LAUNCHub Ventures is pleased to welcome Vedran Blagus to the investment team as Associate Partner, based in Zagreb and focused on founders across Croatia, Slovenia, and the Western Balkans.

We are fortunate to have Vedran join us. Few investors in this part of Europe have built the kind of footprint he has — years of backing technical founders across the region, a network that runs deep in Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Belgrade, and the operator instincts to be useful long after the wire hits. Our paths first crossed in 2017, and we have been sharing notes, pipeline, and eventually co-investing ever since.

The clearest example of how well we work together: SplxAI. Vedran backed the company early during his time at South Central Ventures, LAUNCHub led the 2025 seed round, and Zscaler acquired it seven months later — one of the fastest meaningful exits the region has seen. That deal made something obvious: we read the region the same way.

Why now

LAUNCHub has been actively investing across the Western Balkans for years — SplxAI and GlycanAge in Croatia, Mediately in Slovenia, Kriptomat across Slovenia and Serbia, among others. What was missing was a full-time team member on the ground to deepen our presence.

What founders should expect

Vedran’s mandate is straightforward: be the first call for ambitious technical founders in the region. Meaningful first checks (€300K–€3M), real board engagement, and the kind of co-investor network that shortens the path to Series A and beyond.

In his own words:

“I want LAUNCHub to be recognized as the first serious institutional partner for ambitious technical founders across this entire region — a fund that has always taken a Zagreb, Ljubljana or Belgrade team as seriously as a Sofia or Bucharest one. Founders should know what to expect from us: fast decisions, honest and direct answers — including when the answer is no — and a relationship built on being genuinely useful rather than on optics.”

Where he is looking

Vedran is spending real time on AI security and AI-native infrastructure (the SplxAI thesis, broadened), health and longevity diagnostics (the GlycanAge bench runs deeper than the venture market reflects), B2B software for the European mid-market, and founders with genuine domain depth in regulated or underdigitalized European industries — healthcare, logistics, manufacturing, energy.

If you are building from Zagreb, Ljubljana, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Skopje, or Podgorica — Vedran is the person to talk to.

📩 vedran@launchub.com | LinkedIn: vedranblagus

Vedran Blagus joins LAUNCHub Ventures as Associate Partner, leading the Western Balkans was originally published in LAUNCHub’s Look on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When Giraffe360 closed its Series B, the headline travelled fast: another CEE company raising serious growth capital from top-tier investors. But for us at LAUNCHub, the more interesting story sits underneath the round — a hardware-and-AI business built from Riga, with production kept in Latvia, sold as a subscription into a long tail of small customers across 30+ countries.

That combination shouldn’t work on paper. Hardware is supposed to be slow and capital-intensive. SMB GTM is supposed to break under support load. International expansion is supposed to drown founders in VAT and customs. Giraffe360 did all three at once — and turned the camera into a data capture layer for an AI platform along the way.

LAUNCHub backed Giraffe360 at seed in 2020. Since then, the team has scaled deployment across 30+ countries, built a subscription business with 6–12 month payback per camera, productised 50+ ML models on a fully owned data pipeline, kept production in Latvia, and raised consecutive rounds from international growth investors — culminating in this Series B.

At LAUNCHub, we have a tradition: after every major milestone, we sit down with founders to talk candidly about what really happened — the decisions, trade-offs, and lessons that never make it into press releases.

This is that conversation with Mikus Opelts, co-founder and CEO of Giraffe360, led by Petar Tsachev at LAUNCHub Ventures. Less about the round, more about the playbook: how you actually build a global hardware-and-AI company from the CEE without pretending to be a software business.

How did everything start? How did you decide to start Giraffe360?

Mikus: We didn’t start with robotics. We started with frustration.

Real estate marketing was fragmented. Photographers, floor plans, videos, editing, and coordination created a process with too many vendors, inconsistent quality, and slow turnaround times. Agents had effectively become project managers of a broken system.

The initial idea was simple: create one platform capable of producing everything needed to market a property. Hardware came later as a necessity. We realized quickly that if we relied on third-party capture, we would lose control of quality, speed, and ultimately the customer experience. Software alone wouldn’t solve the problem.

So the decision wasn’t “let’s build hardware.” It was: if we want to fix the system end-to-end, we have to own a capture.

Walk us through the first camera. How did you decide what to build yourselves vs. source, and what’s the one component decision you’d redo today?

Mikus: The first camera was over-engineered and under-informed.

We tried to solve too many problems at once. We wanted high-end image quality, full automation, and multiple outputs including photos, tours, and floor plans. We built a complex system before validating what actually mattered most to customers.

What we did get right was adopting a vertical integration mindset early and designing for repeatable capture from the beginning, which later became critical for AI.

If I could redo things, I would start with constraints instead of ambition. I would build something simpler and more modular and validate output value before optimizing capture perfection.

One specific mistake was locking into certain hardware components too early, especially around imaging sensors. That reduced flexibility later once we better understood what data actually mattered for downstream processing.

What was the hardware ecosystem in Latvia when you started? How did you find your first suppliers — and what did you get badly wrong in supplier selection in the first two years?

Mikus: Latvia didn’t have a hardware startup ecosystem in the way people think about it. What it did have was strong engineering talent and manufacturing competence from legacy industries, but there was no playbook for startup hardware scaling.

We built supplier relationships from scratch, mostly through cold outreach, referrals, and trial and error.

What we got badly wrong early was optimizing for cost over reliability. We underestimated how much supplier quality impacts velocity and didn’t properly audit supplier scalability.

As a result, during the first two years we experienced delays due to inconsistent component quality, rework cycles that slowed momentum, and overdependence on a small number of suppliers.

One lesson became very clear very quickly: in hardware, your supplier is part of your product. Treat them that way.

Honest number: how much capital and time did it take to get from “sketch” to “first 10 units shipped”? What should a CEE founder budget today?

Mikus: Roughly eighteen to twenty-four months and around €1M–€1.5M to get to the first usable units. That included prototyping iterations, failed designs, tooling, and initial production setup.

For founders starting today, I’d still say €2M minimum if you want to do it properly and more than two years before you have something commercially viable. Even that is optimistic. Hardware timelines don’t compress easily, and software founders consistently underestimate this.

You kept production in Latvia instead of moving to Asia. Walk us through the cost-vs-control tradeoff — including where staying in Latvia was genuinely more expensive.

Mikus: It was objectively more expensive in several areas, including labor, component sourcing inefficiencies, and smaller-scale manufacturing.

But we optimized for something else: control, speed of iteration, IP protection, and tight integration between engineering and production.

Being able to walk onto the production floor, fix issues on the same day, and iterate weekly rather than quarterly compounds over time. We paid more per unit early, but moved faster as a company. That mattered more.

