GapMinder VC

Undelucram.ro, a GapMinder portfolio company, is live right now alongside 300 of the leading HR specialists at the TOP ANGAJATORI conference, the largest HR conference in Romania that brings to the forefront the outstanding employers of 2024, highlighting their successful initiatives. "A conference that talks about the most important points on the agenda of an HR specialist: automation and AI, the inclusion of people with special needs, competition, leadership and assumption," said Costin Tudor, founder and CEO of Undelucram.ro. Here is some nice info shared by David Whelan @Linkedin about navigating in today's world of work: ✅ 38% of top executives consider agility a priority when thinking about recruiting entry-level people ✅ 70% of the skills employees will need by 2030 will change as a result of Artificial Intelligence ✅ 10% of today's employees have job titles that didn't exist in 2010. In the US the percentage is approaching 20%.  ✅ We at LinkedIn believe that companies need to have 3 thing in order to be successful: product, service and people. And companies with the best people win. ✅ Employees choose employers, not employers choose employees.  ✅ Employer branding is very important today and will be in 5 years and beyond. It is a constant. ✅ Of course Artificial Intelligence is revolutionary, but people skills are the superpower that companies have.  ✅ The future of work is, I assure you, human. And we need to do two things: to increase our AI skills and our soft skills. ✅ So… learn to use AI.

Dan Mihaescu, founding partner of GapMinder VC, reminded us in an interview for Start- Up that in business as in everyday life the ability to adapt, to reinvent continuously is the most important to survive. Some statements from the interview that we find important to remember: 📝Founders need to understand that every meeting with investors needs to be simple and focused on the essentials of their business, clearly explaining how they can achieve their growth goals 📝A healthy startup ecosystem can't exist without a strong network of angel investors supporting early stage companies 📝Leadership is the key to business success 📝GapMinder aims to partner with investors in other markets such as the US and Western Europe, 📝2025 will be a promising year, with signs of a rebound in the venture capital sector. Read more in Start-up.ro's interview with Oana Coșman. Thank you, Oana Coșman!

There were two days full of discussions at The DIANA Defence and Security Days, which took place on February 5-6 in Krakow, Poland, and Cosmin Ochisor, GapMinder partner, was there to find out the latest trends and startups in the dual-use area. DIANA (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic) is NATO's own deep tech, dual-use accelerator programme, so far the accelerator organizing two editions. The topics discussed included  ✅how to identify best support and funding mechanisms across NATO ✅dual-use challenges and how to navigate them ✅dual-use supply chain, validation and testing ✅best practices how to shorten the product development cycle ✅ lessons learned from Ukraine from the end-user side ✅ the role of AI in defence – innovation and challenges. With more than 200 accelerator sites and test centres across the Alliance, DIANA brings together universities, industry and governments to work with start-ups and other innovators to solve critical defence and security challenges.

Very proud of the success of our portfolio company FintechOS, which has been recognized as a Challenger for the first time in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Retail Core Banking Systems, Europe Gartner highlights the "strongest value for money” of the company. As Teo Blidarus,the co-founder and CEO of FintechOS, says: “90% of the benefits of a new core are without having to completely replatform”. So…“FintechOS is the best fit for mid-market, worldwide transformation”, as Teo concludes. It is a great achievement for the IT product companies that started in Romania, considering that only UiPath and BitDefender have managed to create products that have been recognized in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. Really, really proud of you, guys! 

🌟 Are you curious about what users really think about your organization's cybersecurity practices and what messages they want to share with security teams? Look no further! Check out 👇the latest Research Labs report launched by OutThink, a company in the GapMinder portfolio. This insightful report offers really valuable thought leadership for security professionals. #OutThink #GapMinderVC #ThoughtLeadership #Cybersecurity #Research

Veridion, a startup from GapMinder's portfolio that uses Artificial Intelligence to create one of the world's largest global databases containing information from over 125 million companies - has been included with its Supplier Search platform in the BUSINESS Magazin catalog of the most innovative companies. Supplier Search identifies new suppliers, updates data about existing suppliers and unifies information into a single database. The target audience for Supplier Search is mainly procurement professionals in medium and large companies, but also technical people in business data aggregation platforms. According to Veridion's customers and partners, who typically test around 7-8 other data solutions, Supplier Search reduces the time to find the right supplier from 8 hours to 20 minutes. At the same time, the platform enables the discovery of five times the number of suppliers than those identified through other means of market research. In addition to the recognition coming from Business Magazin, Veridion was named "Best Startup in Romania" at the Romania Startup Awards 2024, a competition organized by ROTSA (Romanian Tech Startups Association) to honor the most innovative tech startups in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. Thank you Ioana Matei and BUSINESS Magazin. bit.ly/3CrKsS0

