Presto Ventures pulls €30 million out of its hat with second fund aimed squarely at CEE region startups.

Prague-based Presto Ventures has announced the close of its second fund at a magnificent €30 million. Making no bones about it, the princes of Praha are looking to make seed and pre-seed round investments in no less than 40 B2B startups hailing from the CEE region, including the Baltics, Balkans, and yes, Ukraine. Presto’s ticket size can range up to €3 million and say that they remain committed to follow-on rounds.

While funds of this size, heck any size, take a considerable amount of time to assemble, you might think that Presto Ventures founder Přemysl Rubeš had a read of David Gilgur’s op-ed earlier this month, as to what, where, when, and why VCs are needed in the region, as Presto is ticking just about every box.

No longer satisfied sitting on the sidelines and waiting for their risk-averse counterparts in the west to yay or ney a project, Presto, as an example, wants to pull off a magic show of its own and act at speed, all without the misdirection.

“The emphasis is on substantially speeding up founders’ success in the next stages of building revenue, product-market fit, and hiring top international talent in the tech B2B space,” Rubeš told Tech.eu. “We know there is fantastic startup potential in the CEE region; however, the most ambitious founders still need to fight too many friction points – including a lack of access to global capital and expertise.”

With its first fund, Presto invested in 15 startups including Cloudtalk, a call centre solution provider poised to become Slovakia’s first unicorn, and Wolf3D, one of Estonia’s fastest-growing startups that works with metaverse platforms as well as household brands including Adidas.

As for the new fund, Presto reports having met with over two thousand startups, built a considerable deal flow, and added 20 companies to the portfolio, either as lead investor or participating in deals led by a number of industry notables including Y Combinator, Taavet+Sten, Point Nine Capital, Credo Ventures, Inven Capital, HenQ, KAYA, Senovo, Konvoy Ventures, and Startup Wise Guys.

The LPs behind Presto Ventures’ second fund are comprised solely of private sources including family offices and a number of undisclosed entrepreneurs and exited founders who remain committed to ensuring the success of regional entrepreneurs by leveraging their networks and providing additional capital for follow-on rounds.