Despite growing talent and ambition, Eastern Europe’s startup scene faces challenges, including a lack of capital and entrepreneurial experience. While countries like Hungary and Croatia have made significant strides, others in the region still struggle with limited funding and knowledge-sharing. Hungarian investor Peter Balogh believes bridging this gap requires not just investment but also education and mentorship.
As the founder and CEO of STRT Holding, one of the region’s most active early-stage investment firms, Balogh has played a key role in shaping Hungary’s startup ecosystem. Known for his role as a Shark on the Hungarian version of Shark Tank, he is passionate about supporting founders and scaling businesses. IT Logs met with Balogh during Money Motion 2025 to discuss his journey from tech entrepreneur to investor and mentor for up and coming founders from Hungary and the wider region.
IT Logs: You’ve gone from founding and exiting a successful company to investing in others. What made you take this path?
Peter Balogh: For a long time, my goal was to build an internationally successful software company. I started young, worked hard, and eventually, I got there. NNG became a major player, with significant revenue, strong profits, and a team that grew from 4 to over 800 employees. Then, after selling the company, I found myself in a moment of reflection—what’s next?
It took me a while to realize I needed new goals, something bigger than myself. That’s when I recognized my passion for startups and entrepreneurs. They’re the ones driving innovation and economic growth. I wanted to help them succeed, not just in Hungary but across the region. That led me to mentoring, investing, and ultimately, figuring out how to scale the impact of angel investment.
How important is it for successful founders to give back to the startup ecosystem?
Peter Balogh: In Eastern Europe, startups face two big problems: lack of capital and lack of experience. Capital is an issue, but the bigger challenge is knowledge. Many of these countries were under communist rule not that long ago, and there’s still a gap in entrepreneurial mindset and education.
A Hungarian CEO who has spent 30 years building a global company often hesitates to share their insights. They might say, I’m not sure if my experience is worth sharing. Meanwhile, in the U.S., a founder who started their company two weeks ago is already posting about their lessons learned. Even small insights help someone who’s just starting out.
That’s why we focus heavily on knowledge sharing. Last year, we trained over 3,100 entrepreneurs on how to become better CEOs and leaders. We believe this movement—combining education, community-building, and investment—can change the landscape for startups in the region.
Many young founders here learn from VCs or resources from abroad. What do you think about that?
Peter Balogh: The challenge is that a lot of startup advice from the U.S. or Western Europe isn’t directly applicable to Eastern Europe. About half of it is useful, but the other half doesn’t fit our reality.
The business culture, legal frameworks, taxation, and even consumer behavior are different. You can’t just copy Silicon Valley’s playbook. That’s why local knowledge is crucial—we need to develop and share our own startup-building strategies that work in this environment.
I heard you telling a founder about the “beauty of simplicity.” Are Eastern European startups struggling with this?
Peter Balogh: Yes, it’s a common issue. Every startup has an inner complexity—whether it’s in software, biotech, or another field. That complexity is where the value comes from. But the problem is that many founders struggle to translate that into a simple, compelling story.
I use the analogy of a cherry. The inner complexity is the hard pit, but the market success comes from the sweet, simple fruit around it. In Eastern Europe, we tend to invent cherries without the fruit—just the pit. In the U.S., they sometimes make coreless cherries—startups that focus more on selling than on deep innovation.
Richard Feynman once said, If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough. Founders here are often great at building the product but struggle to communicate the value clearly. And if you can’t explain it simply, you can’t sell it.
What types of startups and industries is STRT Holding focusing on?
Peter Balogh: Right now, 80% of our investments are in Hungary, but we’re expanding regionally and globally. About one-third of our investments are in B2B software. We’re particularly strong in edtech and medtech, and recently, we’ve started investing in fintech.
I believe banking is becoming an infrastructure layer, similar to how networking became an infrastructure layer with the internet. The real innovation won’t be just new banking solutions, but entirely new services built on top of this infrastructure—just like how online gaming, streaming, and e-commerce emerged from the internet’s foundation. The next few years will be fascinating to watch.
