Deals & news
BOOKR, an educational technology firm based in Hungary, has closed a €6.1 million Series A funding round. TCEE Fund IV led the investment with guidance from 3TS Capital Partners, alongside backing from both international and strategic investors. The deal encompassed primary capital injection, secondary equity purchases, and conversion of prior financial commitments.
Friendly Fire, a gaming-café franchise originating from Croatia, has secured €4 million in funding spearheaded by AYMO Ventures to support its growth into 11 new markets. The company operates a franchise structure that brings consistency to gaming cafés by pairing physical venues with proprietary software and unified operational oversight, allowing each location to integrate into a shared ecosystem.
Embedd, launched by three Ukrainian founders whose prior hardware venture was affected by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has obtained €2.31 million in pre-seed capital led by Seedcamp. Additional backers included Cocoa, Connect Ventures, 2100 Ventures, Vesna Capital, U.ventures, Underline Ventures, Common Magic and Roosh Ventures. The company creates digital representations of hardware devices, enabling AI agents to manage integration tasks and produce the necessary code for chip compatibility with software systems.
DEPO Ventures, a Czech-based venture capital firm, is broadening its space technology investments through a stake in ArcSpace, a Paris-founded company. The funding round exceeded €2 million and was channeled via the DEPO Ventures One fund, with additional participation from SCE Freiraum Ventures, IRDI Capital Investissement, and French angel investors. ArcSpace is creating solutions to enable satellite repair, modification and assembly operations in orbit.
Jet Ventures, the investment division of Prague-based Jet Investment, has committed $750,000 (€644,110) to a $1.6 million funding round for Hermetiq, a San Francisco-based company. Hermetiq develops an artificial intelligence platform designed to identify and resolve failures in software compilation and testing stages, the critical steps between code creation and functional deployment.
Veeda AI, established in Toronto by Slovenian researchers Sanja Fidler and Bojan Vučković, has raised more than $90 million (€83.7 million) in seed funding, marking one of Canada's largest seed investments on record. Khosla Ventures led the round, which will advance Veeda AI's development of simulation technology that trains artificial intelligence systems to function in physical environments.
The U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division has chosen Croatian manufacturer Orqa to provide first-person view (FPV) drones following a comprehensive technical assessment. The selection places Orqa within a testing framework that evaluates multiple FPV drone technologies in active use, rather than as a standalone experimental program. The decision builds on Orqa's prior collaboration with the Red River Army Depot in Texas to expand manufacturing operations within the United States.
REGENT Craft, a Rhode Island-based producer of Seaglider hydrofoiling wing-in-ground vessels, has completed a $240 million Series B round split equally between equity and debt financing. Mare Liberum, a maritime-focused investment firm, and AE Ventures co-led the round, with Erebor Bank supplying the debt component. For Central and Eastern Europe, Poland represents a key development: REGENT is collaborating with dual-use investor Balnord to introduce Seagliders to the Baltic Sea, where NATO naval forces seek rapid, dispersed systems for port and infrastructure defense. Marcin Kowalik of Balnord, who participated in the investment, views Poland's existing shipbuilding and catamaran manufacturing sector as a foundation for establishing a European production and support center. REGENT is simultaneously pursuing expansion in Greece and the United Arab Emirates, and maintains an expanded contract with the U.S. Marine Corps for its Viceroy platform.
EnduroSat Germany to lead ESA Consortium
The European Space Agency (ESA) has appointed EnduroSat Germany to coordinate a consortium tasked with creating a new Earth observation mission. The initiative aims to enhance Europe's independent capacity to observe the planet regardless of daylight availability.
LLARS (Low Luminance Resilience from Space) is being developed as part of the initial phase of ESA's European Resilience from Space for Earth Observation (ERS-EO) programme. The mission will function as an in-orbit test and validation platform for the programme's Earth observation component.
According to EnduroSat Germany, LLARS is intended to support the EU's planned European Earth Observation Governmental Service (EOGS) and advance Europe's objective to secure independent and reliable Earth observation data access. The project also supports the EU's Defense Readiness Roadmap 2030, which emphasizes strengthening European defense and security capabilities.
