STRT Invest

Global edtech venture funding remains roughly 89% below its 2021 peak, with H1 2026 capital deployment still down 26% year-over-year. As the pandemic-era hype cycle clears out temporary market entrants, institutional capital is strictly consolidating around resilient platforms with proven unit economics, classroom distribution, regulatory compliance, and defensible IP.

Four Hungarian-founded companies—BOOKR Kids, imagi Labs, Redmenta, and Logiscool—exemplify this post-correction flight to quality:

BOOKR Kids: Built on a decade of proprietary pedagogical content, its AI-supported English learning platform operates across 30 countries. The firm recently secured a €6.1M Series A led by 3TS Syndicate, supported by a 97% educator retention rate and official inclusion in Hungary's state textbook-ordering catalog.

imagi: Transitioning into US K–12 AI-literacy infrastructure, the company closed a €4M seed round in July 2026 led by Brighteye Ventures and Day One Capital, recording 30x user growth across 100+ US school districts.

Redmenta: Honored with back-to-back Bett Awards (2024–2025), its adaptive assessment platform serves over 200,000 monthly active students integrated across major enterprise LMS platforms.

Logiscool: Operating across 360+ global franchise locations, its accredited AI modules are directly integrated into public curricula in Hungary and qualify for EU-funded teacher training pools in Romania.

Why are institutional investors returning to edtech? Read Peter Langmar’s deep dive into the post-crash landscape and the four companies leading the shift:
https://strtinvest.com/after-the-crash-how-four-hungarian-edtech-companies-became-the-ones-investors-trust-again/

Excited to share that our Co-Founder & Investment Director, Peter Langmar, will be speaking on the Main Stage at the upcoming Startup Revolution Summit (Startup Club Skopje) in Skopje! 🚀

Péter will be joining leaders and investors across the region to share insights on investment trends, high-potential sectors, and where the smart capital is heading next.

The event brings together 400+ startups, 100+ speakers, and investors driving the region's tech ecosystem.

📍 When: October 1–4, 2026
📍 Where: Skopje, North Macedonia

Looking forward to great conversations, deal-making, and impactful connections!

See you in Skopje! 👇
Learn more & get your passes: https://startuprevolution.ai

Bridging CEE Innovation with Global Capital: Highlights from 0100 Conference Day Zero

Yesterday, we had the privilege of hosting the official Day Zero of the 0100 Emerging Europe Conference in Budapest!

Gathering global LPs, Family Office leaders, and international VC partners, we kicked off the conference with an exclusive afternoon dedicated to one central question: "Hungary: From Unbankable to Investable."

The core message of the afternoon was clear: Hungary is undergoing an active transformation of its legal and economic environment. We are actively establishing long-term predictability, strengthening institutional stability, and building a truly startup-friendly framework designed to foster innovation and protect international capital.

💡 Key Takeaways & Session Highlights:
The Transformation Thesis: Péter Balogh (CEO, STRT Holding) opened the event by outlining how active structural shifts and policy evolution are turning Hungary into a transparent, predictable market for global investors.
A Startup-Friendly & Predictable Landscape: Marcell Németh (HIPA) alongside Ákos Janza and Michael Carlson (AmCham Hungary) detailed the concrete economic and legal reforms aimed at creating a stable, predictable, and supportive operational environment for tech ventures.

Capital Markets & Institutional Readiness: Tibor Tóth (Budapest Stock Exchange), Krisztián Orbán (Oriens), and Tamás Cser (HOLD) provided sharp analyses on market liquidity, public equity access, and value creation within this reforming economic ecosystem.

Global Scaling in Action: Dr. István Peták showcased Genomate Health, proving how a strong, predictable local foundation enables deep-tech innovations to scale globally alongside institutions like Mayo Clinic and Institut Curie.
🤝 Building the Gateway to CEE Tech

At STRT Invest, our mission is to serve as the premier, liquid bridge between international investors and high-growth CEE startups within this newly structured, predictable market landscape.

