Underline Ventures

Underline Ventures partners at the earliest stages with Eastern European founders building high-growth startups with global ambitions.

General Partner

How to Web

How to Web is one of the biggest tech conferences in CEE, being organised annually in Bucharest, Romania. Along with the conference we're organising the Startup Spotlight deal making program, gathering some of the most promising early stage startups in the region and beyond.

Partner

During the 2020/2022 pandemic I have helped the team to create new digital products, while temporarily not organizing our flagship conference.

New projects launched:

 - Launch - the founder community - a community dedicated to early stage Romanian founders, providing access to a large network with the best local investors, operators, partners for pilot projects. 

 - Spotlight - annual program and competition dedicated to early stage Eastern European startups. Mentors from Sequoia, Accel, Y Combinator, UiPath, FintechOS, Payhawk and many others. 2021 winner has received a €350.000 investment award.

 - HTW Institute - product education for the new generation of European product professionals. Running workshops and courses with instructors such as Bob Moesta, Ash Maurya, Matt Lerner and many others.

Interim CEO

How to Web (www.howtoweb.co) is a leading European tech & innovation conference, with 2000+ founders and startup-minded operators and developers gathering for inspiration, know-how on how to build tech/digital businesses, products and teams. 

Started in 2010, How to Web is one of the earliest influential startup European events and has accelerated the adoption of the startup culture in CEE and Romania.

Whatever-it-takes

How to Web is the organizer of the How to Web Conference, of the Startup Spotlight orientation program & contest for early stage startups and the editor of the How to Web blog.

CEO, Co-founder

TechAngels

Co-founded the first Romanian business angel network focused on financing tech startups. Serving as board member and evaluting some of the startups that apply for financing. More at www.techangels.ro

Co-founder

Various

Supporting early stage startups in defining their product and business vision and fundraising strategy. Previously mentor for Seedcamp, TechStars London, Eleven Accelerator, Launchub, HackFWD etc.

Startup advisor / angel investor

Gecad Ventures

Gecad Ventures invests in start-up and expansion-phase hi-tech companies from CEE with meaningful prospects of scaling internationally. We are an early investor which provides value by building strong strategic relationships with the founding teams, while supporting them in achieving their business objectives. 

Previously Gecad Group, Gecad Ventures history spans for over 20 years and includes notable exits to Microsoft, Francisco Partners, Naspers, Fitbit.

In charge of setting up sourcing and screening processes for early stage startups in CEE.

TechHub Bucharest

I co-founded TechHub Bucharest, a co-working / community space dedicated to the tech entrepreneurs, developers and professionals in Bucharest.

MVP Angels

MVP Angels is an angel syndicate investing at pre-seed and seed stage in some of the best alumni of the MVP Academy acceleration program. As managing director I am involved in fundraising, pipeline creation, investment decision and post-investment portfolio development.

Managing director

MVP Academy

MVP Academy acceleration program supports exceptional tech founders to develop their startups by helping them define their product and business, build their team, generate early traction and obtain pre-seed or seed financing. MVP Academy alumni have raised a total of more than $2m.

During the years spent at MVP Academy I have held different roles as coach, program director and managing director.

3TS Capital Partners

Identifying early stage companies with experienced teams, consistent growth capacity and ability to quickly scale their business.

Have lead two investments from initial contact to final transaction negotiation:

Green Horse Games -- gaming company developing LigaUltras.com, a fast-growing community-based football game. Served as board member from November 2014 to June 2015. 

123ContactForm -- developers of the https://www.linkedin.com/redir/general-malware-page?url=123ContactForm%2ecom, a form builder SaaS solution for SMEs ranked in top 5 form builder solutions world-wide.

Investment Manager

Conectoo

Conectoo was one of the biggest players on the local market for email marketing services. Conectoo's technology helped enterprise & publishing clients to quickly create and test elaborate newsletters, send them to their subscribers and track their results.

Conectoo was sold in 2014 to Conversion Marketing, one of the leading online marketing agencies in Romania.

CEO, founder

General Partner at Underline Ventures, partnering at the earliest stages with Eastern European founders building high-growth startups with global ambitions.

Founder of the How to Web Conference (www.howtoweb.co), one of Europe’s leading startup and innovation events.

Previously partner with Gecad Ventures, entrepreneur, founded and exited Conectoo, enterprise email marketing service. Also with MVP Academy, MVP Angels, TechHub Bucharest, 3TS Capital Partners.

20 DAYS TO HOW TO WEB 2025 — EVERY END IS A BEGINNING 

As this year’s How to Web is getting closer, I keep thinking about where we are, what we’ve learned, and what is next.

The story of the Romanian tech industry can be told in 5-year cycles (2000-2005: RAV and Bitdefender, 2005-2010: Bitdefender and Avangate, 2010-2015: 3TS, TechAngels, GreenHorse Games, 2015-2020: EIF capital, UiPath, 2020-2025: crowdfunding + private funds, UiPath, Bitdefender, and many emerging companies), and I'm sure one can build similar models for each CEE country.

Every 5 years, founders, developers, entrepreneurs, and investors look at the last cycle and figure out what has worked and what has not, in terms of verticals, investments, types of companies, and, more importantly, what is coming next.

So, what has worked, not worked, and what's next in my opinion?