COVID and the semiconductor shortage broke a lot of hardware companies. How did you survive?

Mikus: We did three things. We stayed extremely close to suppliers and maintained constant communication. We redesigned around constraints and swapped components where possible instead of waiting. And we accepted imperfection.

Shipping slightly suboptimal versions was better than not shipping at all. We also got lucky in some situations because timing matters in hardware.

The biggest lesson was that flexibility in design becomes a survival advantage.

Inventory is the silent killer of hardware companies. How do you think about inventory on the balance sheet differently than a software founder thinks about cash?

Mikus: Inventory is not neutral. It’s risk packaged as an asset.

Software founders see cash as optionality. Hardware founders need to think about inventory as committed capital with decay risk.

We think about inventory through deployment velocity, utilization, and obsolescence risk. Idle inventory is dangerous. Deployed inventory that generates recurring revenue is productive.

The objective becomes very simple: convert inventory into revenue-generating assets as quickly as possible.

You chose a subscription instead of selling the device. That’s a financing decision, not just a pricing one. What does the payback period on a single camera actually look like, and how did you land on HaaS?

Mikus: Selling hardware would have capped the business.

Subscription aligns incentives, quality, and long-term value. The payback period is roughly six to twelve months depending on geography and customer cohort. That’s driven by monthly subscription revenue, usage intensity, and retention.

HaaS is fundamentally a financing model. You front-load the cost and recover it over time.

Every camera you ship is capital sitting at a customer’s location. How did you finance that at seed, at Series A, now? What should CEE hardware founders know about venture debt against deployed hardware?

Mikus: At the seed stage everything was equity-funded. By Series A we started layering in a mix of equity and early structured financing. Today the capital structure includes more sophisticated debt structures tied to assets.

Deployed hardware becomes financeable only when you have predictable revenue, low churn, and strong unit economics.

Founders should not assume venture debt exists early. Build metrics first and financing follows.

You sell to SMBs — real estate agents and photographers — not enterprise. Most HaaS playbooks assume enterprise contracts. How did you make the economics work selling an expensive device to a long tail of small customers?

Mikus: SMBs are operationally harder. Churn risk is higher, contracts are smaller, and support requirements are heavier. At the same time, they offer faster sales cycles and faster feedback loops.

We made the economics work by aggressively simplifying and standardizing the product over time. We invested in self-serve onboarding and focused on creating strong unit economics per device.

The key was making the product simple enough to scale without heavy human dependency.

30+ countries. For software that’s a DNS change; for hardware it’s customs, VAT, warranty law, RMA, power standards. How did you actually scale — and which country nearly broke you?

Mikus: Everything becomes harder internationally. Software businesses can often expand into new markets relatively easily, but hardware introduces VAT complexity, customs delays, warranty requirements, and logistics challenges.

The UK and US turned out to be manageable. The most difficult environments were countries with unpredictable customs processes and fragmented regulatory systems.

One lesson became clear over time: operations cannot be treated as a support function. In hardware, operations become a core competency.

Founder-led sales for hardware is different — you can’t demo a camera over Zoom. How did you handle the first 100 customers, and what broke as you scaled past that?

Mikus: The first hundred customers were completely founder-led. We relied on physical demos, high-touch onboarding, and direct involvement throughout the process.

You cannot shortcut trust in hardware. Customers need to experience the product directly.

As we scaled, predictable problems emerged. Support stopped scaling efficiently, logistics became more complex, and training quality became inconsistent.

We eventually had to productize onboarding, standardize systems, and reduce dependency on founders.

You now run 50+ ML models. When did you realize the camera was actually a data capture device for an AI platform, and the hardware was the wedge?

Mikus: The turning point came when we recognized the value of consistency.

Once you control angles, lighting patterns, sensor data, and metadata, you unlock something powerful: structured and repeatable data at scale.

That realization changed how we thought about the product. The camera itself was no longer really the product.

It became the data acquisition system for an AI platform.

How much of your AI quality comes from owning the capture layer — sensors, calibration, metadata — versus the models themselves? What breaks if you run the same models on someone else’s camera?

Mikus: Owning the capture layer is a major advantage.

Controlling capture creates consistency in the data, improves calibration accuracy, and provides richer metadata. Those advantages compound.

If you run the same models on random external inputs, quality drops, edge cases multiply, and outputs become less reliable.

The models matter, but the principle still applies: garbage in, garbage out.

Foundation models are eating generic computer vision every quarter. Which parts of your stack are genuinely defensible over a 5-year horizon?

Mikus: The answer is not generic computer vision itself.

The defensible layers are proprietary datasets captured at scale, end-to-end system integration across capture, processing, and output, and ownership of workflow inside a specific vertical.

Foundation models will increasingly commoditize parts of the stack.

But owning the full pipeline together with distribution remains defensible.

The CEE ecosystem celebrates Software. Giraffe360 is proof you can build a global robotics company from Latvia. What’s the message you want the next generation of CEE hardware founders to hear?

Mikus: Two things can both be true at the same time.

First, hardware is harder than people think. It requires more capital, more time, and more operational complexity than most software businesses.

Second, it is also less crowded. There are fewer competitors and stronger moats if you succeed.

CEE already has many of the ingredients: engineering talent, cost advantages, and growing ambition.

What is still missing is risk tolerance for hardware.

But the opportunity is there. You simply need to go in with your eyes open.

You are not building a product -> You are building a system.

Building a Global Robotics Company from Latvia: The Giraffe360 was originally published in LAUNCHub’s Look on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When Zscaler announced the acquisition of SPLX in late 2025, it marked more than another successful AI security exit. It closed one of the fastest, most compressed company journeys we’ve seen in Central & Eastern Europe — from early product traction to a strategic acquisition in record time.

For us at LAUNCHub Ventures, it was the culmination of an intense chapter that began only months earlier with our seed investment. What usually takes years in venture was condensed into a single high-velocity cycle: build, validate, scale, fundraise and exit.

Earlier in 2025, we led SPLX’s $7M seed round alongside Inovo Venture Partners, with participation from SCV, DNV, Runtime Ventures, and Rain Capital. At the time, SPLX had just launched its AI security platform, signed its first enterprise customers, and was already showing unusually strong early traction.

In the months that followed, the company:

• Increased revenue more than 10×
• Signed multiple Fortune 500 customers
• Emerged as one of the most advanced platforms for AI security, AI asset management, and automated AI red teaming

Momentum only accelerated. Within six months, SPLX attracted both strong growth capital interest and inbound acquisition conversations from global cybersecurity leaders. Ultimately, founders Kristian Kamber and Ante Gojsalić chose to partner with Zscaler, giving SPLX a global platform to scale its technology and impact enterprise security worldwide.

