CEE Valley

Current, past and future CEE unicorns as seen by @dealroomco & @atomico #CEEValley

Get funded by CEE's top angel investors! On Friday, May 8th, we're looking for 5 CEE founders to pitch in front of 200+ SMOK Angels. We invested in 20 startups since launching the network in 2025. Apply at: smokangels.com #angels #startups #pitchday

Looking good: Primio April numbers in. - ARR: $282K - Mo1 NRR: 217% (vs 147% in March) - Mo1 retention: 85% (vs 74% in March) Lots of tourists. The ones who stay upgrade fast, often same day. Support tickets mostly store submission related, not the agent quality anymore.

The Pope should acquire @BibleChat_app — I thought. Makes sense: The Catholic Church 🇻🇦 has struggled with communication for decades. A Romanian AI startup could fix that overnight. Then I went further: What other CEE startups should be acquired by states? Here’s my list: – @joinsauna → Finland Brand alignment. Saunas belong in Suomi. 🇫🇮 – @ElevenLabs → Switzerland Too many dialects. Nobody understands each other. Modern Tower of Babel, solved. 🇨🇭 – @authologic → European Commission Europe has an identity crisis. Authologic fixes identity on the internet. Easy win. 🇪🇺 – Booksy → Italy No nation takes appointments more seriously than Italians (in theory). Let’s finally digitize the chaos. 🇮🇹 – @iceye_global → Ukraine Real-time satellite intelligence in a war zone. Sadly, no explanation needed. 🇺🇦 – @NordVPN → North Korea The ultimate VPN test. 🇰🇵 – @inStreamly → United Kingdom If anyone can monetize talking, it’s the Brits. Turn every stream into a sponsorship engine. 🇬🇧 – @boltapp Germany Everything arrives on time. Drivers start judging you for being late. 🇩🇪 – @Synerise → China Already tracking everything. Now just slightly more efficiently. 🇨🇳 Your turn: Which CEE startup should be acquired by a country? Serious or completely absurd — both welcome 😄

🚨🦄 We represented 🇭🇷 Croatian based Farseer in its $7.2M series A with AYMO Ventures. Farseer is revolutioning how we interact with excel like products. More here on the transaction therecursive.com/croatian-farse…

@Amank1412 For Eastern Europe: @StartupWiseGuys @Reaktor_X @AntlerGlobal Berlin

All the best startup accelerators to apply in 2026: 1. Y Combinator ($500k for ~7%) 2. Sequoia Arc ($1M for ~10%) 3. a16z Speedrun ($500k for 10% + $500k guaranteed follow-on) 4. South Park Commons ($400k for 7% + $600k guaranteed follow-on) 5. NEO Residency ($750k uncapped SAFE, variable equity) 6. HF0 Residency ($1M uncapped SAFE for 5%) 7. Seedcamp ($350k–$1M, flexible terms) 8. Boost VC ($500k for 15%) 9. The Mint ($500k for 10%) 10. 500 Global ($150k for 6%) 11. PearX ($250k–$2M SAFE) 12. SOSV / HAX ($250k for ~7%) 13. Techstars ($220k for 5%+) 14. LAUNCH ($125k for 6%) 15. Antler US ($200k–$250k for 8–9%) 16. Founders Fellowship ($150k for 5–10%) 17. Founders, Inc. ($100k–$250k for 4–7%) 18. Antler Europe (€100k for 10% + stipend) 19. Entrepreneurs First (up to $250k for ~9%) 20. Conviction Embed ($150k uncapped MFN SAFE) 21. Afore Capital ($500k–$2M SAFE, flexible terms) 22. Soma Capital ($100k) 23. Berkeley SkyDeck ($200k) 24. gener8tor ($100k for 7.5%) 25. Heartfelt VC (up to €500k) 26. Forum Ventures ($100k for 7.5%) 27. Greylock Edge (custom SAFE + $500k+ in credits) 29. Betaworks AI Camp (up to $500k for 5% + uncapped SAFE) 29. Google for Startups (equity-free; up to $100k + $350k in cloud credits) 30. Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator ($150k for 6% + $320k in credits) 31. Plug and Play Tech Center (equity-free; optional $100k–$150k SAFE) 32. Startup Wise Guys (up to €65k for equity + up to €300k follow-on) 33. HSG START Accelerator (CHF 200k for 4–10%) 34. Alchemist Accelerator (~$30k SAFE for ~5%) 35. Bethnal Green Ventures (£60,000 for 7%)

