London: Movens Capital has launched a €12.7 million fund for early-stage, CEE startups (in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia), that have global potential. The firm focuses on businesses that will revolutionize traditionally large industries mainly through the use of ML/AI in process automation.
The fund is primarily looking for 16 early stage (pre-seed, seed, Series A) startups within the fintech, martech, e-commerce support, logistics, medtech, industry 4.0 and deep-tech industries, as well as sport and wellness, however it is not closed to other sectors. Preferred business models are marketplace and SaaS, with around €850K available per company. The firm believes that machine learning and artificial intelligence will change the way large industries operate and CEE technological talent supported by good financing and strong links with Western VC funds have potential to build innovative international ventures.
The creators of Movens VC are two former entrepreneurs themselves, Artur Banach and Michał Olszewski. The former was responsible for the development of Netsprint, a technology group acquired by and Dirlango and Innova Capital. As an investor, Banach has conducted over 10 transactions in the technology industry. His business partner Michał Olszewski has many years of experience in the commercialization of innovation, specializing in projects in the fintech industry. Over the years, he developed Skycash, one of the best Polish/CEE fintech in history. Ramon Jimenez, an experienced venture partner in the Silicon Valley, has been introducing European technology companies to the US market for many years along with Przemek Jurgiel-Żyła, who was responsible for business development in Netsprint and Datarino are also both active in managing Movens’ fund.
Artur Banach, partner at Movens Capital, explains, “The entire Movens VC team has a passion for building strong technology companies. Earlier, we developed or supported companies in various sectors and business models, among others: martech (Netsprint, Adrino, Datarino, Waytogrow), marketplaces (Packhelp, iTaxi, Whitepress) fintech (Skycash, Fenige), medtech (Medicalgorithmics) or HRtech (Nais ). We bring these experiences to our VC fund.”