At LAUNCHub, we have a tradition: after every major milestone, we sit down with founders to talk candidly about what really happened — the decisions, trade-offs, and lessons that never make it into press releases.

This is that conversation, led by Stan Sirakov (General Partner) and Petar Tsachev (Principal) at LAUNCHub Ventures.

What does SPLX actually do — simply?

Kristian: SPLX is a comprehensive AI security platform built around one core idea: enterprises need full visibility and control over their AI systems.

We focus on four pillars:

• AI asset discovery & security posture management — understanding which models are used, how they’re connected, and where risks live
• Automated AI red teaming — continuous testing of AI systems to surface vulnerabilities and misuse scenarios
• Guardrails & policies — deploying precise, low-latency protections based on real attack simulations
• Governance & compliance — mapping AI risks to frameworks CISOs already operate with

From the start, we took a “shift-left” approach — securing not just applications, but the code and cloud environments where AI actually runs.

How did SPLX start?

Kristian: I was leading the Central Europe business at Zscaler at the time. Long-term, I knew I wanted to return to the region and build a company in security — but only with a strong technical co-founder.

Years earlier, I’d met a front-end engineer on a plane. Totally random. We stayed in touch. In 2023, he introduced me to his brother-in-law, Ante, who was already experimenting with GenAI.

We started testing the idea with real customers. The signal was loud and consistent: AI security was becoming an urgent, unsolved problem. Conversations with experienced security founders, especially from Israel, confirmed it.

So we made the leap:

• Quit our jobs
• Started building
• Landed our first real customer work building an LLM-based application, and immediately felt the security gaps firsthand

That was the spark.

How fast did you get to a real product?

Kristian: Fast, but not linearly.

We went through four major iterations:

• Started with an AI gateway concept
• Quickly saw strong pull for AI red teaming
• Did hands-on customer work: assessments, testing, services
• Used that learning to shape the platform

The SPLX platform as people know it today launched at Black Hat 2024. Before that, we generated ~$150K in services revenue, not just to fund ourselves, but to stay extremely close to customer problems.

From day one, we were selling.

People were surprised by how quickly SPLX built both product and revenue. Why?

Kristian: No magic — just focus and complementarity.

Ante is an exceptional technical founder.
I’m obsessed with enterprise sales and distribution.

Two things mattered most:

1. We sold early. Even before the platform was “perfect,” we were doing pilots and services to learn fast.
2. We moved upmarket quickly. Once we landed large US enterprises, deal sizes grew, sales cycles shortened, and use cases became more serious.

Deep tech + aggressive enterprise GTM looks “fast” from the outside — but it’s very intentional work.

How did your go-to-market evolve?

Kristian: We decided to lean in hard.

Security is a trust-based market. Visibility matters. We invested heavily in:

• Major conferences like Black Hat and RSA
• High-touch sales and founder-led relationships
• Being present where CISOs already are — not shouting, but showing up consistently

A big influence was Israeli security startups. They understand that buyers want to know you, not just see slides.

You and Ante are very different. How did the co-founder dynamic work?

Kristian: With a lot of debate, and a lot of trust.

We argued often, sometimes loudly. But we had rules:

• No fighting over small things
• Always assume good intent
• Always reset and move forward

One lesson I’d carry forward: equal power between co-founders creates real pressure. Clear decision rights matter more than perfect symmetry.

Why Zscaler?

Kristian: The decision came down to three things:

• Strategic fit. Zscaler wanted AI security as a core pillar, not a side feature.
• Speed and conviction. The process moved extremely fast- a strong signal in itself.
• Timing and clarity. The market was moving quickly. Partnering at the right moment allowed us to scale the technology globally without unnecessary risk or dilution of focus.

It wasn’t about “selling early.” It was about choosing the right platform for the next phase.

Looking back, what are the biggest lessons?

Kristian:

• Complementary founders beat perfect ones
• Sell early, learn faster
• Go where the real market is
• Be honest about trade-offs — ambition doesn’t mean ignoring reality
• VC money is responsibility, not a lottery ticket

We built real technology, with real customers, and found a partner that can take it further. That’s a win.

Any advice for CEE founders?

Kristian:
Don’t think small — but don’t fake it.
Build things that actually work.
Use the region’s engineering strength as an advantage.
And choose investors who treat you as humans, not just line items.

If you get those things right, you give yourself a real chance to build something meaningful — whatever the outcome.

This interview is part of LAUNCHub’s Look — our ongoing series of in-depth founder stories from Central & Eastern Europe.
More stories coming soon.

The Founder Playbook Behind a CEE Startup’s Multi-Million Dollar Exit: The SPLX Story was originally published in LAUNCHub’s Look on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What do UiPath, Bitdefender, and Skype have in common?

A Publication by Petar Tsachev and Raya Yunakova

For 20+ years our team at LAUNCHub Ventures has had a front row seat to watch the development of one of the most exciting trends in tech — the emergence of the CEE startup ecosystem. Now we are more bullish than ever to back the new generation of innovators.

The timid giant of the world’s engineering talent pool started small, with barely any companies daring to venture into the challenging and brutal world of making their own products. Now these select few have grown into household names recognised globally for their innovation and scalability. The likes of Skype, Telerik, Infobip, Outfit7, Bitdefender, and ChaosGroup, to name a few, gave the kick start a region full of highly skilled engineers desperately needed to breed ever bigger and better companies.

We witnessed the second generation of startups emerge and take over the world — UiPath, Bolt, Wise, Booksy, and Blueground. They had a bigger vision, raised more capital, employed more people, and captured a bigger market than their predecessors.

Now it’s time for the third generation of founders to show us what they are capable of.

In this post, we want to outline our investment thesis for the CEE. We’ll explain why we believe this region is poised to produce many more large, globally successful tech companies — and why now is the perfect time to double down on it, as we do!

The third generation of CEE founders

We can separate the CEE startup environment evolution into 3 waves:

1. The early 2000s laid the groundwork, with infrastructure, cybersecurity, and connectivity being the primary verticals for startup creation.
2. The 2010s brought in SaaS, fintech, and blockchain innovations.
3. Now, in the 2020s, we see founders building in frontier markets — GenAI, climate tech, deep tech, and health tech.

Many of these new founders are alumni of successful European tech companies, and they are building upon the groundwork laid by them in putting CEE on the global map. This “startup mafia” effect is compounding, and it’s starting to resemble what we saw in other tech ecosystems: success breeds more success.

A decade of value creation

The CEE startup ecosystem has witnessed remarkable growth over the past decade. In 2012, when our first fund was launched, the total startup enterprise value in the CEE was a ‘mere’ €18 billion, with the ecosystem being almost non-existent.

Fast forward ten years, and this figure has surged by 14 times, approaching €250 billion, showcasing a vibrant and rapidly expanding market.

