Over the past 10 years, first as an entrepreneur and now as a Principal at LAUNCHub Ventures, I’ve watched the CEE ecosystem evolve from a ‘timid giant’ of engineers into a breeding ground for global category leaders, alongside a team that’s had a front-row seat to this story for more than two decades.

The engineering talent pool started small, with barely any companies daring to venture into the challenging and brutal world of making their own products. Now these select few have grown into household names recognised globally for their innovation and scalability. The likes of Skype, Telerik, Infobip, Outfit7, Bitdefender, and ChaosGroup, to name a few, gave the kick start a region full of highly skilled engineers desperately needed to breed ever bigger and better companies. 

We witnessed the second generation of startups emerge and take over the world – UiPath, Bolt, Wise, Booksy, and Blueground. They had a bigger vision, raised more capital, employed more people, and captured a bigger market than their predecessors.

Now it’s time for the third generation of founders to show us what they are capable of.

In this post, I’ll unpack our investment thesis for CEE: why the region is primed to produce many more global winners—and why now is the moment to double down, as we are.

The third generation of CEE founders

We can separate the CEE startup environment evolution into 3 waves:

1. The early 2000s laid the groundwork, with infrastructure, cybersecurity, and connectivity being the primary verticals for start-up creation. 
2. The 2010s brought in SaaS, fintech, and blockchain innovations. 
3. Now, in the 2020s, we see founders building in frontier markets – GenAI, climate tech, deep tech, and health tech.