GapMinder VC

02/06/2026

xAI reached GPT-5 level capabilities in less than a year. DeepSeek reportedly replicated similar performance in weeks and at a fraction of the cost. Soon after, competitors started catching up.

For years, startups were told that being first mattered most. Build faster, launch first, move quickly. But AI is changing that equation.

When models improve rapidly and infrastructure becomes widely available, technical advantages can compress from years into months.

The moat is increasingly less about the model itself and more about everything built around it:
→ proprietary workflows
→ unique data
→ deep customer integration
→ distribution
→ trust
→ product experience

In AI, shipping first may get attention. Building something people continue to rely on is what creates lasting value.

Want to go deeper? Listen to Marc Andreessen’s discussion on why the model itself is no longer the moat, and why long-term value increasingly comes from what companies build around it.

a16z cofounder Marc Andreessen joins an AMA-style conversation to e...

29/05/2026

If you met us, you know we take networking seriously - or better said, we always turn it into a great opportunity for real connection and amazing ideas. 💡

We Mix to Match - investors and entrepreneurs, leaders and founders, partners and new connections. 🤝 Thank you all for joining us.

Thank you, Rubik Hub, for being part of our story!

28/05/2026

Geopolitical volatility is no longer a temporary challenge. It is becoming a normal part of how companies build, scale, and compete.

According to McKinsey, these are some of the changes influencing the market worldwide:

→ AI infrastructure continue to attract the largest share of investment
→ industrial policy interventions have increased in recent years
→ semiconductors, defense, and AI are becoming national priorities
→ companies are redesigning supply chains around resilience and flexibility, not only cost efficiency

For founders, strategy today goes beyond product and GTM. Questions around market selection, supply chains, regulation, and geographic expansion are becoming part of company building much earlier than before.

We as a fund are looking at this because geopolitical changes influence where opportunities emerge, where capital flows, and where companies can build long-term advantages

Adaptability is starting to look less like a defensive capability and more like a growth strategy.

27/05/2026

Is raising pre-seed capital changing?

The state of Q1 2026 is around the similar levels of Q1 2025, with total capital staying in the $2.5B–$3B range. We have a stable environment, but the market behaviour is different.

→ smaller rounds under $1M are becoming more common
→ the “middle ground” of $1M–$2.5M rounds is shrinking
→ AI startups now capture roughly 50% of all pre-seed
→ mega-rounds continue to pull averages higher

Capital is still available, but investors are concentrating on fewer companies that know how to prove why they deserve to win in the current market conditions.

If you're currently thinking about fundraising, we recently explored what actually makes a successful round, from customer definition and timing to moats and founder-market fit. We left you the link in the comments section.

Data from State of Pre-Seed by Carta 👉 https://carta.com/data/state-of-pre-seed-q1-2026-full-report/

26/05/2026

Closing a funding round is not the end goal. It is only one step in the process of building a company that can create meaningful long-term value.

As AI lowers the barriers to building products and launching companies, differentiation goes from ex*****on alone and toward clarity of thinking: understanding the customer, timing, market dynamics, and long-term defensibility.

In our latest article, we break down some of the questions we often ask during a pitching session:

→ Can you describe your customer without describing the market?
→ Can you explain your moat without saying “team,” “speed,” or “first-mover advantage”?
→ Is your “why now” driven by a real trigger or just a trend?
→ Can your market create venture-scale outcomes?
→ Why is your team uniquely built to solve this problem?

As AI lowers the barrier to building products, the quality of a company's thinking becomes even more important.

The companies that stand out are often the ones that understand not only what they are building, but why it matters now, and why they’re the right people to build it. 👉

Raising money is not just about a pitch deck. Understand customer fit, moats, timing, market size, and founder-market fit before your next round. Founders often measure fundraising success by one number: how much capital was raised. Media headlines are often also framed to focus on that: “Startup ...

22/05/2026

AI can generate interfaces in seconds. That’s no longer the hard part.

