BalticVC

The CEO of Estonian equity funding and trading platform Funderbeam , Kaidi Ruusalepp, will step down in June after 11 years at the helm of the company. 

Venture capital firm Plural , founded by Estonian entrepreneurs Sten Tamkivi and Taavet Hinrikus, has raised an additional €100M for its latest €400M fund, bringing the final total to €500M. The fund team had planned to raise €350M.

Nanordica Medical , an Estonian developer of antibacterial wound care products to prevent infection-related amputations, has raised €1.75M. The round was led by Estonian fund Specialist VC, with the participation of Estonian VC Superangel and Tallinn-based family office Amalfi.

Riga-based manufacturer of 3D-printed aircraft components AM Craft has raised €600K in a pre-seed round from Estonian Change Ventures and Latvian BADideas.fund.

Taavet+Sten, the investment firm of Wise’s co-founder Taavet Hinrikus and Teleport’s co-founder Sten Tamkivi, has participated in Series A of German-based biotech startup Insempra . Existing investors Swedish EQT Ventures, Berlin-based BlueYard Capital, Munich-based Possible Ventures, and the US Acequia Capital participated in the round. New investors were the German corporate venture fund of international FMCG company Henkel, Henkel dx Ventures, German government-backed Bayern Kapital and the US Alante Capital.

Estonian startups raised  €148,9M in Q1 2024, which is almost 2,5 times more than in Q1 2023. In Q1 2023, Estonian startups raised €62M.  

Estonia will create a €50M defense industry fund, aimed to invest directly and through private funds in companies developing defense-related or dual-use technologies. If the fund proves successful, its size can be increased. The defense industry fund will be launched this year.

Tallinn-based electric vehicle charging solution VOOL   has raised €300K from Estonian energy company Alexela .

The intellectual property of Estonian cargo bike manufacturer Hagen Bikes has been acquired by the Estonian company Springdrive , which produces electric bikes in Hungary under the name Blurby Bike. 

Tallinn-based unicorn Bolt  has secured a €220M syndicated revolving credit facility (RCF) from British bank Barclays, bank BNP Paribas, US financial institutions Citi and JPMorgan, German investment company Deutsche Bank, New York-based financial services firm Goldman Sachs, banks LHV Pank and Estonian Luminor.

Estonian Tera Ventures and Monese founder Norris Koppel will acquire the startup's retail banking business. Monese's previous major investors have exited the startup. They include Swedish VC Kinnevik (which led Monese's $60M Series B in 2018, after which it held a 21% stake in the fintech), US payment platform PayPal, British Airways owner International Airlines Group and London-based VC Augmentum Fintech (all of which participated in Monese's $60M Series B), and London-based financial services organization HSBC (which invested $35M in 2022).

Estonian Karma Ventures has made a follow-on investment in the US-French cybersecurity startup BforeAI . The €13,9M Series A was led by US-based SYN Ventures, with participation from early investors Paris-based VC Karista, Spanish Addendum Capital, and new investment from the non-profit organization Partnership for New York City.

Estonian autonomous solution for road marking solution 10Lines   has secured €1,5M led by Estonian Tera Ventures and Paris-based VC Karista, with participation from Helsinki-based Butterfly Ventures and a business angel Mike Oliinyk, a former employee of Uber, Wise, and Wolt.

Estonia will invest €8,5M for the construction of an industrial incubator in Narva, Ida-Virumaa County with a total area of about 7K m². The investment, which will cover the design, construction, and equipment of the building, will be allocated from the European Union’s Just Transition Fund (JTF). The developer of the incubator will be the Ida-Viru Investment Agency Foundation (IVIA). Construction is expected to be completed by August 2026. 

Estonian accelerator and fund Startup Wise Guys launches construction tech specialized fund in Saudi Arabia. In the third quarter of 2024 Startup Wise Guys, its partner Saudi Arabian SEEDRA Ventures, and Canadian architecture firm WZMH plan to launch an accelerator program, the details of which will be announced later. 

Estonian Salesforge won  one of the main prizes at the pitch competition Fifty Founders Battle, which was a part of the annual business event TechChill. The prize was an equity investment of €100K from Czech DEPO Ventures.

Estonian accelerator Startup Wise Guys has invested in a Serbian AI-powered solution for online research Collabwriting , which allows one to organize, leave comments, and share with colleagues key insights, found on the web and in PDF documents. The €1,1M round was led by Polish-US SMOK Ventures. Romanian Underline Ventures, Fortech, V7 Capital, Czech Credo Ventures, and Hungarian Fiedler Capital, also joined the round. 

Latvian fintech inGain   has raised €650K from Estonian Trind VC, Budapest-based Fiedler Capital, Latvian business angels network (LatBAN), and several business angels. 

Tallinn-based AI copilot for small and large sales teams, Salesforge  has raised €470K from Latvian BADideas.fund , Estonian Spring Capital, Budapest-based Fiedler Capital, and Maciej Zawadzinski, a business angel from Poland.

The Estonian startup SeaNest OÜ, which is developing the electric car Nobe Cars, may close down soon. It has already closed its website due to unpaid bills. In addition, only one employee remains at the company.