Startup Wise Guys: New Accelerator With Ties To The #BalticMafia
(Article edited to correct that Wiseguys does take 8% equity)
Hot and fresh out of an event in Riga is a new Tallinn based accelerator: Startup Wise Guys. The accelerator is built in the modified Y Combinator model with a similar setup to Startup Sauna in Finland. Getting accelerated involves a 13 week program, demo day in Tallinn and London, and €5000 of funding per founder for 8% of equity. To build some hype, Wise Guys is also offering €500 for any startup referral that makes it into the program (this is my get rich quick scheme-- you heard it here first). The application process is open from 9th of February until 11th of March and the program starts on 25th of April.
ArcticEvening Tallinn - 1st of March, 2012
We're back with organising ArcticEvenings! This year we'll do altogether six ArcticEvenings and our annual Arctic15 conference (more on the other events soon). We will kick off our events this year with ArcticEvening Tallinn on Thursday, the 1st of March. Our theme for the event is startup metrics. We also have a really good speaker coming to present his view on startup metrics - William Wolfram of DealDash. We recently interviewed him on Unfair Advantage about the metrics they use in DealDash. Back then he said they are obsessed with metrics and data. I'm sure there will be more interesting things to hear and ask William on stage.
Fits.me Raises Seven Figures To Expand Their Virtual Fitting Room
Fits.me, the virtual fitting room, has announced it has raised "seven figures" from the Entrepreneurs' Fund, a London-based venture capital fund. The investment will be used to accelerate the delivery of virtual fitting room services, as well as to provide additional sales and marketing resources to fuel Fits.me’s growth. Along with the investment, Fits.me is moving its management to London while engineering, operations, and production will remain in Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia.
Pult, Trainingbook, Zonear Selected For Seedcamp London
Seedcamp London is kicking off this week, and with it they announced for this round they've received a record number of applications and are hosting a record number of teams. For those who aren't familiar with the program, Seedcamp is a European startup incubator that employs many of the same principles as Silicon Valley's famous Y Combinator startup incubator. Of the selected 22 companies, Finland, Estonia, and Latvia are each represented with one company who will compete to win the London event. Winners will receive a year long support with mentors, and Seedcamp will invest around €50000 for 8-10% in the winning companies.
Startup Incubator Begins Accepting Applications In Estonia
Startup Incubator, a new program aimed at helping startups, has spun off from Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol and begun accepting applications. The program is named Startup Incubator and it was set apart to serve startups better in a more focused way. The new program officially launched towards the end of January and they are now accepting applications from ambitious startups and teams. The takeaway for entrepreneurs is that they're give more resources, coaching advice and seed capital.
GrabCAD Closes $4 Million Series A Financing
GrabCAD has closed a $4 million in Round A financing led by Matrix Partners. This is in addition to their seed round of $1.1 million they closed in June 2011. Other existing investors in GrabCAD participated in the round. According to Hardi Meybaum, the CEO and Co-Founder of GrabCAD, the investment will be used to improve the community and product at large.
Garage48's 2011 Infographic
Garage48 from Estonia had a growing year of events and other activities to keep it busy. The non-profit organisation organised events in eight countries, on two continents. I participated in their Helsinki event almost a year ago. Here's our post on it with a couple of separate updates.
Estonia-based Creative Mobile Scores Big With Drag Racing Game
The Estonian startup scene isn’t exactly known for its mobile game developers, but Tallinn-based Creative Mobile is doing its best to rectify the situation. Founded in 2010, the company is the developer of freemium hit Drag Racing, a simple but addictive online racing game for Android and iOS that has garnered over 31 million downloads to date.
New Year’s Resolutions For Startups - Less Is More
Editorial note: This is a guest post by Urmas Purde, the co-founder of the Estonian originated Pipedrive.
It’s that time of year again. Many of us are looking back at 2011 and plotting what to do differently next year. While there’s no doubt planning is a good thing, there’s a little something to keep in mind, especially if you’re working at startup pace.