When this is compared to the European growth, the CEE region exhibits growth that is twice as fast as the European average, with a rate of 15.5x compared to Europe’s 7x.

This strong market momentum, combined with increased investor interest, positions startups in the region for further growth, which we expect will far surpass what we’ve seen so far.

This expectation is further backed by the clear increase in number of unicorns we’re seeing. Up to 2024, the CEE has produced 57 unicorns, with Poland, Estonia and Ukraine leading the way.

The number of sizable exits are not falling behind as well. Despite being in its early stages, the region has already achieved over 30 tech exits with a valuation exceeding $100 million and more than 10 exits valued at over $500 million. It is only reasonable to expect that this number will go up as most of the regional winners are still young and developing.

Underserved market with asymmetric opportunity

Despite the success stories, CEE remains underfunded compared to Western Europe and the US. The average VC investment per capita in CEE is just €12, compared to €78 across the EU.

For VC funds this presents an obvious opportunity — a growing market with a clear gap in capital availability. This gap will be filled fast by funds who can make fast decisions and partner with founders early, supporting them throughout the initial phase of rapid growth.

How can investors make these fast decisions? It is our firm belief that being present, understanding the local environment, and having experience in scaling global businesses out of CEE are critical elements for success in finding, picking and winning deals. Funding data backs up this claim, showing more than 75% of early-stage deals are made by regional VCs. As success stories multiple and the region keeps producing more and more high-quality companies, this is bound to change.

Technical depth that rivals the best in the world

Ultimately, as with any early-stage investment, these successes and the future growth in CEE are unlocked thanks to the talent of its people. Countries like Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic consistently rank in the top 10 globally for engineering quality (HackerRank).

The region produces a higher percentage of STEM graduates than the US, UK, or Western Europe. That’s why global tech giants, such as Adobe, Microsoft, and Google, are setting up R&D centers here, and why so many founders are building category-defining products.

And it’s not just quantity — AI talent in particular is thriving, boosted by research institutions like INSAIT and a strong open-source culture.

The compounding effect

In summary, several factors are driving this ecosystem forward:

• Engineering talent: home-grown engineers and founders returning from stints at top tech companies are turning their eyes to entrepreneurship, not just as a career path, but as a way of life
• Capital availability: more exits produce more angels and VCs which in turn fund more startups. It’s a self-reinforcing loop.
• Small local markets as a feature: — startups in CEE can’t make it big by selling to their home market alone — they are global from day one.
• Local experience: Investors and founders have now been through full cycles and are deploying that knowledge into new ventures.

We’ve seen this dynamic in other regions before. What follows is a breakthrough growth and global winners.

Final thoughts

We believe we’re at a rare inflection point. The fundamentals are in place. The success stories are stacking up. But capital is still scarce, and the best founders are looking for true partners who understand their vision and the regional context.

We are strong believers that CEE is the next tech powerhouse of Europe. Getting in now means participating in the creation of tomorrow’s UiPaths and Bitdefenders early on.

Let’s connect and build the next tech power house together!

Central and Eastern Europe — Europe’s Next Tech Powerhouse was originally published in LAUNCHub’s Look on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lace.ai recently closed a $14 million Seed round, led by Bek Ventures and supported once again by us at LAUNCHub Ventures — bringing their total funding to $19 million. It’s a major milestone, one that shows how fast you can grow when you don’t shy away from challenging assumptions and constantly iterating on your ideas.

In an era where AI is reshaping entire industries, Lace.ai stands out: a company building an application layer product that helps all kinds of service businesses to optimize their revenue.

Lace is a revenue intelligence software designed specifically for call centers in the trades — think HVAC, plumbing, and home services. We use advanced AI to analyze 100% of inbound and outbound calls to uncover lost revenue opportunities and coach CSRs (Customer Service Representatives) in real time. The goal is simple: help teams book more jobs and drive revenue without increasing marketing spend or headcount.

Watching their evolution — from early pivots to 10x revenue growth in under 12 months — has been nothing short of inspiring.

To dive deeper into the story, Petar Tsachev — Investor at LAUNCHub Ventures, sat down with Boris Valkov, Founder and CEO of Lace.ai, to unpack the lessons, challenges, and strategies that shaped their journey — and what it really takes to build a new kind of software company in the AI era.

Petar Tsachev:

As one of your earliest investors, it’s been incredible to watch your journey. Let’s start from the beginning — how did Lace come to life, and why did you decide to build a startup?

Boris Valkov:

Absolutely. I was born in Bulgaria and moved to Germany with my parents when I was seven. After three years, we returned to Bulgaria and opened a grocery store. At ten, I started helping in the family business, answering phones and solving problems — that’s where I first discovered the joy of helping people.

Later, I pursued computer science, became a software engineer, and met my cofounder Stan over 20 years ago. I knew early on that the best way to help people at scale was through building software — but it wouldn’t happen overnight. So I built a ten-year plan.

• Stage One was mastering engineering at VMware Bulgaria.
• Stage Two was moving to VMware’s headquarters in California, where I grew even faster, surrounded by the world’s top talent.
• Stage Three was diving deep into AI at Facebook, where I led the PyTorch Distributed team — building the core infrastructure that powered Tesla’s Autopilot and OpenAI’s GPT models, including enabling training for one of the world’s largest machine learning models at the time.

When AI reached an inflection point, Stan and I knew it was time. We left our jobs and founded Lace, determined to bring world-class AI to real businesses and solve meaningful problems.

That’s where it all began.

Petar Tsachev:

The road to product-market fit wasn’t easy for you. You went through several pivots. Can you walk us through how the idea evolved and what helped you navigate the changes?

Boris Valkov:

Absolutely. First, I have to say — LAUNCHub Ventures was an incredible partner. You supported us from the very beginning, through every tough decision.

We went through four pivots in just twelve months — basically building a new startup every three months. It was intense, but necessary. The hardest part was the first pivot: admitting something wasn’t working, despite being emotionally invested. It’s brutally hard, but you learn resilience.

Even with great advisors around, the journey felt lonely. Ultimately, you have to figure things out yourself. That’s why we adopted the Google Ventures Sprint method — a five-day process of defining problems, prototyping, and testing with real users. We ran 22 sprints over five months. It was brutal, but it forced clarity and speed — and shaped how we think about product decisions even today.

As for finding the right market — we talked to over 100 companies across industries. Real traction came when we focused on home services like HVAC and plumbing, where 90% of revenue depends on phone calls — high-stakes conversations worth thousands. Missing a call meant losing real money.

Once we understood that, we moved fast. We found our first customer, iterated quickly, and finally found product-market fit. That was the real turning point.

