CEE Attorneys / Boanță, Gîdei și Asociații Supported Sparking Capital Venture Fund in its investment projects in a diverse portfolio of Romanian start-ups

Bucharest, August 10th 2023 – CEE Attorneys / Boanță, Gîdei și Asociații assisted Sparking Capital Venture Fund in connection with its investments in several Romanian innovative start-ups. Sparking Capital is a closed-end private equity alternative investment fund targeting professional investors, offering them exposure to local companies in fintech, marketing tech, travel tech, property tech, fitness tech, circular economy, marketplaces, entertainment industry, agriculture, etc.

Our law firm provided legal support to the client for: designing the corporate structure to protect the investment fund rights/interests and drafting shareholders agreements, and assisting during negotiation and signing of the transaction documents with the investors/founders/targeted companies. We also provide Sparking Capital Venture Fund with day-to-day legal support on various corporate matters (changes of governance bodies, amendment of by-laws, providing legal opinions etc.).

The investment projects included:

• The Romanian start-up KFactory, a Romanian smart manufacturing platform, who received €600,000 in funding from two new investors, Fortech Investments and SIF Transilvania, who joined Sparking Capital. With this round, KFactory’s total funding reaches €817,500 and supports the company’s scaling and development plans in the DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) market: increasing the partner network and integrations, expanding the platform’s capacity with the aim of increasing operational performance, sustainability and digital knowledge at the factory level.

• The Romanian start-up Bankata, a developer and operator of a digital platform for aggregating and comparing financial and non-financial products. We supported Sparking Capital in drafting and assisting in the 2nd investment round.

• The Romanian start-up Vatis Tech, a business consisting of developing and marketing software designed to translate speech-to-text. Our assistance included revising transaction documents for 1st step of investment round of EUR 0.7 million.

• The Romanian start-up Questo, a platform for self-guided tours, available on web and mobile. We guided our clients through the quasi-equity round of EUR 0.2 million by conclusion of convertible loans.

• Moreover, our team assisted Sparking Capital Ventures Fund in various aspects regarding its status-quo as self-managed alternative investment fund (AIF) registered with the Financial Supervisory Authority of Romania (FSA). A team made up of Partner Radu Boanța and Senior Associate Elena Sopotean provided continuous legal consultancy and representation services before the FSA in connection with drafting, submission and approval of the corporate documents (articles of association, BoD decisions, etc.), necessary for regulatory aspects in relation to FSA.

”We are glad that one of the most active investors in Romania has counted on us in these significant projects, by continuing to support start-ups disruptive business models, which have also leveraged their scaling potential. Our team has been with Romanian start-ups and investors for over a decade, being recognized in the ecosystem as one of the most specialized and experienced advisers in this field. Amidst an accelerated growth of investments in tech start-ups last year, Romania maintains its potential not only in the region but also across the continent, becoming an important hub in terms of start-up growth, business model diversification and funding opportunities. In this context, Romania has become a favourable environment for the rise of new unicorns”, believes Sergiu Gîdei.

The CEE Attorneys / Boanță, Gîdei și Asociații technology and start-up team includes four dedicated lawyers and is led by Krisztina Voicu and Sergiu Gîdei, two of the most experienced lawyers in Romania in this field. Last year, CEE Attorneys / Boanță, Gîdei și Asociații successfully managed about 20 projects in the area of technology and start-ups, with a cumulative valuation of these companies of about € 50 million.