The real challenge for enterprises is maintaining consistency across massive frontend systems while moving fast.

As AI-assisted development scales, companies are running into familiar problems:

👉🏻 fragmented UI ecosystems
👉🏻 duplicated components
👉🏻 governance and security constraints
👉🏻 growing maintenance complexity

This is why the market is evolving beyond simple design-to-code tools toward reusable AI-native infrastructure - trends that we explore in this month’s newsletter:

→ what’s changing in enterprise UI development
→ why system-aware infrastructure matters
→ and why we invested in DesignVerse

At GapMinder, we believe durable value in AI development will come from deep integration into how enterprises already design, build, and operate software.

📩 Subscribe here to read the full edition:

Get exclusive insights on CEE startups, tech trends, and funding strategies to scale your business globally.

20/05/2026

The CEE startup ecosystem is no longer an emerging market story. It’s a compounding innovation engine.

In 2026, the region reached a record enterprise value of €274B and has now produced nearly 70 unicorns and $1B+ exits.

👉Poland is driving early-stage momentum
👉Estonia and Lithuania are pushing on breakout-stage growth
👉Czechia, Slovakia, and Ukraine are generating late-stage outcomes

Over the last decade, CEE has evolved from producing isolated success stories into building a repeatable ecosystem, one shaped by experienced founders, stronger operator networks, deeper talent pools, and more globally ambitious companies.

This is what gives us conviction in the long-term strength of the region’s tech ecosystem, and keeps us excited about backing the next generation of founders building from CEE.

19/05/2026

AI is changing not only how products are built, but also how teams are organized. We’re moving toward more forward-deployed product and engineering teams that stay much closer to the customer environment.

Iteration cycles happen faster. Customer feedback comes in real time.

Which means companies need tighter loops between building, testing, and deployment. That’s why more startups are moving toward smaller, highly integrated teams that stay close to the customer context and iterate continuously.

As Andrei Manolache, founder of DesignVerse, points out in our latest article, some of the most valuable product insights only appear after deployment, when teams can observe how users actually behave inside real workflows.

We explore these changes in more detail in our latest article on product-market fit in the age of AI.

14/05/2026

Europe’s seed market is getting more selective. In Q1 2026, seed funding reached $3.1B across 790+ deals.

More capital. Fewer rounds.

Investors are still active, but they are concentrating capital into a smaller number of startups. From our perspective at GapMinder, seed today rewards clarity and conviction, and founders need to show:

👉 a real pain point
👉 strong early traction
👉 clear ex*****on speed
👉 a market worth building in

We’ve talked about this in our latest newsletter, where we go deeper into these trends and what they mean for founders actively raising this year.

13/05/2026

Breaking News! 🚀 AI startup supporting Europe’s air traffic management software upgrade, DesignVerse, raises $5.5m to scale its next-generation AI-powered mission-critical enterprise software development products.

Romanian founders building globally relevant AI infrastructure. Exactly the kind of ambition we love to support!

Today, we’re proud to back DesignVerse as one of the investors in its $5.5M seed round, alongside Begin Capital and Underline Ventures, as well as strategic angel investors from companies including Adobe, LSEG, and UiPath.

Founded by Andrei Manolache and Robert Drăguțoiu, DesignVerse is building AI-powered infrastructure that helps enterprises modernise complex software systems faster, safer, and at scale.

What stands out is the real-world impact already delivered: the team helped modernise a 15-year-old EUROCONTROL application in just over one month — compared to an estimated six months using conventional methods. Today, software generated with DesignVerse supports aviation systems used across European airports and air traffic control operations.

Congratulations to the entire DesignVerse team! We’re excited for what’s ahead!

Read more here: https://tech.eu/2026/05/13/romanian-designverse-raises-55m-to-modernise-legacy-enterprise-software/

DesignVerse is developing AI software tools for organisations running complex legacy systems, helping enterprises modernise critical infrastructure faster while maintaining reliability, security and compliance.