Petar Tsachev:

You recently announced an impressive $19 million round — congratulations! After locking in product-market fit, how did the fundraising process go?

Boris Valkov:

Thank you! Yes — the total was $19 million, split between a $5 million pre-seed we hadn’t previously announced, and a $14 million seed round.

The closing itself took just two weeks and was heavily oversubscribed. But the real work happened long before — building, shipping, and proving traction over many months. That’s something many first-time founders miss: fundraising starts way before you open a deck. It starts with execution.

For us, the most effective fundraising came through other founders — people who saw what we were building and believed in it. But you have to earn that support by showing real progress and conviction. Founders who’ve been through it can immediately sense when something special is happening.

Once they started talking about us to their investors, things moved quickly. VCs reached out to us, conversations started warm and high-trust, and we were able to skip the traditional pitch cycle.

Of course, you still need to be ready — building momentum constantly. But when fundraising becomes a natural extension of your execution, not a separate campaign, it’s faster, more sustainable, and much more founder-friendly.

The quick close wasn’t luck — it was the result of relentless work long before the fundraising even “officially” began.

Petar Tsachev:

After finding the right version of the product, how did you approach the commercial strategy? You’ve had an incredible 10x revenue growth in 2024.

Boris Valkov:

Yeah — 2024 was a breakout year. We grew revenue 1,000% and massively scaled our customer base. But to do it, we had to completely rethink go-to-market. The standard B2B SaaS playbook — cold emails, LinkedIn, SDRs — didn’t work in our space.

It was humbling. We knew our product delivered value, but the sales motion didn’t fit. So we started from scratch, running small tests to figure out what actually worked in the trades.

We realized our vertical is built on trust. Customers don’t buy from emails — they buy from people they know. So we went all-in on in-person relationships, making conferences our primary channel. It was intense — talking to over 100 people a day — but the feedback was immediate.

Through these conversations, we refined our positioning, simplified the value proposition, and started landing our first customers. Once we nailed the entry point, referrals, inbound interest, and brand momentum followed naturally.

The key lesson? Every vertical is different. You can’t always rely on playbooks — sometimes you have to rebuild your strategy from the ground up based on what your market truly needs.

Petar Tsachev:

From a product and engineering standpoint, how is Lace structured today? Do you have dedicated R&D teams, or is the organization divided by focus areas?

Boris Valkov:

It’s a great question — and it’s something that evolves constantly. The way you structure your company at zero customers doesn’t work when you reach $1M ARR, and changes again by $10M.

At the start, we were one small team, working off a single stack-ranked list. Alignment and speed were everything. But as we scaled, four major priorities started pulling in different directions:

1. Customer Onboarding — Getting new customers live quickly became critical. Smooth, efficient onboarding wasn’t just nice to have — it became a bottleneck if not managed properly.
2. Customer Support & Feedback — With more users, came more needs: bugs, questions, and feature requests. We had to build a structure for rapid, high-quality support without overwhelming the team
3. Core Product Development — Shipping steady improvements and feature updates remained non-negotiable. Product quality drives retention, and you can’t let that slip.
4. Strategic Innovation — Our long-term survival depends on pushing the envelope. We needed to keep investing in major product bets and R&D — even while scaling operations

These forces compete for resources every day. That’s why we evolved our structure — splitting teams by focus area, with clear ownership and sometimes rotating responsibilities to keep things dynamic.

The key is treating each priority like its own muscle: constantly exercised, constantly improved. Most importantly, we fight hard to preserve innovation speed even as complexity grows. Speed and rate of innovation are a startup’s only true moats. Lose them, and you lose your advantage.

Petar Tsachev:

Has your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) evolved over time, or has it stayed stable now that you’ve hit product-market fit?

Boris Valkov:

Almost nothing stays static in a fast-growing company — and our ICP definitely evolved.

In the early days, defining our ICP felt like shooting in the dark. You make assumptions, run experiments, and learn by doing. Early on, you’re tempted to say yes to everyone because every customer, every dollar, feels critical. And for a while, that’s fine — but once you see real signals, focus becomes everything.

For us, it meant saying no — a lot. We started out selling across different geographies — Australia, Europe, the U.S. — and across multiple verticals. We customized features here and there, but it stretched us thin.

Eventually, we made a hard call: we focused only on the geography where traction was strongest. Then we narrowed down to one core vertical — and even inside that, to a specific micro-vertical where we could truly lead.

It was painful to turn down revenue and opportunities, but that focus created momentum. Now, our ICP is crystal clear — a defined region, a defined micro-vertical, and a defined product positioning. We’re committed to winning our niche completely before expanding.

So yes, the ICP evolved dramatically — and even today, we’re constantly fine-tuning it. But that shift from trying to be everything to everyone, to being the best for someone specific, changed everything for us.

Petar Tsachev:

Let’s talk about pricing. What’s Lace’s current strategy, and how did you approach pricing experiments?

Boris Valkov:

Pricing for us followed the same principle as defining ICP — constant iteration, relentless testing, and no fear of challenging assumptions.

Early on, like many startups, we priced Lace too cheaply, thinking it would close deals faster. But we quickly learned: the best products aren’t the cheapest — whether it’s phones, cars, or software. People pay for quality and outcomes. Once we shifted from “cheap” to “best-in-class,” everything changed.

We also feared long-term contracts at first, offering only month-to-month plans. But when we tested 12, 24, and 36-month agreements, customers actually preferred the stability. It didn’t slow down sales — it actually strengthened them.

Of course, pricing isn’t one-size-fits-all — every vertical is different. But the key is: you must be willing to experiment. You might lose a little revenue while testing, but not testing could cost you the whole business.

Pricing is a strategy. It has to align with your product, market, customer psychology, and long-term sustainability. A strong pricing model fuels better product investment, a stronger company, and happier customers.

For us, pricing isn’t a one-time decision — it’s an ongoing discipline, treated with the same rigor as product and go-to-market strategy.

Petar Tsachev:

After a transformative year, looking back — what would you do differently if you were starting again twelve months ago?

Boris Valkov:

If I had to do it over, I’d be even more relentless — and faster — in everything we did.

Three things stand out:

1. Launch Sooner. Feedback is Everything.

If you think a feature isn’t ready — launch it anyway. Early feedback beats perfection. Every day you delay shipping is a day you lose learning. Speed of the feedback loop is the most important growth driver. I’d ask myself daily: Why didn’t we give this to a customer yesterday?

2. Go to Market Earlier.

We hesitated early on, worried about whether it was “too soon” to talk publicly. In hindsight, once you see early signs of product-market fit, you should move fast, tell your story, and engage the market. Waiting for perfection delays momentum.

3. Delete Ruthlessly.

Speed isn’t just about doing more — it’s about clearing the path. I’d delete more features, assumptions, and distractions earlier. If it’s not serving the customer or the mission, cut it.

