Vestbee, a platform connecting startups, VCs, accelerators and corporates, has released its report on venture capital funding in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) for Q2 2025, showing a resilient but uneven quarter for the region.

Deal activity remained relatively stable across 144 transactions, but 30% of capital was concentrated in the three largest deals, leaving many early- and mid-stage startups to compete for a smaller pool of investment.

In Q2 2025, VC investment in CEE exceeded US$640 million across 144 publicly reported funding rounds.

This represents a 19% increase in deal count compared with Q1 2025, which had 121 transactions, although total funding fell by 8.6% from US$700 million in the previous quarter.

The largest transactions included Cast AI’s US$93 million Series C, Aerones’ US$53 million round and Pactum’s US$47 million Series C.

The gap between the largest and average deal sizes narrowed from Q1, when ElevenLabs’ US$170 million round was sixteen times the quarterly average.

Outside these headline deals, monthly deal counts remained between 35 and 42, with most funding rounds relatively modest.

Investors continued to be cautious and selective, even as the region produced companies in AI, deeptech and healthtech.

The trend of companies relocating to more mature ecosystems also continued in the second quarter of 2025.

Poland, Estonia and Ukraine led by deal count, with 48, 20 and 17 transactions respectively, accounting for over half of all disclosed rounds and nearly one-third of total capital raised in Q2.

Investor interest focused on AI, deeptech, fintech, SaaS, cybersecurity and energy. Active VC funds in the region included SMOK VC, FIRSTPICK, Inovo VC, Hard2Beat, LAUNCHub Ventures and Startup Wise Guys.

New funds launched in the quarter included a vehicle from Vilnius-based Vinted, Prague’s Rockaway Ventures raising US$55 million, Polish Movens Capital first closing at US$40 million from a planned US$60 million, and Lithuanian Iron Wolf Capital first closing at US$30 million with a target of US$100 million.

Globally, Q2 2025 VC funding reached US$91 billion, up from US$82 billion year-on-year but down from US$114 billion in Q1.

AI led funding with US$40 billion, or 45% of global VC, including Meta’s acquisition of a 49% stake in Scale AI for US$14.3 billion.

Healthcare/biotech attracted US$14.8 billion and financial services US$10.8 billion. In Europe, venture activity totalled US$12.6 billion, down 24% from Q2 2024.

Germany overtook the UK in funding for the first time since 2012, driven by large deeptech rounds including US$694 million for Helsing and US$218 million for Multiverse Computing.

Europe’s share of global VC capital in H1 2025 fell to 13% from 19% the previous year.

Featured image credit: Vestbee