Czech venture capital (VC) fund Presto Ventures has wrapped a €30 million ($36.8 million) funding round to help early-stage B2B startups in Central and Eastern Europe.
As Private Equity Wire reported Friday (June 24), the new funding will help support as many as 40 B2B tech startups at the seed and pre-seed stages, giving them fast access to capital, growth, and business development.
Presto’s past investments have included Cloudtalk, IP Fabric, Yieldigo, Sharry, and Wolf3D. The company has also named three new partners: Roman Nováček, a CFA charter holder and ex-analyst at US private equity firm GTE; Vojta Roček, who launched and sold business intelligence startup Stories.bi to Workday; and Eduard Kučera, who built and oversaw the business intelligence department of cybersecurity firm Avast.
Read more: EMEA B2B FinTech Octopus Ventures Closes $12.3M Pre-Seed Funding Round
According to Private Equity Wire, several well-known investors have joined Presto in its portfolio investments, among them Y Combinator, Taavet+Sten, Point Nine Capital, Credo Ventures, Inven Capital, HenQ, KAYA, Senovo, Konvoy Ventures, and Startup Wise Guys.
The announcement comes one day after Octopus Ventures closed a $12.3 million pre-seed funding round that it said it would use to continue the expansion of its B2B FinTech platform across the EMEA region.
“The story of every great technology startup often starts with an idea, most times a crazy and ambitious idea that becomes a solution to address a large market gap using innovative technology,” Principal Maria Rotilu wrote in a company blog post.
“For a startup founder looking to bring their world-changing solution to the biggest possible market, whether bootstrapped, funding with revenue or seeking out external capital, fundraising is essential.”
Read more: VCs Say EU Firms Can Still Win Big Without US Expansion
Earlier this month, PYMNTS spoke with Thomas Cuvelier, a partner at VC firm Alven, who talked about a new generation of entrepreneurs in Europe which is launching businesses to tap into the startup sector.
And while the U.K. has long been a major FinTech hub, Cuvelier said there are a growing number of large companies being built in continental Europe, such as French neobank Qonto, that have begun to disrupt the traditional banking sector.
There’s also Estonia — home to money transfer startup TransferWise, one of the most valuable FinTech firms in Europe — as a budding center with a wide range of expertise in payments and financial services that offers FinTech opportunities.