I think it’s safe to say that in almost every startup there are always more things to be done than there are available people and resources. We’re constantly juggling with one or two balls too many, and it can be stressful keeping them all in the air. So when the time to reflect and plan comes, it’s very tempting to take the advice of time management gurus and write all to do’s on one sheet of paper. In theory this works well - the list in prioritized and all one has to do is tick things off the list, one by one. Plus this should create the feeling that juggling is now more under control.
Estonian Master’s Degree Programme Focuses On Tech Entrepreneurship
Do you dream about creating your own digital startup but lack the business know-how to get everything going? Then an international master’s degree programme in Design and Development of Virtual Environments (DDVE) may just be the thing for you.
DDVE is a new inter-discliplinary initiative at the University of Tartu in Estonia that combines three key study areas; design, business and ICT. Taught in English, the two-year programme provides students with advanced skills in entrepreneurship for creating innovative digital products and services.
Saying Something Over And Over Again Doesn't Make It So
Om Malik, the founder of GigaOm was speaking in Helsinki to a room of media representatives yesterday morning at the Aalto Venture Garage. His visit to Finland is part of a tour to come understand the companies and environment the local startups work in. Before Helsinki, he had visited Berlin and the LeWeb conference in Paris. I managed to talk to Malik about the way he sees these entrepreneurial hubs.
The big part of our discussion circled around the fact that people in Europe always look up to Silicon Valley and how they succeed in everything they do, while failing to see all the potential in front of their eyes. I have to say, while I knowledge the value Silicon Valley has on companies - I wonder how much possibility is wasted when following a given path without truly thinking of the possibilities closer to you. After all, Rovio didn't go to Silicon Valley to succeed - it all started with an innocent tweet by a Swedish athlete in the Nordics (going international I mean).
ZeroTurnaround Ending A Great Year With Visit By Estonian President
Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves dropped by the ZeroTurnaround office the other day to acknowledge their contributions to the Estonian economy and to help promote and bring awareness to Estonia's IT sector. President Ilves knows a thing or two about the impact of technology and startups-- he was largely instrumental in the "E-estonia" re-wiring that seeks to promote the nation as an innovation hotbed.
Since the last time we've covered ZeroTurnaround, they've won three awards in a single year: the JAX Innovation Award, Duke’s Choice Award and the Estonian Innovator of the Year Award. And they've grown the team size by 250% in 2011 alone.
Qminder Becomes The Second Garage48 Startup To Join Seedcamp
Garage48 Tartu winner Qminder became part of the Seedcamp family last week after winning a Mini Seedcamp event in Prague. Qminder is the second team from the 48-hour hackathon to join the prestigious startup accelerator program in a short period of time.
Fortumo Releases HTML5 In-App Payments
On Monday Fortumo, the company probably best known for its in-app purchasing provider for Android developers, released an API for cross platform HTML5-supported mobile payments. This will allow app and game developers to easily integrate in-app payments for any mobile HTML5 based application. The service allows billing to customers' phone bills, which can open up a whole range of new customers who don't have credit cards.
In Depth Analysis Into The Daily Deals Market In The Baltics
Update (3.11.2011): We've updated the information regarding Estonia to better reflect the market situation. After analysing a 3rd party data source (Refresh.lv) we realised Zizu's figures were wrong. They are now portrayed correctly in the data below. Please note that we have not changed the overall market situation of the Baltics, even though it would change slightly due to the change in figures from Estonia. Samad Mukhamedov from Zizu Project contacted us and we've discussed this over e-mail. According to their figures, they are number 2 in the Baltics in September, but due to the sheer difference in figures between Cherry's and those of the research site Refresh.lv's we are unable to replicate this. However, we wanted to bring this up as to make the figures as transparent as possible.
