Invest-IQ

Poland-based early stage VC fund IQ Partners has confirmed their investment in Moneyzoom.pl a service that provides web and mobile solutions for household budgeting. Moneyzoom will use the funding towards functionality enhancement for personal expense, as well as automating data mining capabilities.   Moneyzoom.pl (moneyzoom.money24.pl) Moneyzoom.pl is a household budgeting service targeted at individual users, and [...]

Portfolion, the VC  arm of OTP Hungary, invested USD 1.6 mln into the Hungarian fashion brand Nanushka. The VC firm is ready to lend a USD 1 mln loan to cover further expenses occurring while Nanushka carries out its new marketing strategy. Portfolion has already appointed a new management team which will focus on production and international distribution. [...]

Europe’s top multimedia content payment system, Piano Media, has secured a EUR 2 mln round of Series B investment from 3TS Capital Partners, one of the big players in the CEE region investment game. The funding will be used by Piano to support resources for expansion, recruitment and marketing.   Piano Media (www.pianomedia.eu) Piano Media is [...]

In what could turn out to be a nanotechnology-driven investment spree, RUSNANO this week led and closed a USD 79 mln round of investing in Quantenna Communications. The round was participated in by another new investor, Bright Capital. Other participants are all older investors: Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures and Sigma Partners are among six other [...]

RUSNANO has recently added to its nanotechnology portfolio with a EUR 25 mln investment in Beneq, Finland-based manufacturers of thin-film and specialized functional coating equipment and technologies. The investment was made in the form of share purchases and capital injection, and will be used to expand the company’s activities as well as focus on markets [...]

Penta Investments is known to have made a bid for German insolvent chain of drug stores, Schlecker, after almost a month since its last 40 percent stake purchase in Polish retail company EM&F. The bid for Schlecker is non-binding at this point, with the objective being that the Schlecker family will only own a marginal stake [...]

Yandex’s start-up financing wing Yandex.factory has invested an estimated USD 50,000 in Yekaterinburg’s Citrea. The target company is developing and online text-editing application that can be accessed by several users. The ‘crowd-editing’ company is currently in stealth mode, and first met up with the investors at the Yandex.start event in their home town in. December [...]

E-commerce in Russia gets yet another boost as Mallstreet.ru gets a round of funding from multiple investors. The online shopping portal recently received a round of financing from Franco-Israeli VC firm Kima Ventures (held by Jérémie Berrebi), Fabrice Grinda, super angel from France but based in the U.S. and Amber Venture Partners out of Amsterdam. Mallstreet.ru (mallstreet.ru) [...]

Krakow-based VC firm Innovation Nest has invested close to EUR 500,000 in iTraff, the mobile applications developer that gave the world SaveUp, an image recognition app. Co-investors in this second round of funding were angel investors Rafal Han, CEO and co-founder of educational games developer HanBright, and Stephane Senkowski. The current estimated value of the [...]

Post the Easter weekend, Polish telecom company Netia could be looking at share sales worth more than EUR 600 mln. Three PE majors have shown interest in purchasing the company’s shares, and are thought to be Bridgepoint, Innova Capital and Advent International. The news of the possible fund inflow pushed Netia to an 11-year high, to [...]

Leading Russian internet-centric VC firm Fast Lane Ventures has decided to sell its Shopping Live stake to Home Shopping Europe, a German company. Shopping Live was one of Fast Lane’s earliest and most successful portfolio companies to date, and marks Fast Lane’s second successful exit bid. Home Shopping Europe (www.hse24.de) Home Shopping Europe (HSE24)is a [...]

VC firm TA Venture has jointly invested  along with other angel investors in a USD1.2 mln round of financing for InBed.me, a budget travel and booking website for students and other cost-conscious travelers. The funding will be used to target specific geographical pockets and increase business growth there. InBed.me (www.inbed.me) InBed.me is a social platform that allows [...]

In a joint funding venture by German and Russian entities, Hepatera, a Russian pharmaceutical start up that makes liver treatment and disease prevention drugs, as well as its partner, German company MYR, have received funding from top German VC firm High-Tech Gründerfonds, as well as Russian Venture Capital (via its Maxwell Biotech Venture Fund). The investment will [...]

It’s a good week for Software-as-a-Service companies in Russia as two start-ups received funding from independent investment houses. MoeDelo, the accounting services company has been made part of Klever Asset Management‘s portfolio through the latter’s Klever Internet Investments. MoeDelo received USD 4 mln from the investors. Another Russian SaaS start-up, Megaplan, which provides CRM and [...]

American energy company SunEdison has just received EUR 155 mln in funding from three top organizations – World Bank Group member IFC, Overseas Private Investment Corporation and UniCredit Bank, Austria – to build a solar plant in Bulgaria with a capacity of 60.4 MWp, at Karadzhalovo. The site has been identified as being in Plovdiv [...]

The EUR 2.65 bln sale of Starbev to Molson Coors by CVC is the latter’s second largest PE deal of this year.  Two and a half years ago, CVC bought StarBev for EUR 2.23 bln; the Eastern European brewer now has nine different facilities that account for EUR 700 mln each in annual revenues and [...]

Russian VC firm Runa Capital has just invested USD 1.5 mln in France-based Ubikod, which has developed an apps management platform called Capptain. The tool allows real-time capture of apps performance and usage data and provides customized reporting and excellent data visualization, and also enables two-way communication with its user base. Ubikod (www.ubikod.com) Ubikod is [...]

Polish early-stage VC fund hardGAMMA has grabbed the opportunity to invest in Springboard, a start-up accelerator program based in London. The investment made in the program is a part of hardGAMMA’s long-term vision to be a major player on the European start-up scenario, and will give them front-row access to invest early in London start-up [...]

Romanian entrepreneur-VC meeting platform VentureConnect has recently showcased a success story with local network training leader, BITTNET Systems. After participating in the November 2011 VentureConnect program, BITTNET successfully garnered a 24 percent equity sale to Mr. Razvan Capatina, a 10-year veteran of the marketing and advertising industry. The investment will be used to further extend [...]

Baltic states PE and VC leader BaltCap has made a sizeable investment in Ekju, the regions largest garden furniture manufacturing house. The EUR 1.5 mln investment is likely to be used to modernize the target company’s production facilities as well as contribute towards its working capital. The funding comes from a mix of private investors [...]