Current, past and future CEE unicorns as seen by @dealroomco & @atomico #CEEValley

Košice-based Nordics today announced that it has #rebranded to Definic and closed a €2.5 million #Seed round as it expands from a regional IT marketplace into a global #vendor #intelligence platform. 🇸🇰 🤖🔎 eu-startups.com/2026/06/slov…

@Teleport_SF dinner was a success!!! Huge thank you to @SHACK15sf for hosting and to all the investors for coming out. Go Teleport! @AgataMck @Michal_TM

As an Eastern European founder I gotta admit it's always been super hard making in the Valley. Getting feedback, investor intros and generally any help without the network built was a challenge in 2011 when I first started as a founder as well as in 2021 when my first portfolio companies tried the same path. But it has gotten WAY easier in 2026. We now have at least four initiatives aimed specifically at helping Eastern European founders make it in the San Francisco Bay Area: Teleport SF by @agata_mrocz SF Startup Labs by @AgataKrajewska2 @Reaktor_X by @Stirbat_Luca European Startup Embassy by @VCincurova7829 If you're a CEE founder moving to SF, check them all out. Those are the people genuinely willing to help you make it in California as a startup founder & builder! Are there any other initiatives that I have missed?

#paymove, a fast-growing #FinTech based in Poland, has secured €2.12 million in its latest #funding round to develop a payment infrastructure for #autonomous AI agents and drive expansion across Western European markets. 🇵🇱 🚀 eu-startups.com/2026/06/poli…

🚀 CEE founders — applications are open for Vestbee Summer Pitch CEE 2026. 200 VCs. One pitch event. July 14. Perks: up to $100K AWS Google Cloud credits, 90% off HubSpot & more. ⏰ Deadline: June 28 Apply → vestbee.com/summer-pitch-cee #CEE #Startups #VentureCapital

Leading a new era of sovereign intelligence from space. ICEYE Series F funding round exceeds €1B, led by @generalatlantic, at a valuation of over €10B. Read more: hubs.li/Q04kDLnz0

You can apply without an idea. Actually, we prefer you do. Because we're making the decisions based on your track record. what competitions did you go to? what are your hobbies? what’s something you did, that nobody asked you to do? Submit your application and let us know!

Paypercut 🇧🇬 - the Stripe of Central & Eastern Europe - was my biggest miss of 2025. We met Stoil Vasilev in Warsaw on a Friday and committed immediately - that's what I thought - i.e. on Monday. It turned out to be too late. Sucks! Especially given he and his team helped build two Bulgarian fintech unicorns @SumUp and @payhawk. But we stayed in touch. I helped Stoil hire the country manager for Poland, Wojciech Oleksiejuk, introed him to local players and generally kept communicating for the last year and became friends. Now in 2026 I'm happy to announce we made it this time! The company has just announced a 5M EUR raise led by @concentricvc, @passioncapital and @RupaGanatra / Arāya Ventures with @smokvc participating. I couldn't be more excited to back Gareth Walsh, Stoil and Emil Savov, especially knowing the kind of traction they've already built since we committed, namely over 200 ecommerce merchants in 8 different CEE markets including Poland. Go #PayPerCut!

There’s a $50K investment ticket & a month in Silicon Valley on the table for this year’s batch - and only 9 days left to apply 👀 apply.reaktorx.com

Get funded by CEE's top angel investors! On Friday, May 8th, we're looking for 5 CEE founders to pitch in front of 200 SMOK Angels. We invested in 20 startups since launching the network in 2025. Apply at: smokangels.com #angels #startups #pitchday

Looking good: Primio April numbers in. - ARR: $282K - Mo1 NRR: 217% (vs 147% in March) - Mo1 retention: 85% (vs 74% in March) Lots of tourists. The ones who stay upgrade fast, often same day. Support tickets mostly store submission related, not the agent quality anymore.

The Pope should acquire @BibleChat_app — I thought. Makes sense: The Catholic Church 🇻🇦 has struggled with communication for decades. A Romanian AI startup could fix that overnight. Then I went further: What other CEE startups should be acquired by states? Here’s my list: – @joinsauna → Finland Brand alignment. Saunas belong in Suomi. 🇫🇮 – @ElevenLabs → Switzerland Too many dialects. Nobody understands each other. Modern Tower of Babel, solved. 🇨🇭 – @authologic → European Commission Europe has an identity crisis. Authologic fixes identity on the internet. Easy win. 🇪🇺 – Booksy → Italy No nation takes appointments more seriously than Italians (in theory). Let’s finally digitize the chaos. 🇮🇹 – @iceye_global → Ukraine Real-time satellite intelligence in a war zone. Sadly, no explanation needed. 🇺🇦 – @NordVPN → North Korea The ultimate VPN test. 🇰🇵 – @inStreamly → United Kingdom If anyone can monetize talking, it’s the Brits. Turn every stream into a sponsorship engine. 🇬🇧 – @boltapp Germany Everything arrives on time. Drivers start judging you for being late. 🇩🇪 – @Synerise → China Already tracking everything. Now just slightly more efficiently. 🇨🇳 Your turn: Which CEE startup should be acquired by a country? Serious or completely absurd — both welcome 😄

