For two decades the European venture map was drawn around three cities: London, Berlin, and Paris. Capital flowed where the brand of capital already existed. Central and Eastern Europe was treated as a feeder market — a place where companies were built quietly and then bought, listed, or relocated elsewhere.
That map is wrong. The technical density of CEE today is among the highest in the world. The region produces more STEM graduates per capita than the EU average, and a generation of founders has now scaled companies — UiPath, Bolt, Wise, Skype's legacy across the Baltics, Productboard, Rohlik — without needing to move to London to do it.
What is still missing is patient, conviction capital that meets these founders where they are. Most of the institutional money in the region is either tourist capital — flying in for a hot deal and out again — or local funds with the right relationships but small cheque sizes. The gap in the middle is exactly where Talver invests.
The undervaluation is structural. CEE companies trade at lower entry valuations not because the businesses are weaker, but because the bidding pool is thinner. For an investor willing to live in the region, build local relationships, and write meaningful cheques without forcing a relocation, the entry price is asymmetric to the outcome.
We do not believe CEE will be the next Silicon Valley, and we do not need it to be. We believe it will be exactly what it already is — a region of operators who build serious companies, often profitably, and who reward patient capital. That is the opportunity we are paid to underwrite.