Those three habits — ship earlier, market sooner, delete faster — are the foundation for moving at startup speed. And speed is the ultimate advantage.

Petar Tsachev:

Thank you Boris!

Scaling an AI-First Startup: Key Lessons from Lace.ai’s Journey to $19M in Funding was originally published in LAUNCHub’s Look on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The meeting reflected our 12 years of investment experience and the 3.5 years since we started investing from our most recent fund of 74 million euros. Notably, this fund has invested through three very different cycles — it started during COVID, experienced the tech boom of 2021 and early 2022, and has continued operating in the VC recession market since H2 2022.

Many of these learnings were discussed in the group and are incorporated into some of our most recent findings.

Revenues are growing strongly

While in the period from 2018 to 2022 (with a short freeze in H1 2020) valuations and funding rounds outpaced the revenue growth, which allowed mega rounds to be raised with small recurring revenue metrics, today the picture is completely reversed — revenue is growing ahead of the funding rounds.

“We are proud that out of 22 seed and pre-seed investments since 2020, we already have 3 that have grown annual revenues above 10 million euro and we expect 30% of the portfolio to hit that level by the end of 2024. This is an outstanding metric for any seed stage fund in Europe,” comments Stan Sirakov, General Partner in the fund.

“On top of that,, our companies are growing faster than the market: the ones with more than 10 million in revenues are growing on average by 65%, and the ones that are between 2 and 10 million are growing on average by 170%,” he adds.

Fundraising appetite for the best performers

Another interesting conclusion is that despite the significant drop in financing at Series A or later stages, the best performing companies are still able to raise significant rounds — as visible by the recent rounds of our portfolio companies Colossyan ($22m) and Ampeco ($16m). The fund is still quite ahead of many of its peers by the ratio of seed companies that raised Series A — one of the most important benchmarks. It is quite encouraging that 60% of our seed investments go out on the market and are able to achieve Series A mostly from brand name funds in the US or the EU/ UK markets.

Pipeline becoming more diversified

Lastly, the team discussed some recent trends in the pipeline. It is obvious that we see much more AI-related startups — an area in which we have been investing since 2012, but has become much more nuanced and diverse today with companies across different parts of the stack — foundational models, MLOps and AI infrastructure, AI-first applications, vertical and horizontal AI SaaS, and full stack AI companies. There are other trends we are excited about like Life & Sciences and Health (as our most recent investment in GlycanAge) and ClimateTech (our flagship company Ampeco). We see more and more companies in these areas developing in our region

The way we scout for companies has also changed, allowing us to leverage technology, on top of very warm recommendations from our portfolio founders and our co-investors. This resulted in LAUNCHub being named among the 100 data-driven VCs in the world.

In conclusion, our overall appreciation of the startup scene in CEE is increasing and it is accounting for the amount of great entrepreneurs in our home market. There are more and more category-winning companies, more and more second-time founders and increased investors’ appetite for the region.

We share this appreciation with our LPs and will continue to invest in some of the best performing startups. The progress of our portfolio and the new companies we scout for encourage us on the journey.

We thank all attendees for their participation and look forward to our next meeting to continue sharing and celebrating success.

Thank you for being a vital part of our journey!!!

LAUNCHub Ventures LP Meeting in Sofia:Market Insights and Portfolio Performance was originally published in LAUNCHub’s Look on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

QUICK TAKE

• Traditional methods of determining biological age are often time-consuming and imprecise, leaving a gap in personalized wellness and aging management.
• GlycanAge is leading wellness testing with its glycan-based assays that measure chronic inflammation in the body and biological age. This innovative approach is setting new standards in the industry and paving the way for personalized health insights at scale.
• Founded by a serial entrepreneur with 10 years of experience leading companies and notable scientists with over 30+ years of research experience.

You’re not as old as you think.

We measure aging by our chronological age, which falls short of providing a precise reflection of our body on a cellular level. It’s one of the reasons why some people in their late-80s can climb mountains whilst others find it challenging to go on a short walk.

The truth is that real aging begins before birth and is a continuous process that happens throughout our life. It begins at a molecular level and as a result gradually gives rise to functional changes, such as shifts in skin texture, hair color, physical strength, and risk of developing diseases. The speed at which our body changes is not influenced directly by our chronological age but by our habits, diet, genetic predispositions, and many other factors. Scientists refer to this molecular transformation as our biological age.

The amazing news is that, unlike your chronological age, you have the power to change your biological age by making better choices about your lifestyle, diet, exercise, and medication. You may ask — what should I do to optimize my health? In reality, it’s a huge challenge to determine the extent of positive change each of these health interventions is making to our bodies. After all, our bodies are unique, change is subjective, and time is limited, so it is challenging to find a perfect blueprint for anti-aging. However, this might all change soon.

In the quest to better understand and reverse the aging process, the team behind GlycanAge has developed a unique approach, offering a test that accurately measures your biological age, thus providing insights into your current health and recommendation around how to positively influence it. The test achieves this by measuring chronic inflammation of the carbohydrates attached to your protein cells, also known as glycans. Your glycans’ structure is impacted by a lot of external factors including your genetics, epigenetics, metabolism, biological sex and your lifestyle (weight, diet, stress, medication, etc.). By employing different health interventions their structure transforms during the span of only a few months. This not only allows you to quickly see changes but also empowers you to make informed decisions about your lifestyle and medications.

Glycans also hold secrets we’re just beginning to uncover. This complex area of biology offers a glimpse into aging and disease prediction years in advance. GlycanAge is leading this exploration, backed by two decades of in-depth research, already showing promise in predicting cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Their work not only advances our understanding of aging but also opens up new possibilities for early disease prognosis and diagnosis.

The big news!

We’re proud to announce that LAUNCHub Ventures, together with Kadmos Capital, is leading a $4.2m Seed round in GlycanAge, joined by Exceptional Ventures and SQ Capital.

Our investment in GlycanAge is driven by the convergence of significant trends in wellness and healthcare that highlight the growing importance of understanding biological aging. This interest is mirrored in the surge of social media discussions around longevity and the pharmaceutical industry’s increasing focus on this area. We believe GlycanAge’s research-backed technology offers a distinct advantage by providing precise and practical assessments of biological age, addressing the limitations of traditional methods and meeting the critical need for reliable aging management solutions.

Guiding GlycanAge’s innovative journey are Nikolina Lauc, a serial entrepreneur with a history of successful ventures, and Gordan Lauc, a pioneer in glycan research. Their synergy of business acumen and scientific expertise lays a formidable groundwork for breakthroughs in biological age assessment. We’re confident in the teams’ capability to redefine industry standards.

