Four Sofia-based companies and one Bulgarian VC fund are included in the report summarizing VC Funding in CEE in 1Q 2022 by the online matchmaking platform Vestbee. The companies are SPARK Bulgaria, SessionStack, Cloudcart, and the first Bulgarian unicorn Payhawk= Among the most active VC funds is featured the fund manager of the Fund of Funds – Vitosha Venture Partners.
According to Vestbee, the biggest matchmaking platform for startups and scaleups in CEE, a total of 233 funding rounds were completed in the region from January to March this year, with Payhawk’s €89 million Series B in the Top 5 of the biggest deals. The total investment amount reaches over €1.6 billion compared to €1 billion in Q4 2021. Bulgaria ranks fourth in terms of investment volume after Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic, and in fourth place in terms of investment deals – a total of 13 within the Top 50 investments for the period under review.
The most appreciated industries for the investors were Ecommerce, Fintech, Analytics, AI, SaaS, Advertising, and Big Data.
The Bulgarian companies featured in the report
SPARK Bulgaria is a car rental agency that provides electric car-sharing services. It has received a €30 million investment from Luxembourg-based investment group GEM Global Emerging Markets. SPARK is a Lithuanian-Bulgarian company and has operations in Romania as well.
The SessionStack product is used by developers, product managers, customer service experts and UX designers and helps them find and fix problems with their product or service in less time. It allows companies with web applications to get a detailed idea of the user path, possible product quality improvements, user experience and more. At the beginning of the year, the company received an investment of 750K euros from BrightCap Ventures and angel investment.
Cloudcart launched in Sofia in 2016 to develop its All-in-One SaaS eCommerce platform to create and launch an online store in no time. Last year, the company entered the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 ranking of the fastest growing technology businesses in CEE and was awarded in the Impact Stars category for successful products and services with a positive impact on society, business, innovation and the environment. Earlier this year, Cloudcart raised funds in an investment round led by Elevator Ventures, the venture capital division of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), with the participation of the existing investor in the company – NV3.
The first Bulgarian unicorn Payhawk provides software for automation and management of all types of business expenses. Vestbee features the company due to the investment of €89 million in a Series B round from the funds QED Investors, Sprints Capital, Jigsaw VC, HubSpot Ventures, Greenoaks Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, Earlybird Venture Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Vitosha Venture Partners acceleration and seed funding fund manages public resources from the Fund of Funds under the Operational Program “Innovation and Competitiveness” 2014-2020, as well as additionally attracted private capital. Vitosha supports Bulgarian companies from all sectors and conducts accelerator programs. A month ago, the fund entered another worth mentioning list – the Top 15 Most Active Funds with New Investment Strategy list and became part of The Most Active Investors in Eastern Europe Map, published by i5invest.
Vestbee claims to be the largest online platform at the moment for networking in the ecosystem of startups and scaleups in CEE, supported by a global community of venture capital funds, corporations, business angels and accelerators such as Amazon, HubSpot, InnoEnergy, EIT Digital, and others. Recently, the article “Top 25 Women From VC and Startup Ecosystem In Bulgaria” was published on its website. It includes female founders of fast-growing startup companies, women in management positions in established technology companies, investment funds or organizations supporting the ecosystem.