Romanian startups raise 12% more venture financing in 2022

Romanian startups raise 12% more venture financing in 2022
/ bne IntelliNews
By Iulian Ernst in Bucharest February 1, 2023

The total financing raised by Romanian startups in 2022 rose by 12% y/y in 2022 and soared 12 times over the past decade, to €102mn, according to the third edition of the Romanian Venture Report, compiled by How to Web in partnership with KPMG Romania and KPMG Legal.

The number of transactions increased to 73, from 71 in 2021. It’s worth mentioning that 2021’s transaction volume includes FintechOS’ €51mn series B. When discounting such outliers, this actually means that 2022 outperformed 2021 by 54.3%, compared to €65.9mn in 2021.

The 2022 results put Romania in fifth place in Central and Eastern Europe in the ranking of investments raised by startups, after Estonia, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Poland.

“Venture deals involving Romanian startups stood up to 2022’s strong headwinds coming from the global tech scene and the global economy in general. Coming out of 2022 we see strong signals that deals involving Romania-born startups can actually turn into a much-wanted bet in one’s portfolio, to say the least,” said Alexandru Agatinei, CEO of How to Web.

One important detail that stands out from the report’s conclusions is the tripling of the volume of Series A transactions in 2022, compared to the previous year.

At the same time, the volume of seed transactions increased by 29%, reaching €56.4mn, compared to €43.4mn in 2021.

Top deals of 2022 were Druid, Digitail, Bware Labs, Sessions, Bunnyshell, Machinations, NeuroLabs, Cyscale, AdServio and Ogre AI.

Druid is an end-to-end platform specialising in developing intelligent virtual assistants, otherwise known as chatbots. The Romanian startup received €14.2mn in May 2022 for its innovative tech and is now looking to go global.

Digitail, a platform that automates many of veterinarians’ administrative tasks, announced the closure of an $11mn Series A funding round in the US in January 2023. The funds will go towards expanding in the US and Canada and continuing global expansion. Digitail works with more than 750 clinics worldwide looking after approximately 1.4mn pets.  

Bware Labs, a startup creating a platform for decentralised API infrastructure, connecting blockchain data consumers to nodes supplied by independent providers, raised $6mn in a follow-up funding round in February 2022, bringing its total funding to $7mn.

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