🚀 Calling all ambitious startup founders! 🚀   We know building a startup is a thrilling yet challenging journey—and you shouldn’t have to do it alone. That’s why we’re launching Friday Office Hours @ GapMinder VC—happening once a month, on the first Friday of every month! On these Fridays, we’re opening our physical doors to meet with founders who are shaping the future. Whether you’re refining your business model, tackling growth challenges, or just looking for an outside perspective, this is your chance to:   ✨ Share your vision & business model ✨ Discuss challenges & opportunities ✨ Get valuable insights from our team ✨ Explore potential synergies & partnerships   💡 Who should join? Tech startup founders ready to take their venture to the next level.   📍 Where? At our GapMinder VC office – we’d love to meet you in person! 📝 How to join? Register here 👉 https://lnkd.in/dN3XN6yE   At GapMinder VC, we invest in bold, early-stage tech startups from Southeastern Europe (SEE), with a special focus on B2B solutions in enterprise automation, data analytics, fintech, cybersecurity, and developer tools. We lead seed rounds from €0.5M to €5M, with the potential to follow on up to €12M+.   But beyond capital, we’re hands-on partners—helping founders scale globally, refine their go-to-market strategies, and navigate growth challenges.   🔥 First session kicks off next week—who’s in?   #Startup #VentureCapital #OfficeHours #GapMinderVC #Founders #Innovation  

Finqware, from GapMinder portfolio, was recognized as one of the most innovative companies in Romania by BUSINESS Magazin. Finqware team spoke to Business Magazin team about FinqTreasury, a platform launched with an investment of 1.7 million euros that automates and streamlines the financial management of medium and large companies. The target audience is the finance and operational departments of medium and large companies in Europe. The Finqware solution allows the real-time connection of bank accounts from all European banks, providing a single platform for reconciliation of receipts, transmission of payments and integration with companies' internal applications (ERP, CRM). Thank you, Ioana Matei and for this recognition of Finqware's and our work. bit.ly/3CrKsS0

Sergiu Negut, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of FintechOS, part of GapMinder portfolio, shared with Forbes Romania the main achievements in 2024, as well as what he expects to be the main trends in 2025 and how they influence the field in which the company operates. "We're talking about a trend that takes into account not just the customer profile, but the dynamic evolution of customer needs and a continuity between people's lifestyle behavior and their financial behavior. I mean, it's about customers' decisions, their aspirations, their values, their outlook on life. We want to buy a home, not take a mortgage loan, we want to go on vacation, not take a personal loan, we want to insure our health, not have a health insurance", says Sergiu.

Dan Mihaescu, our founding partner, shared with Start-up.ro GapMinder's results for 2024 and what we are aiming for in 2025. From an initial analysis we conducted based on market data, we noticed that more than 50% of the funding attracted in 2024 by startups founded in Romania came from our portfolio. Regarding 2025, it is still very early, but we can already say it looks extremely positive for us: - We have 3 new deals in execution that we initially planned for December 2024, which will be announced soon. - We have a €20-25 million pipeline under analysis, and we feel there has been some improvement compared to 2024. - There is active inbound interest in a couple of our portfolio companies for M&A, which may translate into future exits. These are early signs of unfreezing compared to 2023 and 2024. - We are working on 3 major rounds with companies from our existing portfolio, one of which, Druid’s sizeable round, became visible at the end of 2024. - Some of the portfolio companies are targeting break-even and even profit in 2025. - 85% of our Seed portfolio raised subsequent rounds, compared to the EU’s median of approximately 35%. This is a witness of the quality of our portfolio companies and an indirect indicator of the existing growth and future potential of these companies based on the fuel from further rounds. In general, our sentiment is extremely positive about 2025. More information on what the tech startup ecosystem will look like in 2025 can be found on Start-up.ro. Thank you, Oana Coșman and start-up.ro.