As a start-up founder you have multiple options for raising money, especially nowadays – your own money or your friends’ and family’s, loans, banks, crowdfunding and various types of investors and investment firms.
As the Romanian start-up ecosystem keeps growing into one of the most promising in CEE and not only, more and more opportunities appear, both locally and from abroad.
In this article we tried to create a complete list of all investors and funding sources that are available for start-up founders in Romania – Venture Capital firms, Angel Investor Groups, Equity Crowdfunding platforms and others.
If you want to appear on the list or you know someone that is missing, please let us know at contact@fortechinvestments.ro and we will complete the list right away.
Venture Capital Firms in Romania
Sparking Capital
Sparking Capital is a VC micro-fund with a strategic approach of supporting entrepreneurs with pre-seed and seed investments as well as smart money, business network, mentorship and facilitation of international scale-up. They target start-ups in the following industries: consumer internet, marketing-tech, supply chain-tech, fintech, property-tech, circular economy.
Early Games Ventures
Early Games Venture is an early-stage VC firm constantly looking for founders and start-ups that “build the infrastructure for innovation” and “jumpstart new industries”. They invest in start-ups at seed stage or series A from CEE, mostly Romania.
Early Games Ventures also have an yearly accelerator, where they work along and later invest in early stage start-ups that shape the future of industries such as mobility, jobs, real estate, agritech, coding, smart cities and fintech.
Simple Capital
Simple capital is an investment fund with two missions – to invest in early stage hyper-growth start-ups and to make investments in such start-ups accessible to smaller investors or corporate investors too. When it comes to investing in start-ups, their approach is focused on founders as well as critical functions – they provide support with finance, sales and operations so start-ups can focus on strategy.
Emag Ventures
Emag Ventures is the investment program created by eMAG, one of the biggest online retailers in Romania and CEE. They invest in B2C or B2B2C tech start-ups and they also provide their experience of over 19 years, especially when it is a match with the start-up’s activity.
GapMinder Ventures
GapMinder is a Romanian VC fund that invests in disruptive early stage start-ups with proven initial traction. They offer pre-seed, seed and series A rounds and focus mainly on: SaaS, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Analytics, Predictive Marketing, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Healthcare/Medtech and FinTech.
Gapminder also works together with Techcelerator, an acceleration program that also provides funding for start-ups.
Cleverage VC
Cleverave is a VC fund that invests in Healthtech start-ups at pre-seed, seed and Series A stages from various geographies – Romania, Europe or non-European but with ties to Europe. They provide funding as well as network, capabilities, management, mentoring, coaching and market access.
ROCA X
ROCA X is a Romanian VC firm that invests in early stage disruptive businesses, either in MVP or prototype stage. They are looking for tech start-ups, especially those in deep tech or edutech sectors.
Smart Impact Capital
Smart Impact is a micro-investment fund that provides pre-seed and seed rounds to early-stage and even very-early-stage start-ups. The fund is looking to also offer the strong expertise of its members to founders that are making a social or environmental impact.
Risky Business
Risky business is is a network of investors and entrepreneurs (tech and non-tech) which provides start-up founders with pre-seed funding rounds as well as team building, product validation, go-to-market, strategy and other soft skills. They also have a start-up accelerator for students.
Gecad is one of the oldest VC firms in Romania and is currently investing in start-ups as well as later-stage tech companies from the CEE. They focus on cybersecurity, FinTech, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Transportation, IoT and AgriTech.
Ulpia Ventures
Ulpia is a team of multi-faceted professionals that invest in start-ups at all stages and also provide other assets, based on what the founder needs. Their focus is on Cybersecurity, Quantum Computing, Intelligent Data Management, Big Tech, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Health Tech, Cloud Computing.
Neogen Capital
Neogen is both a VC firm and an accelerator that offers minority seed, early stage and later stage investments. They are looking for start-ups from the CEE in the online retail, ecommerce and fintech industries.
V7Capital
V7 is a start-up studio that focuses mostly on romanian ventures. They call themselves a “studio” as they are not purely a VC firm – they work hands on with the founders and they pick a few at a time.
They also provide a co-working studio where start-ups and other professionals can collaborate in a nice and active environment.
Angel Investor Groups In Romania
Growceanu
Growceanu is a group of business angel investors active in high tech industries that help founders develop their start-ups not only with capital but with professional and business experience and access to their network.
T.A.N
Transylvania Angels Network is an NGO created by Cluj Start-ups to support the growth of the local ecoystems. It is not a fund but an organization with the sole purpose to connect founders with the right investors, mentors, networks and even educational resources and opportunities.
TechAngels
Techangels is a community that has the purpose to connect and even educate early stage start-up founders with the right opportunities, resources and investors for them. They are looking for start-ups with experienced teams, that have at least a prototype of web, mobile, software and hardware products or services.
Crowdfunding Platforms in Romania
Seedblink
Seedblink is a Romanian equity crowdfunding platform where start-ups can apply for funding and individual investors can offer smaller tickets starting from €2.500. Both benefit as start-ups have access to wider range of investors and the start-ups are pre-vetted and selected by Seedblink’s specialists.
Ronin
Ronin is a Romanian blockchain crowdfunding platform for start-up founders that want to grow their business and investors that want to diversify their portfolios. The smallest bid is only €100 and and the start-ups are pre-vetted by the Ronin team.
Other Romanian Investors
Techcelerator – Accelerator that provides funding
Techcelerator is an accelerator with four different programs, suited for the whole start-up lifecycle. They also connect start-ups with investors, mainly those in Fintech, SaaS, AI/ML, MedTech, Cyber Security, AgTech, EdTech.
Fortech Investments – Strategic Investor/Partner/Acquirer
And there there’s us. We are a branch of Fortech, a software development company from Cluj Napoca, Romania and we are on a mission to support B2B start-up founders with everything they need to reach their business goals. This is why we have 4 offerings, for founders and professionals in FinTech, HealthTech, EduTech, Real Estate, Transportation and Manufacturing :
- We develop and validate tech solutions, starting from nothing but your idea and we work together to turn it into a successful start-up.
- We provide Pre-seed and Seed funding rounds along with the smart money or capabilities you need to grow your business– development, recruiting, sales, marketing and access to our client network.
- We partner with you if you are an experienced professional or entrepreneur and you identified a gap in your industry that requires a tech solution that we can create together.
- We acquire companies that are looking to save costs and resources and capture new opportunities in the market with combined forces.
If you want to talk to us about your idea, start-up or company, let’s have a chat. Fill in the short form and one of us will contact you as soon as possible.
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