The term startup refers to a company in the first stages of operations. Startups are founded by one or more entrepreneurs who want to develop a product or service for which they believe there is demand. These companies generally start with high costs and limited revenue, which is why they look for capital from a variety of sources such as angel investors, venture capital funds, etc.
The investments into the startups are to develop, and validate a scalable economic model, in the basis of which lays the product/service provided by the company.
Funding of sensor startups and SME companies in the region of Central and Eastern Europe was covered by RVmagnetics in this blog.