OTB Ventures

OTB Ventures invests out of Warsaw into Central and Eastern European deep tech companies, with a thesis built around the conviction that the region produces world-class technical founders who have historically been underfunded relative to their output. The firm has carved out particular strength in federated AI architectures, enterprise automation, and infrastructure software, with healthcare appearing where these capabilities meet life sciences workflows and clinical software.

The core bet is that hard technology built in Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Tallinn, or Bucharest can compete globally if it is matched with capital that understands deep tech timelines. Within healthcare, OTB’s interest is concentrated in AI/ML applications and health IT software where the technical moat is real rather than incidental. The firm is comfortable with longer development cycles and the regulatory friction that comes with selling into healthcare, provided the underlying technology is genuinely differentiated. Federated learning and privacy-preserving AI for medical data sit squarely inside the firm’s articulated focus areas.

OTB writes seed and Series A checks generally between $1M and $5M, with the ability to lead at either stage and to follow on into subsequent rounds. Geographically, the firm is anchored in CEE but will look at companies with strong technical founders from the region operating internationally. The stage focus means OTB expects founding teams to have working technology and at least early commercial validation by the time a check is written, though the firm is willing to engage earlier on technically ambitious projects.

The partnership runs a small, technically literate investment team and decisions are made by partners who are personally accountable for the diligence. That technical depth shows up in how the firm engages with healthcare AI companies: diligence questions tend to focus on model architecture, data pipelines, and defensibility rather than only on commercial metrics, which founders building genuinely novel systems often appreciate.

In working with companies, OTB is most useful for technical introductions, follow-on round structuring, and connecting CEE founders with Western European and US co-investors and customers. The firm has built relationships with growth-stage funds in London, Berlin, and the US that can lead subsequent rounds, and it actively manages those introductions when timing makes sense. On the operational side, OTB is more comfortable advising on hiring and product strategy than on clinical-trial design or specific regulatory pathways, so healthcare founders who need deep medical specialism will need to layer that in through advisors. The fit is strongest for healthcare AI companies with serious technical ambition, founding teams rooted in CEE, and a willingness to spend the time required to build a defensible technology rather than chasing quick commercial wins. Founders should plan for a substantive technical conversation during diligence and should come prepared to defend architectural choices in detail. The firm is less suited to consumer-facing digital health businesses where the moat is brand or distribution.