Romanian Venture Report 2021: The local startups got more than €100M in venture capital for the first time in the post-UiPath era

In 2021, the Romanian venture capital market tripled from the €30.4M reported in 2020 to more than €116.9M, and grew 13x from the €8.2M value of 2017, according to the Romanian Venture Report 2021, launched today by How to Web.

This aligns Romania to a general trend as the level of overall European investment value passed €100Bn, also a nearly triple growth compared to 2020 levels.

Now in its second edition, the Romanian Venture Report 2021 provides a comprehensive analysis and collection of statistics on investments in Romanian startups in 2021.

For 2021, the report tracked 71 transactions. The total investment volume of 2021 rose to more than €116.9M. In the amount, we’ve also included in the €51M FintechOS Series B round.

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Here are some additional insights of the report: 

• The average amount of first cheques got bigger by more than 80%, from €357k in 2020 to €647k in 2021, with average round sizes increasing from 2020 by 33% for pre-seed and 70% for seed rounds;
• 55% of the follow-on deals were made at the seed stage, the majority with Romanian capital only, totaling a volume of €36.2M, which represents 31% of the overall 2021 volume (including FintechOS);
• The report tracked 18 transactions over €1M, representing 68% of the total 2021 investment volume.

Alexandru Agatinei, CEO of How to Web, mentions that:

”When comparing 2021’s market dynamics with our historical data we were stoked to see that the venture capital deals hit this milestone of more than €100M in volume and that this translates into a 3x growth from the previous year. This achievement came after just a couple of years from the moment when Bucharest-born UiPath reached unicorn status and in a year when another diamond in the rough, Bucharest-based fintech startup FintechOS reeled in their Series B round.

The genie left the bottle and what’s even more exciting is that this growth pattern has been trending for the last few years. As it seems, the Romanian venture capital market is at the beginning of what looks like a rocket ship ride and there are still seats in the front row. And while looking forward to seeing what 2022’s numbers will have to say, How to Web is here to support the development of technology and innovation in Romania and in the entire Eastern European region.”