With this new funding, GlycanAge is setting its sights beyond the longevity market to encompass the broader diagnostics field. The goal is to create tests that not only speak to aging but can also detect diseases early on. This investment will underpin efforts to build a robust regulatory framework and develop tangible, impactful products, marking a significant step towards broader health diagnostics.

By Mario Stoev

PS: If you’re building a HealthTech startups in CEE/SEE, feel free to reach out to me at mario@launchub.com

Our investment in GlycanAge was originally published in LAUNCHub’s Look on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Recently, Colossyan secured a $22 million Series A funding round, led by Lakestar and supported by us at LAUNCHub Ventures. This milestone arrives just 10 months after the $5 million funding to the company, led by us.

Witnessing Colossyan’s rapid acceleration and their ability to secure such a substantial investment has been a great experience.

In line with this, Stan Sirakov and Petar Tsachev interviewed Dominik Kovacs — Founder and CEO at Colossyan, to reflect on their journey from Seed to Series A and discuss key learnings from it.

Stan Sirakov: Welcome, Dominik! With a couple of words, can you, please, describe what Colossyan does

Dominik: Colossyan is the AI video platform for workplace learning. You can create learning videos from text by picking the perfect AI presenter and localizing a video in 100+ languages in 4 clicks. Colossyan is trusted by leading companies such as BMW, HP and BASF, saving up to 80% of video production costs.

Stan Sirakov: Thanks! You’ve just raised $22mil, could you walk us through the fundraising process?

Dominik: Absolutely, the Series A process was both strategic and intensive. We began the preparation at least three months before kicking off the actual fundraising process. This early start was crucial for building a pipeline of potential investors. We put together a very comprehensive list of investors, ensuring we had a rich mix to approach.

A critical part of our strategy was the investor relationship building. We didn’t just start talking to investors a few weeks before the closing date target. Instead, we built these relationships throughout the year, laying a foundation of successful fundraising.

The actual process involved creating three ‘waves’ of interactions with potential investors. This method allowed us to maintain momentum and keep the discussions dynamic and engaging. We made sure to have multiple touchpoints with each investor, giving us great opportunity to present our vision, progress, and potential.

Another essential aspect was the preparation of materials. We invested significant time and effort into ensuring that our pitch decks, financial models, and other materials were top-notch. This preparation paid off, as it enabled us to present a compelling and cohesive story about our company’s past performance, current status, and future potential.

Petar Tsachev: Very interesting! However, speaking about general company development in the last 12 months, could you tell us about the general management activities that have taken place?

Dominik: One of the key strategies we implemented was the introduction of annual Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), which proved to be highly effective. We established three company-wide objectives and developed specific Key Results for each. This approach really helped in centralizing our efforts and keeping the entire team aligned and focused.

Of course, we didn’t meet all of our objectives, but that’s part of the learning process. What’s important is that the team really embraced this system. We aimed for such clarity and internalization of these OKRs that anyone in the team, if woken up at 4 am, should be able to recite them by heart.

Another initiative we introduced was what we called “Short term rocket boosters.” This was our approach to short-term planning, and it received very positive feedback from the team. We worked in eight-week cycles, changing goals at the end of each period. These goals were our main initiatives, each with a clear owner and a well-defined “done” definition. For example, one goal might be to develop a Team Workspaces for our product to allow users to manage multiple workspaces, or to reach 3,000 followers on LinkedIn. Each of these initiatives acted as a booster towards achieving our annual OKRs.

Petar Tsachev: How have this affected the overall commercial strategy of Colossyan, what were the main changes there?

Dominik: The transformation on the commercial side has been quite significant. Initially, I was the only one driving sales, experiencing what you’d call founder-led sales. Now — one year later, we’re closing big logos without my direct involvement, which is a huge milestone for us.

For the last 8 months, we essentially built our commercial team from scratch. Currently we have a full blown team including very strong Sales leadership, regional middle management, account executives (AEs) and business development representatives (BDRs) functions.

To be honest, we stumbled a bit at the start by not following the typical playbook. We hired only one AE initially and relied too heavily on him. That didn’t work out as well as we’d hoped, and we quickly learned that we should have started with at least two AEs or two BDRs.

However, we had enough time to rectify this mistake. Now, we have a robust commercial team that consistently crushes its quotas. Both the SDR/BDR and the AE functions are performing very well.

Lastly, we’ve hired our first sales leadership and are now expanding into other geographies with middle-level management. This strategy is working well for us, setting a solid foundation for further growth and expansion.

Stan Sirakov: Dominik, it would be interesting to understand more about the key changes you made on the R&D frontover the past year, both in the engineering and research teams.

Dominik: Absolutely, one of the most significant changes was scaling our R&D team by over 100%. It’s been a continuous investment throughout the year, and we plan to keep investing heavily in this area.

In the early days, hiring was a challenge, but as our brand has grown stronger, it’s become much easier to attract top talent. On the engineering front, we focused our hiring efforts in Budapest and London, while for research, we’ve adopted a remote hiring strategy because we’ve found that talent in this field is dispersed globally, and we want to tap into that diverse pool of skills.

We aim to build four robust AI research teams with a total of 15–16 members. Our approach here is quite strategic. For instance, we’ve shifted from having individual researchers working on separate threads to forming a dedicated research team focused on a single, significant problem. By attacking this problem from various angles, we expect to see faster and more impactful results. We’re still measuring our research initiatives in quarters, but this new structure should accelerate our progress.

Another vital change has been the development of a middle-level management team within R&D. This came at a great time as some of our engineers were really starting to excel in people management skills. With our engineering team now exceeding 15 members, having this level of management is super beneficial. It’s a wise move, especially considering we’re preparing for organizational scaling following our recent funding round.

Petar Tsachev: This sounds like a great achievement; what about the changes in the product management structure?

Dominik: On the PM side, one key mentality shift we’ve embraced is what I call the ‘pedals, stones, and sand’ approach. There’s a tendency to focus too much on the ‘big rocks’ or significant features, but that’s not always beneficial. We realized we were putting too many ‘stones’ in our ‘jar’ and not enough ‘sand’, which represents small fixes, and ‘pedals’, which are improvements. Balancing these elements is crucial for a well-rounded product.

The secret sauce, if there is one, boils down to continuous execution and a strong bias towards action. We’ve started releasing innovations that are about 70–80% complete to gather feedback early. This approach allows us to refine and improve our offerings more dynamically.

Another structural change was the formation of a special platform team. Given the AI essence of our business, this team focuses on infrastructure and acts as a bridge between various departments. It connects with the research team, the engineering team, and it’s essentially the backbone of our product development process. This team is positioned right in the middle, reporting to engineering, while we have our regular back-end and front-end engineers building the product on either side.