I sent 100+ angel 😇 intros in April alone. Wouldn’t be possible without Claude Code. I built an app for @smok_angels that: – analyzes & scores startup decks 📊 – learns angel preferences 😍 – matches the two 🔗 – sends deeply personalized intros 📨 “Personalized” doesn’t mean adding a first name. The system: – analyzes my past communication with each angel (email + LinkedIn) – maps their investment history (profiles, interviews, public data) – tailors each intro to their actual interests It also closes the loop with founders: – structured feedback on their deck – transparency on intro status (who received it, who responded, who wants to talk) Early results: 10+ meetings already scheduled→ very strong founder feedback on transparency and quality Still work in progress. But it’s already clear this kind of tooling lets me scale myself and be much more useful to both founders and angels. Next step: building the same system for matching portfolio founders with VCs. Always loved building useful stuff. Now with tools like Claude, I can go from idea → deployed product in days, not weeks. Want intros to top CEE angels? Apply: smokangels.com

17 investments in 3 months. All Fund III 💙 @e2mindset Conviction built over the past year All under @arinozkula's watch Launched our €100M Fund III in January. Most funds take a breath after raising. We didn’t. Some call it spray and pray. Not sure which part is doing the work. 9 bridging to SF (all AI) 5 Turkish mobile gaming 3 outside thesis because great founders don’t always fit neatly into one Looks chaotic from the outside. Feels obvious from here. Opening our SF office soon (South Park) Punching above our weight. Trying to become the default bridge between this region and SF.

Happy for an amazing founder and good friend, @villigm, to join us in Warsaw for the ElevenLabs Summit to talk about ride-hailing, autonomous cars, AI, and more. Markus started Bolt at 19 and built one of Europe’s leading companies - I have learned a lot from him over the years.

Next stop: Belgrade! 🇷🇸 I’ll be in town next week with @LucaStirbat. Startup founders, if you’re building something "smokin' hot" or just want to talk shop, let’s link up! #CEEvalley #nomadVC

Some things that have changed in how I look at pre-seed startup investments over the last 6 months:: 1. I don’t invest in ideas anymore. Anyone can now build and test a product in a few weeks. Raise only when your assumptions are validated with real users. 2. I don’t invest without a clear moat. This was always important. Now it’s critical. If what you’re building can become a feature in Claude next month, it’s not investable. 3. I’m more open to deep tech and hardware. Not because they suddenly became sexy — they didn’t. Everything else just became easier to copy. The bar for defensibility is much higher now. 4. I’m open to solo founders — even non-technical ones. If I can build useful apps in days, so can you. Execution speed is no longer gated by coding ability. 5. “Human productivity” tools got less interesting. There’s a real chance humans won’t be needed in many workflows. Tech that replaces humans is more interesting than tech that assists them. If you’re building something like this — ping me: borys@smok.vc #investableFounders #AI #VentureCapital

@BuntarAerospace has raised $10.4M, in a round led by Axon. Buntar Aerospace is building defence technology that helps to reduce operator load and improve real-time situational awareness. Congratulations to Ivan Kaunov, and the entire team on this major milestone! 🚀

Excited to announce our @changeventures portfolio co @Giraffe360 raised their $10M Series B today to fuel global growth of the business. Cippio Partners now joins us, @foundersfund , @HoxtonVentures. Super gritty #Latvia #PropTech #Robotics startup. 💪🇱🇻 tech.eu/2026/03/26/gir…

Waited for Dilan’s video drop from SF 🎥 Still waiting So I thought I’d post it myself 💙 @e2mindset Supply chains aren’t a logistics problem. They’re coordination systems under uncertainty. And yet we still run them on spreadsheets. That’s where AI can compress decision cycles. Excited to back Nick and the team at @mndl_ai in their seed round. From static planning → real-time decisioning From fragmented tools → a coordination layer From human bottlenecks → AI-native ops The real problem isn’t visibility. It’s speed of action. By the time you see the issue, it’s already too late. Mandel is building the layer that ingests signals across systems, structures messy data, and enables faster, automated decisions. This is where AI actually creates value. Not in dashboards. In action. $26T+ of goods move through supply chains every year.

