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In early January 2018, GapMinder Venture Partners announced it was open for business, targeting to invest EUR 26m in early stage technology companies in Central Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on Romania’s developing tech scene.

The fund is led by Dan Mihaescu as Founding Partner, a well-known investor in a number of high tech start-ups with a deep knowledge of the regional start-up scene. Dan has a solid investment track record, being an angel investor in companies such as Axosuits, TypingDNA or ConsultaClick. Before becoming an investor, he has fulfilled various leadership roles at large companies such as Microsoft, UPC or GTS Telecom. 

We caught up with Dan to tell us more about how GapMinder, which also funds the Techcelerator acceleration program, “plans to invest and support the most disruptive and bold innovations.”

In December 2017, Appticles announced the winning of a $50k grant from the Google Digital News Initiative, in support of building their new product, MorphL – AI-driven UI.

Ciprian and Alexandra, Appticles’s founders, are well-known figures in the Romanian startup ecosystem – first Romanian entrepreneurs to join Startup Bootcamp in 2010, organisers of the Bucharest JavaScript community, one of the biggest active meetups in Bucharest, speakers to dozens of events, from Startup Weekend to Wordcamp. We were curious to find out more about their experience getting the grant and their future plans, so we had a chat with Ciprian.

The news broke at the end of April: Accel and other 3 previous investors were putting $30m in Bucharest-based UiPath, in what was one of the biggest Series A in Europe in 2017. The lead investor for the deal on behalf of Accel, Luciana Lixandru, had recently been promoted to partner.

Originally from Buzau, with an undergrad degree from Georgetown Unversity, Luciana started her career with Morgan-Stanely in New York before moving to London. Initially with Summit Partners, she became an associate and then a partner at Accel, one of the most notable venture capital companies in the world. With Accel, Luciana has been involved with companies like Deliveroo, Algolia and now UiPath.

In July 2017, Planable (www.planable.io), a two-year-old startup from Chisinau & Cluj was accepted to TechStars London, probably the best acceleration program in Europe. Annually, TechStars accepts 20 companies into its programs (in London and Berlin) out of 2000-2500 applications – not an easy treat.

However, at first sight Planable is not that special. What are the growth prospects for a social media tool in 2017, when Hootsuite and Buffer are already 10 years old established businesses? What is so disruptive about it? How did they impress TechStars? What makes them special?

In June 2017, Onyx Beacon announced a pilot project with Lockheed Martin, the $83bln aerospace & defence American corporation, which is using their newly launched Tracko product.

However, for Bogdan Oros it all started 4 years earlier. In April 2013, a young team from Cluj was pitching a feedback via-SMS solution at the Launchub Demo Day in Sofia. As team lead, Bogdan Oros convinced the investors and, with $30k in their pockets, they took their shot at building TXT Feedback. It did not work.