Adrian Ispas

We lost government contracts in H2 2025 at Vatis Tech.

But we reached break-even anyway. Here's the full breakdown:

During the second half of last year, our governmental contracts stopped renewing. Budget constraints hit hard and MRR dropped for the first time in 5 years.

We adapted fast and tried to recover from private sector, so we doubled down on private customers, especially media monitoring companies. They started growing with us and we recovered the lost revenue.

By end of 2025: 100 customers, €228k ARR (€19k MRR), and €203k in revenue. That's 23% growth year over year.

What kept us going:
- One company switched completely from our $100M VC-backed competitor to us, doubled their spending (€700→€1,400/month)
- Another one is scaling from 7,000 to 10,000 hours per month
- 0% churn from media monitoring companies
- We also launched Brewbrand this year. 30 customers and profitable from month one.
- Our self-service transcription app also grew 15% year over year from €29,106 to €33,337.

The reality is we had to make hard decisions to stay break-even.

Team down to 4 FTE and more contractors.

But in November, we hit break-even. And stayed there.

For 2026: targeting €0.5-€1M ARR while staying profitable. No big team expansion. Just focused growth on what's working.

Still lean. Still profitable. We'll see if we get there.

CEO @ Vatis Tech & Brewbrand | LinkedIn posts that sound like you, not AI | Helping startup founders to go from idea to $1M ARR.

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.

Bogdan Iordache

After 2 months of intensive work, the How to Web team has put together the  most detailed report about the venture capital landscape in Eastern Europe in 2025.  

A few major trends stand out:

1/ same volume of invested capital, fewer investments - investors chase fewer deals with larger tickets; winners raise at a premium, while the rest of the market is fighting for survival 

2/ a significant volume of early-stage investments in robotics, defence, and also enterprise AI; we'll see the results of these investments in the coming years.

On a country-by-country basis, the investment volume continues to heavily depend on outliers and governmental or European programs, which are not necessarily correlated.  

2025 was won by Poland and lost by Turkey, but 2026 might be totally different. 

You can download the report for free, and go through its 100 pages - link in comments.

GP at Underline.vc, Partner at How to Web

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