AIN.Capital has created a ranking of the most active Romanian VC funds in H1 2022. The ranking includes 6 local backers that together made 24 investments during January 2022-June 2022. Early Game Ventures, Gapminder VC, and ROCA X topped the list by closing 17 deals.
Methodology
We applied the same methodology, as we used in preparing rankings of the most active Polish, Baltic, Finnish, Hungarian, and Czech venture capital funds. Firstly, to create the list of top Romanian backers, we analyzed the investment activities of all active VCs in this country for the period from January 2022 to June 2022.
After that, we chose those that made one or more investments in startups in the first half of 2022, and conducted a survey among them. Relying on their answers, open source information, as well as Dealroom.com and Crunchbase data, we chose 6 backers that have led or joined at least one round in the six months of 2022.
This ranking consists of profiles of the 6 most active Romanian VC funds and shows information on the number of investments they made in total and within the period mentioned above, funding focus, ticket sizes, management team, and recently closed deals.
1. Early Game Ventures
- Number of investments: 26 / 8 of them in H1 2022
- Founding and Managing Partner: Cristian Munteanu
- Fund size: €28 million
- Region: Central and Eastern Europe, Romania
- Industries: enterprise technology (Big Data, AI, ML, fintech, cybersecurity), consumer technology (e-learning, social platforms, gaming and e-sports, adtech), hardware & electronics (3D printing, IOT, robotics)
- Investment stages: Series A
- Ticket size: up to €4.5 million, sweet spot is €500,000
Early Game Ventures is a Bucharest-based early-stage VC fund that focuses on companies with the potential for building infrastructure for new industries in the emerging economies. The fund claims it can offer support that a growing team may potentially need, such as providing introductions for later-stage investments and opportunities for international expansion. The fund typically acquires from 5% to 15% of equity in its portfolio projects.
Recent investments: OxidOS, Instant Space, Meetgeek.ai.
2. Gapminder VC
- Number of investments: 70 / 5 of them in H1 2022
- Founding Partners: Dan Mihaescu and Sergiu Rosca
- Fund size: €26 million
- Region: CEE, Romania
- Industries: SaaS, cybersecurity, digital transformation, healthcare IT, medtech, fintech, ML, Deep Learning, AI, Advanced Analytics
- Investment stages: from pre-seed to Series A
- Ticket size: up to €1.5 million in seed, up to €6 million in follow-ons
Gapminder VC is a Romanian venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments into local and regional technology startups in IT software and service-related sectors. Apart from funding, the team of entrepreneurs is also willing to provide any advice and support in management for the portfolio companies.
Recent investments: Machinations, Cyscale, DRUID.
3. ROCA X
- Number of investments: 22 / 4 of them in H1 2022
- CEO: Alexandru Bogdan
- Fund size: €4 million
- Region: CEE, Israel
- Industries: educational technology, deep technology, and technology sectors
- Investment stages: early stages
- Ticket size: €170,000-€4 million
Founded in 2019, ROCA X operates as a privately funded venture capital with global reach. It supports early-stage businesses founded by young entrepreneurs with revolutionary ideas in the field of technology, in the stage of MVP or prototype, with the vision to have an impact on society.
Recent investments: Bunnyshell, Film Chain, xVision.
4. Sparking Capital
- Number of investments: 12 / 3 of them in H1 2022
- Founding Partners: Cristian Negrutiu and Vlad Panait
- Region: CEE
- Industries: industry agnostic
- Investment stages: pre-seed, seed
- Ticket size: up to €300,000
Sparking Capital is an early-stage industry agnostic fund. It preferably invests in consumer internet, marketing, supply chain tech, fintech, property tech, circular economy tech startups, disruptive business models, which have the potential to have strong national footprint and/or scale up fast internationally.
Recent investments: Instant Space, Hyperhuman, KFactory.
5. Catalyst Romania
- Number of investments: 15 / 2 of them in H1 2022
- Managing Partner: Marius Ghenea
- Fund size: €50 million
- Region: CEE, with focus on Romania
- Industries: Enterprise Software, Education, Health, Transportation, Gaming, Fintech, Marketing, Food
- Investment stages: seed to Series A
- Ticket size: €1 million-€3 million
Founded in 2012, Catalyst Romania is a technology-focused venture capital firm. It focuses on investments in SMEs based in Romania and other countries in the region. Catalyst Romania typically invests in the range of €1 million-€3 million to support early-stage growth and development of the selected companies, and also considers larger investments partnering up with co-invested from across Europe, North America and Asia.
Recent investments: evoMAG, Hunch Ads, Adservio.
6. Cleverage VC
- Number of investments: 9 / 2 of them in H1 2022
- Managing Partner: Alexandru Popescu
- Region: CEE, Romania
- Industries: healthcare
- Investment stages: early stages
- Ticket size: €50,000-€200,000
Founded in 2019, Cleverage VC is a fund investing exclusively in the healthcare industry. As a dedicated and focused fund, apart from the investments, it provides portfolio projects with knowledge base, mentorship and access to an extensive network of contacts in the healthcare technology sector.
Recent investments: RepsMate, XVision.