The introduction of this platform team has been super beneficial. It has fostered better collaboration within the team, allowing researchers to do their job more effectively. It has also been instrumental in optimizing our gross margins and scaling our infrastructure in a way that supports our rapid growth.

Stan Sirakov: …and how did all these changes (commercial, product, R&D) impacted the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)were there any changes in this area?

Dominik: One of the most significant steps we’ve taken was hiring our first Learning and Development (L&D) expert. This move has been a game-changer for us in multiple ways. Firstly, it enhanced our understanding of our ICP, which resulted in making more informed product development decisions.

Secondly, it has significantly influenced how we define our marketing strategies, messaging, and positioning. Having a clear picture of our ICP helps us communicate more effectively and resonate with our target audience.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that our ICP seems to be evolving roughly every six months. It’s a dynamic process, and we’re continually refining our understanding to make our ICP more specific. This ongoing refinement helps us stay aligned with the changing needs and behaviors of our customers.

Petar Tsachev: Can you share some insights into the main experiments you’ve run on the pricing front?

Dominik: Absolutely, pricing has been an area of constant iteration for us. On the enterprise sales model front, we’ve made significant changes. Initially, all enterprise pricing strategies were in my head, making me the bottleneck. AEs had to consult me for pricing decisions, which wasn’t scalable.

With the arrival of our VP of Sales, we standardized the pricing structure. This move empowered our AEs to be independent and creative when negotiating with clients. It helped them understanding upselling techniques and leveraging the variable components of our pricing. As a result, we managed to create levers that significantly increased our Average Contract Value (ACV) in the following months.

We also implemented some strategic approaches in terms of contract duration, standardizing 2-year deals, and offering free avatars at the enterprise level. Additionally, we introduced a low-touch/high-touch customer experience model, particularly for the lower tier of the Enterprise segment, such as SMBs. This involved removing dedicated Customer Success (CS) support and live support, optimizing resources while maintaining quality service.

Regarding our self-served model, we’ve introduced usage-based pricing, allowing customers to add more minutes to their plans on demand. We also added more variables to our annual plans. Customers could now get all usage upfront instead of monthly, making annual pricing more attractive. Additionally, we included more free avatars for annual plan subscribers. These changes resulted in increased retention and upfront cash flow, which has been pivotal for our financial stability and growth.

Petar Tsachev: Reflecting back, what are some things you think could have been done better?

Dominik: Looking back, there are definitely a few areas where we could have improved. Firstly, in terms of fundraising, I think a greater focus on storytelling would have been beneficial. While we had strong metrics to present, I realize now that I didn’t leverage my personal story and journey enough. A compelling narrative is crucial, even when you have great metrics. It’s about creating a connection and painting a picture that goes beyond just numbers.

Another area is sales funnel optimization. We started focusing on examining and optimizing our sales funnel relatively late. If we had started earlier, we could have enhanced our conversion rates at different stages more effectively. It’s a critical aspect of sales that we underestimated initially.

Lastly, I believe we should have focused on content marketing earlier on. Content marketing is one of those strategies that takes time to develop and mature, but it can yield significant results in the long term. By starting earlier, we could have built a stronger foundation for our marketing efforts and seen greater returns by now.

Stan Sirakov: Thank you Dominik, it was great having you and keep on with the great job you are doing in the overall company development going forward!

Colossyan’s Path from Seed to Series A was originally published in LAUNCHub’s Look on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A standout moment featured our guest speaker, Stefan Ivanov, who shared his extraordinary 105-day ocean journey from Portugal to Barbados, undertaken with his 17-year-old son Maxim on a self-built boat.

Stefan’s captivating tales drew parallels between his adventurous voyage and the challenges faced by startups, emphasizing the significance of mental and physical resilience and the importance of perseverance and clear goals.

The event was packed with insightful industry discussions, a comprehensive analysis of Q2 2023 fundraising activities, offering valuable insights by comparing the European and US markets and shedding light on operational dynamics, discussions on challenges faced by founders, and networking opportunities.

Founders shared their strategies for overcoming financial constraints, such as focusing on product appeal, cost reduction, and securing capital, and explored “Series A Fundraising,” highlighting the role of robust KPIs, engaging investor conversations, and effective PR efforts.

The agenda also included a special session on AI usage and implementation across different companies. It became quite evident the pivotal role AI plays in the vision of the majority of our portfolio companies. During this session, founders engaged in discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating different LLMs in their operations and shared valuable insights on how they integrate chat-like functions in their daily business activities and the products they offer.

In the world of entrepreneurship, the connections formed can be the key to success. Founders discovered that they are not alone in their journey, finding solidarity in shared experiences and the collective strength of our network.

Through engaging discussions, inspiring talks, and candid exchanges, our founders learned that the challenges they face in their startups are shared experiences that transcend borders and industries.

N.B.

For those interested in our Q2 2023 Funding Summary Report, please feel free to reach out.

Highlights from Founders Retreat 2023 in Athens, Greece (September 7th-9th) was originally published in LAUNCHub’s Look on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A stellar ex-UIPath team takes on the cost and complexity of managing cloud environments with process automation.

By Todor Breshkov and Mario Stoev

We are excited to announce our investment in Kubeark, a progressive solution to application management and distribution platforms for cloud infrastructure. The platform solves the complexity of managing the orchestration of containers on hybrid cloud environments.

Unicorn DNA

Kubeark was founded by Bogdan Nedelcov and Teo Harapcea in early 2022, after they observed the challenges faced by software providers in implementing flexible cloud strategies while working at UIPath, the market leader in automation for as long as automation has been a thing.

The Kubeark Thesis

Our internal thesis is that more and more organizations are recognizing the necessity of turning to agile, automation-driven approaches to cloud management and deployment. However, we’ve seen that the industry is facing several challenges, especially when it comes to managing the complexity of hybrid cloud environments.

Lost in the clouds

Businesses often have to build and maintain complex scripts based on open-source projects, which can become outdated and difficult to maintain on a large scale. This can be costly and time-consuming, requiring specialized expertise and dedicated teams to manage. Furthermore, many companies become locked with a particular cloud provider even if it becomes expensive or complex to work with, making it hard to switch to a different provider without incurring significant costs and disruption.

Swiveling out of cost and complexity

Kubeark is addressing these problems by providing a platform that is infrastructure agnostic and simplifies the process of deploying, managing, and scaling applications on any type of infrastructure. This allows organizations to optimize their cloud infrastructure and avoid the costs and complexity of managing hybrid cloud environments manually.

We are thrilled to back the stellar team at Kubeark and partner them in their quest to revolutionize cloud management with well-designed automation. It’s a moment of opportunity for SaaS products catering to processes optimization and cost-cutting, and confident that Kubeark has all that it takes to innovate and lead in this space.