October’s First Monday brought fundraising into focus, with partners from Inovo VC, KAYA VC, Portfolion and Lead Capital joining us for a closer look at the early-stage investment landscape in Central and Eastern Europe.

The evening centred on the questions founders face when preparing to raise capital. How do investors make decisions? What builds conviction in a team and its business? Which red flags can bring a conversation to an end? Bringing several funds into the discussion created an opportunity to explore these questions from different investor perspectives.

Beyond securing an initial meeting, fundraising means understanding how investors assess an opportunity. The session explored what funds look for and how founders can approach those conversations with a clearer sense of the expectations on the other side of the table.

Regional benchmarks were another central theme. For startups building in CEE, understanding how their progress compares with investor expectations is an important part of preparing for a round. The discussion connected those expectations with the broader question of what it takes to raise a Series A and move towards later stages of funding.

AI also featured on the agenda, bringing some of venture capital’s most debated questions into the room. Is traditional B2B SaaS really dead? How is AI changing the way investors think about software businesses? And what does that mean for founders developing their products and positioning their companies for investment?

These questions extended to growth expectations. The familiar triple-triple-double-double-double trajectory provided a starting point for examining whether established venture benchmarks still carry the same weight—and what investors expect from ambitious companies today.

Together, these topics offered a practical look at fundraising as a process shaped by investment decisions, market conditions, and a company’s stage of development. For founders, the evening was an opportunity to consider their own fundraising plans through the lens of some of the region’s active early-stage investors.

Huge thanks to the partners from Inovo VC, KAYA VC, Portfolion and Lead Capital for sharing their perspectives, and to everyone who joined us and contributed to the conversation.

We look forward to seeing you at the next First Monday!

Project no. STARTUP-2026-RENDEZVENY-0005 has been implemented with the support provided by the Ministry of Culture and Innovation of Hungary from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, financed under the STARTUP-2026-RENDEZVENY funding scheme.

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