This post is a very comprehensive look into the daily deals, group buying market in the Baltics. We've also talked to the market leader, Cherry Media Group about the situation on the market and how they see it develop in the future. Despite being a fairly established trend in the world of e-commerce, the daily deals industry is far from saturated in the Baltics, but we're going to see consolidation among the players in the future. Cherry Media Group is the largest player in the market by far. According to calculations from the company themselves (that are available to the public, based on the deals the companies have sold), they have 49% market share in the Baltic market. Cherry Media Group operates in all three, Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian, markets.
300mg Announces Public Beta, Joins 500 Startups
Arctic15 presenter 300milligrams, a priority inbox for team conversations, is opening its beta to the public today. At the same time, the company is also announcing it has joined the 500 Startups accelerator. 300milligrams is a productivity focusing tool that centralizes and prioritizes work-related team conversations into one place.
"Email, IM, feeds are full of noise," says founder Mark Kofman, "No wonder you keep missing important team conversations in between off-topic discussions and spam."
CrowdIPR Seeks To Crowdsource The Patent Process
While the increasing number of innovations from small R&D companies have made our lives easier, the process to legally register new products has become much more complex. Between 2003 and 2008 the number of patent filings has nearly doubled to 6.37 million filings per year, making it difficult for companies to research prior art before filing their patent application.
Some online tools like Google Patents have made aspects of this process easier and cheaper, but still lack the depth and quality of an expensive patent lawyer. The Estonian startup, CrowdIPR, seeks to bridge this gap by introducing crowdsourced knowledge from technology experts into this specialized area.
Utopic Re-Focuses On Visual Bookmarking And Content Discovery
Utopic, a service created by Estonian Jüri Kaljundi and his team, started off as a way to understand what your friends are sharing online. This was back in March and there's a blog to remind us. I remember talking to Kaljundi back then and it was also a time when similar products were on the market, mainly from the US. It's refreshing to see the new direction of Utopic though - one that focuses on visual bookmarking and content discovery.
It's important to note the difference, even though one could argue that "you could already do this with the previous iteration of the service". It's not what you're able to do with the service, but what it aims to become. It's true, but the new UI and approach the service takes, makes the experience a lot more enjoyable.
Zerply Adds Premium Themes
We reviewed Zerply a few months back, calling it the next generation professional network. We weren’t wrong as the recent flare in its usage has been immense, maybe we are following all those who are part of Zerply, but we see the name more often in our timeline. The professional network is beginning to monetize its platform and has taken another step towards it with its premium themes.
Its growing catalog added themes from Mike Kus, a renowned web designer and another one by Kyle Steed. The theme by Mike Kus is sleek and offers a quick overview of your social links and contact information on the top. In short where it matters the most.
Three Events To Watch: StartupGarage + Goto Conf + Slush
Every now and then we highlight a few good events people should attend to make the most of their networking, business opportunities or learning new things. There are three good conferences we believe people should watch in the coming month or so. They are Goto Conference organised in Aarhus, Denmark, Slush organised in Helsinki, Finland and StartupGarage -event organised in Tallinn, Estonia. All slightly different, but surely worth your time to check them out if they're of interest to you. Below's a short break down of each event.
When A Blog Post Won't Do Justice
Even though this blog post will most likely be a feeble attempt in covering the importance and the effect of Steve Blank's visit to Finland and the region last week - I'll still have an attempt at it. Last week was packed full of action and discussion where Steve Blank talked not only with entrepreneurs but politicians, MPs and academia. He also upped entrepreneurship a few notches on the editorial importance for some of Finland's newspapers as he talked to a group of editors-in-chief (including us) why entrepreneurship is of vital importance to nations' success.
Steve Blank was visiting Finland last week to promote the importance of a working entrepreneurial ecosystem to the region. I have a feeling his visit will go down in one of those turning points in history for this part of the world. Not only did he incite more flames into the "Finnish spring" as he referred to the entrepreneurial revolution taking place in Finland, but he did so in a manner that politicians, mainstream media and academics can understand.
