CEE Tech Funding Shows Continued Resilience
The Central and Eastern European (CEE) tech sector is demonstrating robust funding activity despite broader market volatility. Recent investment rounds highlight a continued appetite for startups in the web3, data, and SaaS domains, signaling opportunities for hiring and product expansion for companies in the region, including Bulgaria.
- Sofia-based AMPECO, a cloud-based EV charging management platform, raised €24.7M in a Series B round in November 2024, with participation from BMW i Ventures and LAUNCHub Ventures, to expand into North America and Western Europe. - Across the CEE region, venture capital investment into companies totaled €2.3 billion in 2024, a slight increase from the previous year, with late-stage funding nearly tripling after a drop in 2023. - Signaling a focus on engineering efficiency, Czech startup Navigara recently raised €2 million in seed funding to build out its data-driven analytics platform that helps companies measure the impact of AI and other development tools. - The total market capitalization of publicly traded CEE SaaS companies reached an all-time high of €2.11 billion in mid-2025, though regional revenue growth (5.1%) lags significantly behind US counterparts (16%). - While investor confidence in Bulgaria is strong, with projections of over €1.4M in available venture capital for 2024, the formation of high-quality startups has not kept pace, creating an ecosystem with an oversupply of capital. - A significant challenge for the region is talent and company retention, as nearly half of CEE scaleups relocate their headquarters—most often to the US (56%) and the UK (24%)—to gain better access to global markets and later-stage funding. - Web3, alongside AI and SaaS, was among the most funded industries in the CEE region in mid-2024, with notable rounds including a €13.6M Series A for RedStone, a Web3 data oracle provider. - By September 2024, Bulgarian AI companies had raised €52.7M for the year, a significant decrease from the €101M raised in 2023, with top rounds going to companies like Iris AI (€7.6M) and Evrotrust (€3.3M).
