Hi there!
Welcome to the Inovo newsletter, aggregating some of the most exciting news from the world of startups and Venture Capital!
The previous quarter was great - both for the Polish VC ecosystem and for Inovo itself.
The amount of money invested in Polish startups went almost 4x up compared to Q1’21 and over 5x YoY.
We invested in great startups like SunRoof, Archbee, Jutro Medical, and one more that remains undisclosed for now.
On top of that, Booksy was named the best portfolio company by Polish Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, and we were awarded the best VC fund in Poland (not the first and hopefully not the last time!).
We stay humble and are still learning - one of our Partners, 🌊Maciej Małysz, just started the Kauffman Fellows Program which is a rigorous 2-year executive education in venture capital, led by the world’s top 1% investors, educators, and innovation leaders!
We also try to give back to the community - once again I will have the pleasure to serve as the Vice President of PSIK, the Polish Private Equity & Venture Capital Association.
Inovo Portfolio news
Let’s start with the 2 undisclosed investments from the previous newsletter.
Inovo Venture Partners led a €4.5M Seed extension round of SunRoof. The startup has its own roof-tile technology that generates solar power. It then links up those houses, creating a sort of virtual power plant, allowing homeowners to sell surplus energy back to the grid.
Michał Rokosz, the partner behind the investment, explains why we invested in this Company. The solar energy market is booming, but this is not the only factor!
The most recent addition to the Inovo team is Archbee. It's an ultrafast, dead-simple, beautifully designed tool that makes developers' collaboration (both internal and external) asynchronous.
Archbee just raised $1M. We had the pleasure to lead their pre-Seed round and - as we were finalizing the investment - Archbee also got accepted to Y Combinator.
It’s one of our earliest investments to date and 🌊Maciej Małysz, the partner behind the deal, explains our reasoning in this “Why we invested in Archbee” blogpost.
Inovo's investment relationship with Jutro Medical started small in November 2020 but after working with Adam Janczewski on a weekly basis, we regard him as one of the top founders in our portfolio and appreciate what he and his team are doing even more.
That's why we decided to double-down, making Jutro our largest investment to date. We led their €6M Seed this year, with co-investors like Rheingau Founders, MOC, and a group of prominent business angels.
Michał Rokosz, the partner behind the investment, will publish a blog post on why we invested in Jutro Medical tomorrow. Follow our Medium to stay up to date!
There is 1 more investment that has to remain undisclosed, but stay tuned!
AI Clearing has joined the Leonard acceleration program run by one of the biggest construction companies in the world - the VINCI group. The Company has also been included on the prestigious BuiltWorlds Project Software 50 list as one of the top companies providing innovative solutions to the construction sector.
Infermedica expands its platform with pediatric assessment tools because nothing is more important than the health and safety of our children. Their screening tool answers 90% of the conditions listed by the Global Burden of Disease and provides 96.7% of triage safety!
Inovo readings & listenings
In our latest podcast, we hosted Maja Schaefer, the Co-Founder and CEO of Zowie Inc. “What does the VC way mean”. You can watch the podcast on YT, listen on Spotify, or read on Medium.
Maja was also a guest of our “Founders on Inovo” series. Listen to what it means to have Inovo Venture Partners on board from the perspective of the entrepreneur!
The Polish VC industry is reaching new heights with PLN 936M (EUR 207M) invested in 118 companies in Q2’2021. It’s almost 4x the amount invested in the previous quarter and over 5x the amount invested in the same quarter last year. I think that it’s going to be a record year! Read the whole report here.
Check out the list of 8 steps that 🌊Maciej Małysz (Partner @ Inovo) came up with that will make due diligence on your investor much easier.
"Just because someone wants to put money into your project doesn't mean that you have to humbly accept it. Talk about your expectations, check to be sure you agree on important things. You have the right to do so and no one will be offended (and if they are, run away)".
I had the pleasure to be a guest at the Action and Ambition podcast. If you want to learn why in startups it’s more important to have seen success rather than experience failure, what Stefan Batory taught me, and how Booksy impacted Inovo's strategy click on this link.
Recommended readings & listenings
David Sacks explains Simple Math to Set Up a Sales Team. Have a look if you aren’t sure how to organize it in your startup (or if you are constantly looking for improvements!).
Speaking of Math there is a great blog post from a16z on the startup valuations. When Entry Multiples Don’t Matter?
Thank you for reading till the end of this newsletter! It’s a cyclical initiative, and you can expect the next edition towards the end of October.
Best regards,
Tomek
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