5 Questions with Enis Hulli (500 Istanbul): Romania stands for SaaS
In late 2015, 500 Startups announced the launch of an affiliated fund in Turkey, called 500 Istanbul. 500 Startups already included a network of acceleration programs, series A programs and seed funds, yet this was its first development in Eastern Europe. After 2.5 years since its launched, we’re catching up with Enis Hulli, 500 Startups Venture… Read more »
5 Questions with Raul Popa (TypingDNA): Adding a security blanket to the Internet
TypingDNA, a Romanian born startup and TechStars NY alumni, is one of the most exciting players in the typing biometrics space, with one of the most accurate and easy to use technologies available today. The two-factor authentication (2FA) market rose to an estimated value of 10 billion dollars in just five short years and is projected to… Read more »
5 Questions With Dan Mihaescu (GapMinder Venture Partners): “We fill in a critical investment gap”
In early January 2018, GapMinder Venture Partners announced it was open for business, targeting to invest EUR 26m in early stage technology companies in Central Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on Romania’s developing tech scene. The fund is led by Dan Mihaescu as Founding Partner, a well-known investor in a number of high tech start-ups with a deep knowledge of… Read more »
5 Questions With Ciprian Borodescu (Appticles): Building the future of news interfaces in partnership with Google Digital News Initiative
In December 2017, Appticles announced the winning of a $50k grant from the Google Digital News Initiative, in support of building their new product, MorphL – AI-driven UI. Ciprian and Alexandra, Appticles’s founders, are well-known figures in the Romanian startup ecosystem – first Romanian entrepreneurs to join Startup Bootcamp in 2010, organisers of the Bucharest… Read more »
5 Questions With Luciana Lixandru (Accel): Why we should expect to have a multi-billion dollar company out of Bucharest
The news broke at the end of April: Accel and other 3 previous investors were putting $30m in Bucharest-based UiPath, in what was one of the biggest Series A in Europe in 2017. The lead investor for the deal on behalf of Accel, Luciana Lixandru, had recently been promoted to partner. Originally from Buzau, with… Read more »
5 Questions With Planable: An improbable alumni of TechStars London, the best European accelerator
In July 2017, Planable (www.planable.io), a two-year-old startup from Chisinau & Cluj was accepted to TechStars London, probably the best acceleration program in Europe. Annually, TechStars accepts 20 companies into its programs (in London and Berlin) out of 2000-2500 applications – not an easy feat. However, at first sight Planable is not that special. What… Read more »
5 Questions With Bogdan Oros: Failure, focus and hunting for Onyx Beacon’s enterprise clients
In June 2017, Onyx Beacon announced a pilot project with Lockheed Martin, the $83bln aerospace & defence American corporation, which is using their newly launched Tracko product. However, for Bogdan Oros it all started 4 years earlier. In April 2013, a young team from Cluj was pitching a feedback via-SMS solution at the Launchub Demo Day in… Read more »
5 Questions With Mihai Rotaru: Why did Daimler buy CleverTaxi for $10+ million
Almost 7 years ago, Mihai Rotaru and Alexandru Dumitru were starting a new project during the first ever Startup Weekend event organised in Romania. The project would become CleverTaxi – launched in 2011 in partnership with Orange as an aggregator of taxi services accessible via the CleverTaxi mobile app. Backed by Andrei Pitis as an early investor… Read more »