CEE startup funding report

AI takes most of the money

AI companies raised €1.18bn in the first nine months, 69% of all capital, against €667m and 48% a year earlier. That is already more than AI raised in all of 2025 (€904m). The growth reaches the early stages too: AI seed capital rose 57% and AI Series A capital 37%, while most other sectors raised less. Watch whether the non-AI companies that make up three in five rounds keep finding investors.

Two in five euros go to companies that moved abroad

Companies that started in the region and moved their headquarters elsewhere raised €726m of this year's €1.72bn, against €493m of €1.39bn in the same months of 2025. Watch whether this year's large Series A companies, Viktor and Saltz among them, keep their headquarters here.

Defence is a seed-stage pipeline

Defence and security closed 48 rounds this year, 30 of them seed and only six Series A, for €222m against €245m a year earlier. Investors expect the Series A wave next: NGL says several of its defence companies, with revenue growing 6.5 to 14 times year on year, will raise one within twelve months. Swarmer's Nasdaq listing in March gave the sector its first public exit.

Fewer Series A rounds, larger ones, mostly with foreign money

29 Series A rounds against 39 a year earlier, with the top quarter starting at €15m against €10m, and 23 of 25 including a fund from outside CEE. Watch whether Q4 brings the count back up.

New early-stage funds are closing

LAUNCHub Ventures held a €65m first close on Fund III, Day One Capital reached €45m on Fund III, FIRSTPICK has been raising its second fund, JIC Ventures launched in Brno, and DEPO Ventures will manage a new Czech-backed fund for Ukrainian startups. That capital reaches pre-seed and seed through 2027, the stages that fell most this year.

Space and deep hardware raise the largest rounds

EnduroSat's €186m is the largest Bulgarian round on record, hardware and robotics raised €390m against €282m, and Cyber Swarm's neuromorphic chips raised $50m. Smaller space companies are following: Blackswan Space (€2.5m) and Deep Space Energy, backed by the European Space Agency and NATO DIANA.

What the report covers

Period: January 2024 to September 2026. Past years are shown in full. The current year runs to the end of the last complete quarter.

Companies: startups headquartered in Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, Hungary and Bulgaria, and startups that began in one of these countries and later moved their headquarters abroad. Every kind of startup is included: software and hardware, business and consumer.

Events: venture funding rounds, and exits (acquisitions, buyouts and stock market listings).

Sources: public sources only, namely startup databases, company and investor announcements, and the press.

This edition covers 1370 venture rounds (1061 with a disclosed amount) at 1156 companies, and 104 exits. Next update: January 2027, adding Q4 2026.

Stages

Stages are the label the company announced or the source assigned. Where a label clearly does not fit the size of the round, such as a very large round called seed, the round is placed by its size. Where there is no label, round type and size decide.

How it is counted

• Funding rounds are equity and convertible venture rounds: angel, pre-seed, seed, Series A and later venture rounds. Grants, loans, support programmes, secondary sales and investments after a listing are not counted.
• Amounts are in euros, converted at about 1.10 US dollars to the euro. Rounds without a disclosed amount count toward the number of rounds but not toward capital.
• Companies that are not startups are left out even when they raise venture money: airlines, utilities, telecoms, sports clubs, distributors, agencies, long-established manufacturers and listed IT groups.
• A company counts in the country where it is headquartered, or where it started if it later moved abroad. Companies that founders from the region built abroad, with no base here, are not included.
• Rounds and exits are cross-referenced against company, investor and press announcements where possible.

Limits

• Public data does not capture every round, so counts are a floor. Small and undisclosed rounds are the most likely to be missing.
• Some rounds are announced months after they close. They are added to the quarter they closed in at the next update, so recent quarters, the latest above all, will rise.
• Founder and investor details are incomplete. Shares are calculated only over companies and rounds where the detail is known.
• Rounds of startups that moved their headquarters abroad, and exits of hardware and consumer startups, are less completely recorded for 2026 than for earlier years.