SMOK Ventures raised $25 million in the second fund for Ukrainian startups

SMOK Ventures has raised $25 million in the second fund - in particular for Ukrainian startups. Venture investment company SMOK Ventures, which originates from Poland and the USA, announced the attraction of $25 million to its second fund. These funds will be used to invest in 25-35 startups in Central and Eastern Europe and the diaspora, with the main focus on Poland and Ukraine. Special emphasis is placed on software development, but we are ready to invest in almost any vertical. We are currently looking for talented teams in areas such as game development, software for programmers and artificial intelligence. These are not the only directions, but they are given a certain advantage, since we have experts in these areas in our composition," says the chief executive of SMOK Ventures, Oleksandr Yatsenko. SMOK Ventures has already successfully raised funds for its first fund in November 2022, attracting more than 60 private limited partners. In addition, a key limited partner PFR Ventures, a Polish development institution that provides funding to both new and experienced venture capital managers, joined the SMOK II team on January 23, 2024. SMOK II has already successfully invested in 12 startups from different countries , including Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. "We started investing actively from the beginning of 2023, and we are already working with several teams. During the past year, we received more than 300 applications from Ukrainian startups. In total, we reviewed more than 1,200 projects from Central and Eastern Europe. In 2023, we have already concluded three agreements with Ukrainian teams - Finmap, Workee, Masthead Data - these were investments made from the funds of the second fund," adds Yatsenko. SMOK Ventures is part of the global network of funds headed by Paul Bragiel. It manages more than $400 million in assets and focused on investing in emerging markets.The network also includes Golden Gate Ventures (Southeast Asia), Niu Ventures (South America), Bragiel Brothers (North America), Savannah (Africa) and Sisu Game Ventures (with focus on game development). The other two partners of SMOK Ventures are Diana Kozyarska (previously the head of ReaktorX) and Boris Musielak (a technology entrepreneur who has a successful exit - invested in the start-up Filmaster and sold it to the American company Samba TV). In Ukraine, the team is represented by Oleksandr Yatsenko

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• SMOK Ventures is a Polish-American venture investment company a company that raised $25 million for Ukrainian startups.
• AIN.UA is the source where the news about raising funds for the second SMOK Ventures fund was published.
• PFR Ventures is a Polish development institution that has become a key partner of SMOK II.
• Finmap, Workee, Masthead Data are Ukrainian startups that received investments from the second fund of SMOK Ventures.
• Paul Bragiel is the head of the global network of funds to which SMOK Ventures belongs.

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• AIN.UA - https://ain.ua/

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Discussion of the topic – SMOK Ventures raised $25 million in the second fund for Ukrainian startups

2024-01-30

SMOK Ventures, a Polish-American venture investment company, has raised $25 million in its second fund to invest in Ukrainian startups and companies in the Central and Eastern European region.

Yulia Portnova
Yulia Portnova Copywriter Elbuz

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