Early Game Ventures

500 aims to help the talented entrepreneurs of the region in building explosive businesses. Our mission is to back defensible technology companies fueling talent arbitrage and help create global powerhouses. Emerging Europe is a hotbed for talent. Thanks to the region’s highly skilled human capital, all of the unicorns from Emerging Europe target global markets from the get-go! Bridging these ecosystems globally, creates an opportunity for many more.

LAUNCHUB is a leading early-stage venture capital fund focused on investing in startups in South-Eastern (SEE) and Central-Eastern (CEE) Europe. Since 2012, we’ve been involved in the region and its diaspora, helping exceptional teams create the next generation of game-changing companies. We are currently investing out of our third fund, with a size of €74M, dedicated towards ambitious early-stage founders. Our focus🎯 Pre-seed and seed investing with tickets up to 2.5M EUR. 🧑 Founders solving large-scale problems with a global vision, in any industry. Our value-add💵 We get you prepared to score top-tier VCs for your next financing. 🏢 Access to a global network of clients, advisors, and co-investors. 🤝 Hands-on strategic guidance and mentorship. We are well-known for helping our companies raise large next stage investments rounds. → In fact, 75% of our portfolio companies raise follow-on funding by exceptional VCs from our co-investors network, raising over $450m of capital in total. Check out our co-investors here. FAQ ‣ Which countries do you invest in? We invest in founders with origin from South Eastern Europe, also known as the Balkans, and the broader Central Eastern European region, building companies anywhere around the world. ‣ What is your investment process? Our investment process is designed to be transparent and efficient, with a focus on supporting founders. It typically takes 2-3 weeks and includes: Initial analysis: After our initial conversation, we evaluate the market, opportunity, and the fundraising materials shared by the founder. Q&A: We work asynchronously, creating a shared document with our questions and collaborate with the founder on their answers. In-person meeting: We meet with the founder in-person to discuss their idea in-depth, get to know the team, and brainstorm together on plans for reaching the next funding round objectives. Group discussion: We hold a group meeting with you and our broader investment team to discuss and make a final decision on the investment. 💡 During this process, we also like to thinker with your product and speak to few of your clients to understand their pain points and usage experience. ‣ Are you investing in bridge and subsequent rounds? We tend to look at each subsequent round as a seperate investment decision so our participation is not guaranteed. However, we are committed to support our amazing portfolio companies through all stages of growth, including bridge rounds and subsequent funding rounds, up until Series B. ‣ What are your criteria for evaluating potential deals? When evaluating potential deals, we place a strong emphasis on the team, market, and vision. Specifically, we look for: an ambitious and talanted team proven to execute founder competitive advantage and path to a clear moat a big market or one with potential to grow or emerge ‣ How do you approach board governance and involvement with portfolio companies? As a hands-on investor, we are committed to supporting our portfolio companies in any way we can, including through introductions to customers, guidance on day-to-day operations, and assistance with raising new rounds of funding. In terms of board governance, we typically take a board seat if we are a significant contributor to the total round size or an observer seat otherwise. This allows us to stay informed and actively participate in helping founders make the best decisions for the company's long-term success.

The fund partners have been friends for 10+ years and back in the day started what over years has grown to one of the largest tech founder communities in Eastern Europe. Today our wider community comprises over 350 active founders from around the world, including founders of the fast-growing & established tech unicorns (like Hopin, Miro, UiPath, Intercom, and others), as well as founders of several renowned global VC funds. In 2010, when we were making our first steps as entrepreneurs and future executives, we yearned for ways of sharing knowledge and supporting each other. Three of us settled in a big apartment on Shmitovsky 16 (S16) and opened our doors for regular meetings with like-minded entrepreneurs. That move turned out to be instrumental. We learned through each other, motivated and supported each other, and built lifelong friendships. Our small gatherings grew into a tribe of hundreds of like-minded people. We are certain that this community is the common denominator behind our success. Even though the majority of tribe members are very successful entrepreneurs and executives, the community is united by shared values rather than any kind of material KPIs. These values are: Community, not individual Trust Transparency Intrinsic motivation to help Pay forward Beginner mindset People succeed, not ideas The community has long outgrown its founders and small gatherings at Shmit 16 and evolved into many initiatives driven by different people. Twice a year we help organize the legendary closed business event - Founders for Founders. Our members organize a camp at Burning Man. We try our best to spread our knowledge to a wider audience through our Telegram channel. Whatever we do, s16vc stands for preservation and adherence to our values. And s16vc, being the only commercial endeavor, is no exception. We invest in people who share these values and take money from like-minded LPs, making our tribe stronger with every founder we back and every investor we bring inside the community.

We’re investing in tomorrow’s startup scene. We’re nurturing a diverse, progressive, intelligent, ambitious community - an environment, a movement - that’s going to build the future of Australia. We don’t just want to make awesome. We want to make the awesome that makes the awesome. What We Invest In Euphemia invests directly in startups across four main focus areas, shown below, typically pre-seed to Series A. Fintech Climate Tech Women-led Startup Infrastructure Tomorrow's startup ecosystem starts with transparency today. We could tell you all about tomorrow’s diverse start up scene, but that’d make for a pretty long web page! Instead, we’d prefer to show our progress towards a more equitable venture industry. Change begins at home - where we're proud to have an investment team that is 50% women. As part of our commitment to Equity Clear we’re tracking progress towards a more equitable community of founders and businesses. You should Join the Movement!

The next-generation of European and Israeli climate-tech founders are poised to solve humanity’s most pressing challenge, but are heavily underfunded and underrepresented at Seed stage. Benefitting from unparalleled levels of engagement with the climate tech community, our platform-based model backs the pioneers building the technology that will become the infrastructure of tomorrow. Given that decades of collective actions got us into the climate mess, we leverage Energy Tech Summit, Energy Tech Challengers and Climate50 to make a collaborative effort to mobilise resources and get humanity back on track to decarbonize the economy.

Our team seeks to enrich your journey and create value with hands-on, actionable and game-changing support. We invest in strong teams and enable them to grow efficiently. Investment FocusFounders first: We back strong founding teams oriented towards building rapidly growing tech companies that expand worldwide Early stage, Post traction: Initial ticket of EUR 0.3m – 0.5m and ready to support the company in the long run, having achieved double-digit growth Central and Eastern Europe: Investing in CEE-based companies, preferably with a Bulgarian angle