🚨🦄 We represented 🇭🇷 Croatian based Farseer in its $7.2M series A with AYMO Ventures. Farseer is revolutioning how we interact with excel like products. More here on the transaction therecursive.com/croatian-fa…

I sent 100 angel 😇 intros in April alone. Wouldn’t be possible without Claude Code. I built an app for @smok_angels that: – analyzes & scores startup decks 📊 – learns angel preferences 😍 – matches the two 🔗 – sends deeply personalized intros 📨 “Personalized” doesn’t mean adding a first name. The system: – analyzes my past communication with each angel (email LinkedIn) – maps their investment history (profiles, interviews, public data) – tailors each intro to their actual interests It also closes the loop with founders: – structured feedback on their deck – transparency on intro status (who received it, who responded, who wants to talk) Early results: 10 meetings already scheduled→ very strong founder feedback on transparency and quality Still work in progress. But it’s already clear this kind of tooling lets me scale myself and be much more useful to both founders and angels. Next step: building the same system for matching portfolio founders with VCs. Always loved building useful stuff. Now with tools like Claude, I can go from idea → deployed product in days, not weeks. Want intros to top CEE angels? Apply: smokangels.com

17 investments in 3 months. All Fund III 💙 @e2mindset Conviction built over the past year All under @arinozkula's watch Launched our €100M Fund III in January. Most funds take a breath after raising. We didn’t. Some call it spray and pray. Not sure which part is doing the work. 9 bridging to SF (all AI) 5 Turkish mobile gaming 3 outside thesis because great founders don’t always fit neatly into one Looks chaotic from the outside. Feels obvious from here. Opening our SF office soon (South Park) Punching above our weight. Trying to become the default bridge between this region and SF.

All the best startup accelerators to apply in 2026: 1. Y Combinator ($500k for ~7%) 2. Sequoia Arc ($1M for ~10%) 3. a16z Speedrun ($500k for 10% $500k guaranteed follow-on) 4. South Park Commons ($400k for 7% $600k guaranteed follow-on) 5. NEO Residency ($750k uncapped SAFE, variable equity) 6. HF0 Residency ($1M uncapped SAFE for 5%) 7. Seedcamp ($350k–$1M, flexible terms) 8. Boost VC ($500k for 15%) 9. The Mint ($500k for 10%) 10. 500 Global ($150k for 6%) 11. PearX ($250k–$2M SAFE) 12. SOSV / HAX ($250k for ~7%) 13. Techstars ($220k for 5% ) 14. LAUNCH ($125k for 6%) 15. Antler US ($200k–$250k for 8–9%) 16. Founders Fellowship ($150k for 5–10%) 17. Founders, Inc. ($100k–$250k for 4–7%) 18. Antler Europe (€100k for 10% stipend) 19. Entrepreneurs First (up to $250k for ~9%) 20. Conviction Embed ($150k uncapped MFN SAFE) 21. Afore Capital ($500k–$2M SAFE, flexible terms) 22. Soma Capital ($100k) 23. Berkeley SkyDeck ($200k) 24. gener8tor ($100k for 7.5%) 25. Heartfelt VC (up to €500k) 26. Forum Ventures ($100k for 7.5%) 27. Greylock Edge (custom SAFE $500k in credits) 29. Betaworks AI Camp (up to $500k for 5% uncapped SAFE) 29. Google for Startups (equity-free; up to $100k $350k in cloud credits) 30. Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator ($150k for 6% $320k in credits) 31. Plug and Play Tech Center (equity-free; optional $100k–$150k SAFE) 32. Startup Wise Guys (up to €65k for equity up to €300k follow-on) 33. HSG START Accelerator (CHF 200k for 4–10%) 34. Alchemist Accelerator (~$30k SAFE for ~5%) 35. Bethnal Green Ventures (£60,000 for 7%)

Happy for an amazing founder and good friend, @villigm, to join us in Warsaw for the ElevenLabs Summit to talk about ride-hailing, autonomous cars, AI, and more. Markus started Bolt at 19 and built one of Europe’s leading companies - I have learned a lot from him over the years.

Next stop: Belgrade! 🇷🇸 I’ll be in town next week with @LucaStirbat. Startup founders, if you’re building something "smokin' hot" or just want to talk shop, let’s link up! #CEEvalley #nomadVC

Some things that have changed in how I look at pre-seed startup investments over the last 6 months:: 1. I don’t invest in ideas anymore. Anyone can now build and test a product in a few weeks. Raise only when your assumptions are validated with real users. 2. I don’t invest without a clear moat. This was always important. Now it’s critical. If what you’re building can become a feature in Claude next month, it’s not investable. 3. I’m more open to deep tech and hardware. Not because they suddenly became sexy — they didn’t. Everything else just became easier to copy. The bar for defensibility is much higher now. 4. I’m open to solo founders — even non-technical ones. If I can build useful apps in days, so can you. Execution speed is no longer gated by coding ability. 5. “Human productivity” tools got less interesting. There’s a real chance humans won’t be needed in many workflows. Tech that replaces humans is more interesting than tech that assists them. If you’re building something like this — ping me: borys@smok.vc #investableFounders #AI #VentureCapital