Ukraine’s 2024 CEE Ranking: 50 Deals Worth €4.2 Million

In 2024, startups from Central and Eastern Europe raised a total of €3.89 billion through 1,286 venture deals. Out of this amount, €4.2 million was raised by Ukrainian startups.

These figures come from the report “Venture in Central and Eastern Europe 2024”, prepared by How to Web, one of the largest startup conferences in the CEE region, with the support of Infobip, Underline Ventures, and BCR Seed Starter.

The most interesting insights from the research, particularly regarding Ukraine’s position on the region’s venture capital map, as the country continues to face a full-scale, unprovoked war:90% of the total investment volume (€3.54 billion) went to eight countries — Ukraine was not among them. According to the report, 50 deals were closed in Ukraine, totaling €4.2 million. For comparison, Turkey, which led both in quantity and quality, recorded 534 deals worth over €1 billion.

2024 was a year of “late-stage investments.” Series A rounds amounted to €633.7 million, Series B to €609.6 million, and Series C to €1.192 billion. One possible explanation for this trend is the near-complete integration of Eastern Europe into the European venture market. Seed-stage investment reached a total of €634 million. Pre-seed investments amounted to €104.6 million — slightly above the 2023 figure (€99.8 million), though still below the pre-war level of 2022 (€140 million).

The volume of first investment rounds reached €278.3 million, accounting for 7.2% of total annual investment.92.1% of first-round deal volume involved startups from ten countries, including Ukraine, which accounted for 3.2% of the total.

Top deals in Ukraine

• OneNotary – €4.5 million in Series A. Investors: Jackson Square Ventures, Tom Gonser, u.ventures, DocuSign Ventures, GoodPaper Ventures, Digital Future, and The LegalTech Fund
• Esper Bionics – €4.5 million in Series A. Investor: YZR Capital
• Portal AI – €4 million at the pre-seed stage. Investors: AGI House Ventures, Amanda Schloss family office, BBQ Capital, Broocknell Ventures, Patel family office, StratMinds