A sincere thank you to our co-hosts at 0100 Conferences, our distinguished speakers, and every international investor who joined us. Following a successful main conference day today, we look forward to turning these conversations into lasting partnerships!

Forget rigid conference halls and rushed networking. Last weekend, Roland Kovács represented STRT Invest in the Moldovan countryside at TechVillage, and it was everything a great startup-investor retreat should be. 🚗📦

30 AI-first founders, 30 active investors, and two days of genuine, unscripted conversations. Beyond the focused 20-minute Investment Stage sessions, the formal setup was quickly traded for shared laughs and hands-on team building.

When was the last time you built a soapbox car out of cardboard alongside founders and fellow VCs? Racing handmade cardboard cars through the village created the kind of relaxed, authentic environment where real trust and meaningful connections actually happen. 🏁

A huge thank you to TechVillage for having us, and special appreciation to XY Partners, Renata Ungureanu, and Mihaela Costin. The care and thoughtfulness behind these two days showed in every single detail.

Roland returned with a much clearer picture of regional AI innovation and a CEE network that is meaningfully deeper than it was a week ago. Proof that the best business conversations happen when everyone leaves the usual corporate noise behind.

This is what speedmentoring looks like at STRT. Every founder gets a focused block with one mentor, then moves on to the next room. Fundraising in one, B2B sales in the next, org development after that. Three hours, and nobody walks out with the same to-do list they walked in with.

The part we did not plan for is how often the most useful sentence of the afternoon was not advice at all. It was someone who had already solved the exact same problem saying which half of it was worth solving.

Thank you to every founder who showed up with real questions, and to the mentors who gave their afternoon to answering them.

From early-stage vision to global educational impact! 🌍💡

When we first invested in imagi, BOOKR Kids, Redmenta, and Logiscool, the world was a very different place. We didn't wait for the AI wave to hit before backing them—we believed in their core pedagogical mission and long-term vision from day one.
Today, seeing them blossom into global market leaders driving tangible social change is nothing short of incredible:

✨ imagi: Closed a $4.5M round; teaching safe AI & coding to 700k+ students and 30k teachers in 140+ countries.
📚 BOOKR Kids: Secured €6.1M in Series A funding, bringing interactive language learning to 600k users across 30 countries.
🚀 Redmenta: Named among Europe’s Top 10 EdTech startups, scaling AI tools that support local curricula and preserve teacher IP.
💻 Logiscool: Teaching digital intelligence across 350+ locations in 30+ countries, with coursework now integrated directly into public school programs.

Stronger Together 🤝 What makes us proudest isn't just the numbers—it's how our portfolio ecosystem collaborates. These founders recently came together to draft a groundbreaking 6-pillar EdTech Manifesto, presenting it to government decision-makers to ensure AI in schools protects critical thinking, supports teachers, and closes learning gaps.

Financial growth is vital, but shaping the next generation’s future? That’s real impact.
Check out the full story on Economx 👇

https://www.economx.hu/mesterseges-intelligencia/2026/09/21/edtech-oktatas-strt-mesterseges-intelligencia/

Dollármilliók érkeztek a magyar edtechbe, most az oktatási rendszert is átalakítanák Több magyar oktatástechnológiai vállalkozás is jelentős nemzetközi tőkét vont be a nyáron, miközben a világ edtechpiaca még mindig a járvány alatti befektetési láz utáni kijózanodását éli. Az imagi, a BOOKR Kids, a Redmenta és a Logiscool vezetői szerint azonban az igazi tét...

Multiples just published their VC Hall of Fame list, highlighting the ten most active venture investors of the last decade. Three of the top four funds on this list—Y Combinator, Techstars, and 500 Global—are partners we have already co-invested with.

At STRT Invest, our mission is to support founders starting from the CEE region, and this is exactly the room we set out to be in when we launched. Coming from Budapest, it was far from an obvious ambition, but investing alongside the world's most active VCs proves that our region's talent can compete on a global scale.