and infrastructure: 12% of CEE applicants in 2026 so far. No sector holds more than about one in eight applicants, so the field is spread wide.
How we measured it
- Source: applications founders sent to BADideas, enriched with publicly available information where applicable.
- Limits: these are CEE only and early-stage companies.
- On this page: The sector is read from the founder's description of the product and its customers; each startup has one. Sectors are broad; a startup that could sit in two is placed in the one its customers belong to.
- Updated: 27 September 2026.
BADideas.fund, "What are startups in CEE building right now?", updated 27 September 2026. https://badideas.fund/answers/what-startups-build-cee
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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, start with something small, and learn fast.
Good founders rarely fail on the idea or the product. They fail on selling it. We give your company hands-on help from GTM operators who grew Zendesk, Square and Scale AI.
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