News & deals

Estonian energy storage company Skeleton Technologies is now valued at more than $1B after closing a nine-figure strategic round led by Siemens. The companies did not disclose the exact investment amount or the financial terms of the deal. The company plans to invest more than $200M into scaling up operations and R&D in Silicon Valley, where it will work directly with hyperscalers on power systems for AI data centres.

Duvo, the Prague-based enterprise AI company founded by Rohlik Group founder and CEO Tomáš Čupr, has raised a €28.55M ($32M) Series A led by Balderton Capital. Existing investors Index Ventures, Northzone and Credo Ventures also joined the round, bringing Duvo's total funding to €43 million ($48 million). With the new funding, Duvo is expanding into the United States, where it will start with retailers and consumer goods companies.

Warsaw-based edtech company Coding Giants, known in Poland as Giganci Programowania, has secured up to €6M in venture debt from Orbit Capital, a Central and Eastern European growth investor. The financing will support the company’s international expansion, with the US and Mexico among its main priorities.

Lithuanian AI marketing startup Holo has raised €5M in a seed funding round led by Market One Capital, with participation from Silicon Gardens, FirstPick, Leonis Capital, NGL, Tekton Ventures, and several business angels.

Gliwice-based space tech firm KP Labs has secured €4.44M in growth equity from Momentum Capital Partners. By processing data directly in orbit, their smart tech cuts downlink delays for giants like ESA and NASA, and now they’re set to scale production worldwide.

Romanian VC GapMinder leads a new €3M investment in VoicePatrol, an AI-powered voice moderation startup helping gaming studios detect severe toxicity in real time, reduce moderation costs, and create safer multiplayer experiences. The funds will be used for global expansion and further development of VoicePatrol's AI-powered voice moderation technology for AAA and independent gaming studios.

Monopulse, the Danish-Lithuanian maker of NATO-grade Falcon reconnaissance drones already used by several allied armed forces, raised over €2M to scale production and expand into Scandinavia and beyond. The round was backed by CoInvest Capital (lead), NGL Ventures syndicate + 68 business angels (€560,000 of the round — NGL Ventures’ largest syndicate ever), angels from the Lithuanian Business Angel Network, and Plug and Play Ventures (Silicon Valley).

Czech FLÆ Robotics raised over €1M in seed funding to scale BE-A, its AI hospitality agent already used by 60+ hotels across the UK, Germany and Czechia, and to expand into new markets including the US. The round was backed by Purple Ventures and Garage Angels.

Tallinn-based InsurTech company Cachet, which provides insurance solutions for the platform economy, has secured new funding in a round led by Nordic VC firm Spintop Ventures, bringing its total capital raised to approximately €11M. Existing investors Truffle Capital and Icebreaker.vc also participated. Cachet specializes in insurance solutions for shared mobility and gig economy platforms.

CEE Connections & diaspora

Zurich-based payment operations platform Rivero has welcomed Elevator Ventures, the corporate venture capital fund of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), as an investor. The size of the investment was not disclosed. Rivero plans to use the partnership to expand across Europe, with a particular focus on CEE markets, where Elevator Ventures has a strong network through RBI Group. Rivero’s products are Kajo, a payment network compliance platform, and Amiko, which uses agentic AI to automate dispute management and fraud recovery for banks and financial institutions. The investment follows the company’s Series A financing.

Relace, a London-based fintech co-founded by Bulgarian Lyubomira Dimitrova and Justin Peimani, has raised $1.6M (€1M) in a pre-seed round led by Boost Capital. Ascension, Koro Capital and a syndicate of angel investors linked to JPMorgan, Barclays, Morgan Stanley, OpenAI and SAP also joined. Founded in early 2026, Relace is building an AI platform that identifies which regulations apply to a financial firm and checks in real time whether it meets them, flagging gaps and risks. The startup was one of 21 cocampanies selected from 199 applicants for the second cohort of the FCA’s Supercharged Sandbox.

New funds launching

The European Investment Fund (EIF) is investing approximately €27 million in IP Lab Ventures Fund I, a new Czech venture capital fund targeting more than €50 million to commercialize research and support the creation of deep-tech startups.

The investment, backed by the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade through the country's National Recovery Plan, will support technology transfer from universities and research institutions, with a particular focus on AI, robotics, cybersecurity, biotechnology, and other advanced technologies.

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