Vestbee's annual invitation-only summit for venture capital fund managers and LPs active across Central and Eastern Europe, held each spring in Warsaw.
The CEE VC Summit is an annual, invitation-only gathering organised by Vestbee for venture capital fund managers and institutional investors active in Central and Eastern Europe. Running for two days each spring in Warsaw, it combines a data-driven programme, anchored by the annual Dealroom CEE market report, with structured networking between GPs, LPs, and the broader investor support infrastructure. Attendance is controlled to preserve the quality of interaction: the 2025 edition drew over 250 fund managers from across Europe and beyond.
CEE has become one of Europe's fastest-growing areas for early-stage investment. The region counted over 3,800 startups and 275 scaleups as of the 2025 Dealroom report released at the summit, with strong concentration in AI, fintech, and energy technology. Total capital deployed into CEE startups has grown steadily over the past five years, driven by a combination of EU structural fund co-investment programmes, increasing activity from pan-European VCs, and the maturation of domestic fund managers across Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and the Baltic states.
Poland anchors the regional market. Warsaw functions as the primary hub for fund formation and LP relations in CEE, with PFR Ventures acting as the principal domestic fund-of-funds alongside EU-backed vehicles such as the European Investment Fund. The Polish startup base has produced a growing number of internationally competitive companies, and the country's legal and financial infrastructure now supports GP operations that would previously have required a Western European base.
The structural challenge that shapes the summit's agenda is a persistent gap between the depth of the regional deal pipeline and the availability of growth and late-stage capital. Exit pathways remain limited relative to Western Europe: M&A activity is the dominant route, with public market exits rare. This gap between early-stage vitality and exit maturity is a recurring topic in programme panels and shapes the LP evaluation questions that define the networking dynamic at the event.
The summit's invitation-only model produces an attendee mix concentrated at the practitioner level. The majority of attendees are managing partners and investment professionals at CEE-based VC funds, ranging from sub-50m EUR seed vehicles to regional growth funds operating across multiple countries. A second group comprises international VCs, principally from Northern and Western Europe, who have made or are considering commitments to CEE managers or portfolios. Speaker representation from firms such as Isomer Capital, Creandum, Molten Ventures, EQT Partners, Speedinvest, Earlybird, and Point Nine reflects this international presence.
On the LP side, attendance is selective: institutional investors evaluating emerging managers in CEE, family offices with Eastern European exposure, and fund-of-funds with dedicated allocation to the region. PFR Ventures and the European Investment Fund appear as institutional partners and speakers, giving the event an official anchoring in the public co-investment architecture of the Polish market. Founders are not the primary audience: this is a fund-manager and investor event, not a startup pitch conference.
The two-day programme follows a consistent structure across editions. Day 1 opens with the public release of the Dealroom CEE market report, providing shared data benchmarks for the discussions that follow. Sessions cover the structural positioning of CEE within European venture capital, debates on whether the region has moved past "emerging market" framing, and the barriers preventing more CEE companies from scaling globally. Themed sessions have included seed capital dynamics, unicorn-building conditions, and emerging GP manager development.
Day 2 has consistently addressed asset-class-level questions: exit strategies and liquidity mechanisms, LP frameworks for evaluating early-stage managers, deeptech and dual-use technology investment, and the relationship between angel networks and institutional VC. The 2025 edition included a dedicated session on defence and dual-use technology reflecting growing European attention to the sector.
Networking runs throughout both days, with a formal investor dinner on the evening of Day 1. Structured 1:1 meeting formats are available alongside open networking, consistent with Vestbee's positioning as a matchmaking platform.
Vestbee is a matchmaking and collaboration platform for startups, VC funds, accelerators, and corporates operating primarily in Europe. Its core product connects early-stage companies with relevant investors and provides fund managers with deal flow and co-investment tools. The CEE VC Summit is the company's flagship event, but Vestbee also publishes a regular events calendar, market analysis, and investor databases covering the CEE region. The company is led by Ewa Chronowska, who also serves as General Partner at Next Road Ventures.
The summit is oriented toward venture capital: seed and early growth stage, fund sizes typically below 200m EUR, and the GP community associated with startup investing. Growth equity and buyout PE are not the focus. Some sessions address growth capital as a structural gap in the CEE market, but the attendee base and speaker programme are drawn from the VC and startup investment community rather than from private equity more broadly.
Warsaw combines the largest domestic LP base in the region, including PFR Ventures and institutional investors such as PZU Group, with the highest concentration of active VC fund managers in Central Europe. Poland's government-backed venture programme, operating through PFR Ventures and BGK co-investment vehicles, has built a substantial ecosystem of domestic fund managers over the past decade. The city also provides practical infrastructure: direct air connections to all major European financial centres, a developed conference venue supply, and a corporate legal community experienced in fund structuring.
The summit is a poor fit for Western European or North American private equity firms with no CEE allocation thesis, for investors focused exclusively on Southern or Northern Europe, and for anyone seeking a broad pan-European LP-GP event covering multiple geographies. Because access is invitation-only and the programming is specific to the CEE VC market, generalist investors benchmarking Europe broadly would find more relevant content at events such as SuperReturn or IPEM. Founders seeking pitch access should not expect this format.
Vestbee was founded as a platform to address the structural fragmentation of the CEE startup and venture capital market: many fund managers, many startup hubs, and historically limited cross-border connectivity. The company builds software tools for dealflow management, fund-startup matchmaking, and co-investment coordination, and has developed an editorial and data arm publishing investor databases, market reports, and event listings for the CEE region.
The CEE VC Summit reflects Vestbee's positioning as infrastructure for the regional VC community rather than a pure event organiser. By anchoring the summit with the Dealroom data release and maintaining a curated, invitation-only format, Vestbee controls the quality of interaction and preserves the event's value for practitioners who attend primarily for peer-to-peer access rather than programmatic content. Vestbee also publishes an annual list of must-attend VC events across Europe, reinforcing its role as a directory and reference point for the asset class.
The CEE VC Summit has succeeded in becoming the region's reference point for fund-manager networking, which is a significant achievement given that Warsaw is not Berlin or London. The invitation-only format and the Dealroom data anchor give it intellectual credibility that separates it from generic networking conferences. The more interesting question is whether LP depth is keeping pace with GP supply: CEE has produced a generation of capable early-stage managers, but institutional LP allocation to the region remains thin outside of EU co-investment vehicles. If the summit is doing its job, that gap should be narrowing. The 2025 edition's focus on exit strategies and LP evaluation frameworks suggests the community is asking the right questions.
The summit operates on an invitation-only basis. Applications for each edition open via a waitlist form on the Vestbee website, with the 2027 edition waitlist already open as of May 2026. There is no public pricing disclosed on the official event page. Admission decisions appear to be based on professional profile rather than payment, consistent with a format where attendance quality is the primary value proposition.
Pricing is not disclosed as of verification. The invitation-only model suggests that admission is selective and possibly free or subsidised for qualifying LPs, as is common in formats designed to attract institutional capital. Specific terms are not published publicly and would need to be confirmed through the application process.
The specific venue address is not disclosed on the official event page as of verification. All editions have been held in Warsaw. Attendees receive venue details after their application is accepted.
| Official website | https://www.vestbee.com/cee-vc-summit |
| 2027 waitlist | https://forms.gle/7M7B3MyeSe7K15R37 |
| Vestbee platform | https://www.vestbee.com |
| 2025 summit reportage | https://www.vestbee.com/insights/articles/cee-vc-summit-2025-reportage |