There is probably no surprise that the investment activity in CEE region has somewhat diminished over the past two months. This especially concern Ukrainian startups where, according to my knowledge, some deals have been put on hold.
Yet just this month two online businesses have been launched in Ukraine with funding from new local startup accelerator CGI Digital, according to AIN.ua. The fund run by Leonid Chernovetsky launched online takeaway aggregator eda.ua and appointment scheduling for doctors office doc.ua. The startups are run by twin brothers Evgeny and Sergey Kazantzev.
In Russia it seems, the investment financing is business as usual. Here is a round-up on the past three deals that came to my attention.
Doctor at Work – a professional community of doctors has attracted $3 million in Series A funding at valuation of $16,5 million from Bright Capital Digital and Aurora Capital. The money will be spent to buy out shares of the first investors, fund verification of the participating doctors and develop a mobile app. What is interesting about this social network where doctors can source knowledge and improve their qualifications – is the business model that comes primarily from legisla tion. In Russia pharmaceutical companies are not allowed to market their products in general media or leave free samples at doctors’ office. Thus, Doctor at Work became a prime advertisement platform that so far attracted 12 from world’s top 20 pharmaceutical companies. Last year the company earned $1,5 million in revenue.
An unexpected deal was covered by Vedomosti – in which Russian mobile app developer IconicMobile received $1 million in funding from British 515 Capital. In 2013 IconicMobile earned $800K by developing mobile apps for LG, HP, Jaguar, Lexus, Landrover and others. 515 Capital has previously made a return on the investment by selling British mobile app developer Grapple Mobile, and there could be a smaller-scale “Epam”-style private equity play (Epam, originally Belarusian software development outsourcing company accelerated its growth through mergers and acquisitions with help of private equity money before going public in 2012).
What appears to be quite a niche cloud-based tool Boardmaps (Dashboard Systems is the name of the startup) raised $1,1 million from Buran Venture Capital and a number of business angels, according to EWDN. The Russian service automates the corporate decision-making process at a board level. The steps of decision making include issue origination, agenda planning, meeting scheduling, voting, decision and action. The tool allows tracking decisions based on categories and status. In 2011 another Russian startup Yamlabs launched a meeting-management service although it does not seem to have traction, judging by Alexa ranking.
Image source: Some rights reserved by @Doug88888