HUGE news - No Cap just got acquired by Audos.com 💣 When I had first chat with @thorneny & @werdelin I knew our vibe & outlook on the industry is a 100% match. Changing the industry is never easy, and you need strong partners to do so. Together, we’re now serving 10k+ AI-native solopreneurs, investing up to $100k for 0% equity. Yes, you heard that right. I’m bearish on VC moving on, and @nocap_so is officially out of “unicorn” business. Repost this & comment your biz “one-liner” below and you’ll get a speed-review for an up to $100k equity-free investment ticket from No Cap and Audos.

Angel investing 😇 is a full-time job. If you treat it as a side activity, you’ll only see a tiny fraction of the market. And your chances of getting into the best deals 🦄 will be close to zero — especially if you’re starting without a strong network or personal brand. The best angels in Poland, like @tomik99 or @barticz have been building their position for over a decade: – investing consistently 💸 – sharing knowledge 💡 – building communities 👭 – launching their own projects 🚀 That’s what gives them access to top deal flow. If you’re just getting started, I strongly advise against investing on your own. Better options: – join an angel network like @smok_angels – or invest as an LP in a VC fund (I can recommend a few) You’ll get better access, better learning, and (hopefully) better outcomes.

BREAKING: @CredoVentures has just announced a new fund of $88m to continue to back great founders from CEE! The firm, founded by Ondrej Bartos (@obartos) and Jan Habermann in 2010, has made some of Europe's greatest investments of all time, including: > UiPath - 2000x return at IPO > ElevenLabs - Currently 700-800x after just three years Today it has announced its 5th fund, which is $88m (the same as Fund 4) and will similarly be focused on the CEE region. The firm is also going through a leadership transition which will see Ondrej and Jan continue to invest, but hand the leadership of the firm over to Maciek Gnutek, Maximilian Kolowrat-Krakowsky, and Jakub Krikava on the investment side, and Matěj Míček leading on tech. Credo Ventures has become one of the leading firms across Europe it is GREAT to see it succeed I sat down with Jakub (@JakKrikava) and Maciek (@gnutekm) where we discussed: 0:00 - Introduction to Scaling Europe show 0:32 - Credo announces new $88M fund 1:31 - Investment strategy and focus on pre-seed in CEE 2:25 - Why Credo kept fund size disciplined 4:00 - Fund economics and return strategy 6:23 - Competition and evolution of CEE ecosystem 9:25 - Local advantage in sourcing and evaluating founders 12:12 - Key markets and emerging regions in CEE 15:09 - Diaspora strategy and global deal flow 17:31 - ElevenLabs case study and sourcing approach 20:09 - Leadership transition and future of Credo

I never saw a deck from half of our portfolio. Two of them are now unicorns. The worst time to fundraise is when you’re actually fundraising. The strongest founders raise when they don’t need to. They build relationships long before there’s a pitch. When it’s time, they compress everything into a tight window, create urgency, and stay in control. This is how deal heat is created. Not a 3 month process. A 10 day sprint. Partner meetings → term sheets. Especially in AI and gaming. In fast moving markets, you don’t wait for perfect conditions. Great founders create their own timing. 70% of our portfolio raises in the past two years happened without a formal fundraising process. When they did raise, it wasn’t a process. It was a moment.

Warsaw-based investment firm Montis VC has launched a new #venture capital fund, securing €50 million at first close to back Europe’s next generation of energy and IndustrialTech startups. 🇵🇱 🤖 ⚡ eu-startups.com/2026/03/warsaw…