What has worked and what I've learned:

1/ Romania and CEE have the talent to build high-growth companies - but this is still the exception, not the rule

2/ grit + street smart + customer centric >> a good CV

3/ you need to think big from day one 

4/ what got us here won't necessarily get us there - ex. UiPath vs. BibleChat

5/ product development knowledge, more than commercial knowledge, is extremely scarce 


What has not worked:

1/ investors don't run companies

2/ "buy cheap" is not a valid early-stage investment strategy 

3/ a good pitch is not what makes the difference 

4/ moving from outsourcing to "added value outsourcing" is much harder than many expected

5/ moving from outsourcing to product is even harder


What is next:

1/ AI, AI everywhere - inside tech companies to increase productivity, in their GTM, and most importantly in products addressing new markets

2/ geopolitics will deeply impact tech - the Ukrainian war (defence, space), European sovereignty (chips, infra, manufacturing) etc.

3/ deeper integration in the European ecosystem, for better or worse - higher competitiveness, higher opportunities

4/ and subsequently, a deeper integration with the CEE diaspora

5/ professionalise - or else :) 


What are your thoughts? What has worked, not worked, what's next for you?

See you at How to Web!

Bogdan Iordache

GP at Underline.vc, Partner at How to Web

2 DAYS TO HOW TO WEB -- THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT + HAI MOLDOVA

Some days, it feels like we're close to the end of the world. 

There's war in Ukraine, and nobody seems to be able to stop it. Russia is spreading hatred in Eastern Europe, Western Europe's social model comes to an end, and the USA seems to be close to a civil war. 

Throughout Europe, nationalism is on the rise again, pushing isolationism to the forefront. The EU has promised a common market, but hasn't been able to provide it after years of work. To compete with the USA and China, it needs to become more cohesive, but the future looks bleak.

Believe it or not, we're going to be alright. 

It's not because Europe or the USA is perfect, by no means. But fortunately, democracy and capitalism are antifragile systems that can create new paths forward in the face of any crisis. While China, Russia, are monoliths that are maximising today at the expense of tomorrow. 

Remember the 1920s, when the economic crisis that hit the USA made many Americans believe that Russia's communism was the future. Same in the '50s, when Russia's forced labour camps helped transform it into an industrial superpower at record speed. Watch the Nazis marches in the UK in the '30s and '40s, the country that later withstood Nazism and saved Europe. 

We will rethink, we will act, we will prevail. 

The key to winning the future is quite simple -- faster progress through technology, deeper civic involvement, and a common way forward vs. social media tribalism.

And today, I am sure Moldova will be writing another chapter of the long march of democracy, capitalism, and human rights from West to East. 

Join us to Build the future, si HAI MOLDOVA!

15 DAYS TO HOW TO WEB 2025 - AI, AI EVERYWHERE

AI technology is this decade's transformational force in the tech industry and will impact the way we work and live forever. 

More specifically, integrating LLPs into workflows of all sorts will accelerate human productivity. After these few years of experimentation, we have strongly confirmed use-cases for accelerating software development, improving customer support, expanding go-to-market, and many more. Apart from newcomers, incumbent apps are being retrofitted to benefit from the latest AI developments and to find new growth opportunities. 

At this year's How to Web, AI is the name of the game, with tens of speakers sharing their experience in building AI products or companies, including:

Arne Kittler (Hey Clarity, Product at Heart) - Beyond Autopilot: Intentional Product Leadership in the AI Age [PRODUCT]

Andrew Mende (Booking.com) - How to use LLMs to Create Value at Scale [PRODUCT & UX]

Alice Guo (OpenAI) - AI Beyond the Hype: Building Real Value in Startups and Enterprises [STARTUPS]

Gillian Armstrong (AWS) - From Automation to Autonomy: Building Competitive Advantage with Agentic AI Systems [ENGINEERING]

Tejas Kumar (IBM) - AI Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Extending AI Systems with Model Context Protocol (MCP) [ENGINEERING]

Zoltan Vardy (The Launch Code) - The AI Illusion: Why No Algorithm Can Fix Your B2B Sales [MARKETING & SALES]

Mary Borysova (Amazon) - AI Design and Healthcare: Lessons in Changing Human Behavior [PRODUCT & UX]

Ioana Teleanu (AI-R Design Studio) - No More Tool Overload: Building Your Practical AI Tool Stack for a Setup that Works [PRODUCT & UX]

Romeo Man (MAN.digital) - How to engineer GTM with AI agents [MARKETING & SALES]

+10 panels with investors and founders such as Credo (investors in ElevenLabs), Creandum (investors in Lovable), e2VC (investors in Fal), Seedcamp (investors in Synthesia)

5 DAYS TO HOW TO WEB --> YOUR CUSTOMERS' MONEY ARE THE BEST MONEY + SEND DECKS

How to Web is well-known as a meeting place between founders and investors (and for good reasons). 

But all things considered, your customers' money is the best! So starting with this year, we are introducing How to Web's Sales Track, where you can:

meet sales experts
discuss sales-related topics
see in action how a sales process is being analysed and improved

On the 1st day of How to Web, starting with 12pm, on the Focus Stage, we have 2h packed with sales insights, including live sales advising sessions.

Staring:

Andrei Danescu (Dexory) and Zoltan Vardy (The Launch Code), on
Founder-led sales for discovery and scaling - the Dexory journey

Alexandre Dewez (20VC) and Leonard Eldić (Saastanak), on
Key metrics for efficient sales teams

Emanuel Martonca (Soft Fight) 
Pricing for AI Agents - how pricing is evolving in the era of AI

And, most importantly, TWO sessions with TWO sales experts:

Laurentiu Ghenciu (HatHawk)
Mario Krivokapic (Revenue Architects)

... who will be reviewing live sales decks and processes submitted by you!

So use the link in the comments, and see you at How to Web!

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