CEE Tech News 006

Catch up on the buzz in the region!

A few high-value investments, including a participation from Microsoft Ventures, and a number of startup development initiatives from Romania headline the 6th edition of our Central and Eastern Europe tech report as the ecosystem continues to showcase its massive potential.

• Cloud-based Serbian startup Frame has closed a $16 Million funding round from a number of investment funds, including Microsoft. The company offers businesses an app streaming platform and is ‘the first solution that truly delivers on the promise of desktop virtualization in the cloud. We built it from day one to take full advantage of the cloud, so it’s faster, simpler and more scalable than anything that came before it,’ says Frame founder and CEO Nikola Bozinovic.
• Having presented its newest AR project ‘Prezi Next’ at the TED talk in Vancouver, the Hungarian presentation platform Prezi has now acquired Latvian data visualization startup Infogram. The data visualization features offered by Infogram will be used to further develop Prezi’s visual communication products and facilitate its market expansion plans. Financials of the acquisition have not been disclosed.
• One of CEE’s biggest tech events DigitalK will take place in Sofia between the 8th and 9th of June. With more than 2500 yearly visitors including investors, speakers, entrepreneurs and digital market professionals, the conference is the hallmark of a series of events in the upcoming Digital Week.
• Antilatency, a Russian VR startup completes a $2.1 Million Seed Investment round to improve VR experience by eliminating mobility issues. The investment will facilitate the completion of Antilatency’s ALT technology that allows users to move freely when using a VR headset rather than only using head movements. In the words of CTO Petr Sevostianov ‘Virtual reality powered by our tracker gives a miraculous sense of complete freedom, without wires and dizziness.’
• Polish Health tech startup DocPlanner raises 15 Million Euro in a Series D round, lead by ENERN Investments, to reach a total of 46 Million Euro funding. After a successful merger with Spanish Doctoralia last year, DocPlanner is now looking to expand to the Latin American and Southern Europe markets and further facilitate the link between patients and doctors through its SaaS technology.
• The Romanian Secretary of State for Business Ilan Laufer provided some information about the Start-Up Nation program which will officially begin in June. According to Laufer, up to 10,000 Romanian startups will be able to receive governmental support if the maximum grant of 200,000 lei is not exceeded by most startups. Registration for the program can be done through an online application.
• Startups can now apply to the global METRO Accelerator program which provides investments of up to 120,00 Euro for a stake of 6–10%. The program is open for startups developing innovative apps for the HoReCa sector and registration deadline is the 18th of June.

Let us know if we missed any major news splash over the last couple of weeks and stay tuned for our upcoming pieces on Medium and Facebook!