Here They Are: Arctic15 Finalists
It's been a tough run up to the Arctic15 conference for startups competing for the chance to pitch on stage. The finalists have now been chosen by the secret jury and they are listed below. Close to 100 companies applied to the competition by the end of July and over the course of August 33 companies made the so called semi-finals and from those, 15 companies came out on top as finalists. The 15 finalists were chosen from video pitches the companies made. This is for two reasons. First, we wanted the companies to have good products and secondly, they would also have to be good in selling and explaining those products.
Qminder Wins Garage48 Tartu
Last weekend, another 48-hour developing competition was held in Tartu. The Garage48 event saw lots of interesting projects being pitched, planned and completed. Yet again, looking at the summary of the projects - Garage48's attendants showed they have what it takes to become an entrepreneur. Not only are the ideas worthwhile executing, some of them managed to gain traction over the weekend already.
Erply Introduces NFC Enabled Magnetic Card Reader
Erply, one of the most promising start-ups from Estonia, provide software for small and medium-sized retailers who have physical stores. We have not covered the company for almost a year and meanwhile it has been quitely growing. From 2,000 business customers in March 2010, the company grew to 20,000 retailers who daily process over $2.5 million in transactions, according to the Wall Street Journal. Today Erply announced the launch of a magnetic credit card reader that is also NFC-enabled and is fully integrated with its existing cloud-based software. The device is priced at $50 and Erply will also charge 1.9% transaction fee, which is smaller than what its biggest competitor in the US, Square, charge their customers (2.75% per swipe).
Skype Acquires GroupMe For $85 Million
Skype, now owned by Microsoft, has announced that it will acquire GroupMe, a 16-month old group messaging startup for $85 million. There are no public statements on the price of the deal, but AllThingsD has come up with the figure referring to sources close to the negotiations. The startup was founded based on work done in a hackathon at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York in May 2010. During the 16 months of its existence, GroupMe has raised $850 000 in seed financing and later $10.6 million in venture financing. Needless to say, the payout for the investment in such a short time period is fantastic.
Link: Lessons Learned About Raising Money In The US
Hardi Meybaum, one of the co-founders of GrabCAD, gave an interesting talk at Garage48 HUB last week in Tallinn on how to raise money in the US. He also explains a few of his lessons learned in doing so in a short presentation found in the blog post on Garage48 blog.
Hardi drew three rows on the wall “This is what it all depends: social traction, product traction and team traction. If you want to raise money in US, you need to develop 3 things: your network, your product and your team.”
Link: GrabCAD and Hardi Meybaum: Lessons to learn about raising money in the US.
Flockler, Hitlantis Victorious In Tallinn Pitch Competition
We organized an elevator pitch competition the other week as part of the International Technology Law Association's Fourth Annual Baltic Conference. It was the third year in a row we have thrown the pitch competition. This year we had five companies (introduced below) taking part. Flockler emerged as the winner, and the runner-up position was grabbed by Hitlantis by Cognitive Maps Ltd.
The winners and the other finalists (not in any particular order):
Fits.me Announces Fembots
Fits.me, the Estonian company that is building a new way to help online retailers sell clothes, has announced the female shaped robot. The robot, which is used to photograph the merchandise an online retailer is selling, will essentially drive up sales as customers are able to see how different sized clothes fit different sized people.
Flirtic Raises Funding From Almaz Capital
The news today and this week seem to be all about Estonia and for a great reason too! Flirtic, another Estonain company is flying high - they have raised funding from Almaz Capital, a Russian VC firm. Flirtic is a new approach to online dating. It borrows a lot from social networks in terms of usability, but puts all this into an online dating context.
GrabCAD Scores A $1.1 Million In Funding
GrabCAD, one of the hot startups currently coming out from Estonia, has announced that they have landed a $1.1 million in funding from top-tier investors. Matrix Partners, Atlas Venture, Next View Ventures and angels John McEleney, Alex Ott, Angus Davis and Jon Stevenson invested into the company. GrabCAD has been a very active startup in the recent year or so as they've both taken part in Seedcamp, but also the TechStars programs.
