Investment news

FinEst Startup Development Programme to encourage entrepreneurship in Estonia and Southern-Finland.

Estonian Development Fund together with Aalto University School of Economics Small Business Center (Finland), Enterprise Estonia, BDA Consulting and Technopolis Ülemiste launched Finnish-Estonian cross-border cooperation project “FinEst Startup Development Programme” to encourage entrepreneurship in the region.

The project targets entrepreneurial-minded people and startups in areas such as IT & mobile, biotechnology, energy and environment and creative industries, offering them a range of practical seminars, workshops and mentoring and networking opportunities.

Project partners play an active part in developing the startup ecosystem in the region and have joined forces in order to increase the impact of the planned activities. 

Estonian Development Fund, the state venture fund, has during the past 4 years, played a substantial role in the development of Estonian startups by offering them venture financing. BDA is the organizer of Estonia’s most prominent business plan contest “Ajujaht”, Enterprise Estonia offers financial support measures for businesses, Technopol Ülemiste is a technology and business incubator and Aalto University School of Economics Small Business Center is one of the biggest and active business centers in Southern Finland.

During the next two years, 13 larger seminars and training events shall be held concentrating on different aspects of building new business e.g. business modeling, team composition, market entry etc. Additionally, monthly networking events shall be held.

The project kick-off seminar shall take place on December 1-2 in Tallinn. More information available soon at www.fineststartups.eu and www.arengufond.ee.

Project is co-funded from EU Regional Development Fund Central Baltic INTERREG IVA programme.

Mari-Liis Lind, Project coordinator, mariliis.lind[A]arengufond.ee

TerchCrunch: Mechanical engineering community GrabCAD is announcing $1.1 million in seed funding today, from Matrix Partners, Atlas Venture, Next View Ventures and angels John McEleney, Alex Ott, Angus Davis and Jon Stevenson.

Founded in 2009, GrabCAD is like an oDesk or an eLance specifically for mechanical engineers, with the added benefit of offering a free CAD model library. Boston-based and with a development team in Estonia, the platform helps connect over 7,500 mechanical engineers with the manufacturers and product development companies that need them. The company has tripled the number of engineers in its community in the past month.

Co-founder Hardi Meybaum plans on using the money for expansion and hiring, ” Our plan is to be the biggest mechanical engineering team in the world.”

CrabCAD develops internet environment for CAD-engineers, designers and manufacturers to find and trade 3D engineering degines. GrabCAD grew from the Development Fund’s international business incubator SeedBooster.

Eesti Arengufond ja kaasinvestor Sibo Invest OÜ tegid väiketarbijaile mõeldud tuulegeneraatorite arendajasse my!WIND OÜ-sse seemneinvesteeringu 34000 EUR. 

Tegu on tuulegeneraatoriga, mis sobib hästi suvilatesse või maakohtadesse, kus põhivõrguga liitumine võib osutuda kalliks. Esimene my!WINDi mudel on nominaalvõimsusega 5 kW, plaanis on juba ka järgmised mudelid, võimaliku võimsusega 2 kW ja 10 kW. 

17-20. märtsil 2011 demonstreeris my!WIND OÜ oma generaatorit Saksamaal Husumis toimunud New Energy messil, kus potentsiaalsetelt klientidelt ja edasimüüjatelt saadud vastukaja oli positiivne. Klientidele imponeeris my!WIND OÜ lahenduse originaalne, kuid lihtne konstruktsioon, kerge kaal ja ülimalt konkurentsivõimeline hind. Aprillis on my!WIND OÜ generaator esitlusel Eesti ettevõtete ühisstendil Hannoveri tehnoloogiamessil.

my!WIND OÜ on asutatud Arengufondi investeerimisportfelli kuuluva suurklientidele suunatud ettevõtte Goliath Wind tegevjuhi Lars Mach’i eestvedamisel, et täita ka jaeklientide niši nagu suvilate ja maakodude omanikud. My!WIND generaatori eelis paljude seni turul saadaolevate väikegeneraatorite ees on originaalne konstruktsioon, mille tõttu on generaator lihtsama ehitusega, vastupidav, minimaalse hooldusvajadusega ja väga konkurentsivõimelise hinnaga.

Professor Ed Spooneri (Durhami ülikool, UK) loodud ja TTÜ doktorand Ants Kallaste edasiarendatud originaalset elektromagneetilist lahendust kasutades disainis esimese my!WIND OÜ generaatori insener Ott Pabut. Generaatori laboritestid viidi läbi TTÜ teadlaste poolt. Lars Mach’i kinnitusel loodetkase juba 2011 suvel loodetakse esimesed my!WIND OÜ turbiinid välitestimiseks püsti panna ning seejärel käivitada seeriatootmine.

Arengufondi investeeringute eksperdi Indrek Kelderi sõnul on my!WIND OÜ Arengufondi portfellis erandlik ettevõte. “Ei juhtu just sageli, et ettevõtte asutamisest kuni tootmisküpse ja konkurentsivõimelise prototüübini liigutakse niivõrd kiiresti. Parimaks kinnituseks ettevõtte potentsiaalile on mitmed reaalsed ostusoovid nii messilt kui ka ettevõttest mujalt kuulnud inimestelt – kusjuures ettevõte pole täiemahulise turundus- ja reklaamikampaaniaga veel alustanudki,” on Indrek Kelder my!WINDi edus kindel. Eesti

Arengufond on ellu kutsutud Riigikogu poolt, et teostada tulevikuseiret ja investeerida uut moodi mõtlevatesse ambitsioonikatesse Eesti ettevõtetesse. Kohaliku riskikapitalituru elavdamiseks otsib Arengufond projektidesse alati ühe või mitu kaasinvestorit, kellega investeeritakse ettevõtetesse võrdsetel tingimustel.

Lisainfo: 

Indrek Kelder, Eesti Arengufondi investeerimisekspert, tel 616 1083, indrek.kelder[A]arengufond.ee

Estonian Development Fund together with private co-investors invest 1.5 million EUR in the Estonian firm NOW! Innovations Ltd., which develops mobile payment solutions.

NOW! Innovations has developed a payment platform for parking and other purposes, already operational in a number of countries. The company’s main market is the United States, where the ParkNOW! mobile parking service is among the market leaders. The largest client is Montgomery County in Greater Washington D.C., which is also with more then 14 000 parking spaces the second largest mobile parking installation anywhere in the U.S. New installations are pending in a number of other markets, including Russia, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Mexico, and Singapore.

According to Heidi Kakko, Head of Investment Division at the Estonian Development Fund, the mobile parking market is still in the early development stages in most markets, unlike in Estonia and a few other European countries, where up to 90% of all parking sessions are paid with a mobile phone. “We believe that the markets will be divided during the next five years. The biggest winners will be the companies with experience, offering a Solution as a Service. We bet on NOW! Innovations with its top quality platform and experience to become the market leader in the U.S. market. The size of the parking market in North America and Europe only is estimated at 65 billion dollars.”

Kalju Rüütli, CEO and one of the founders of NOW! Innovations, adds “The ParkNOW! platform was built based on years of experience of providing IT services to large telecommunications companies and working together with major international parking operators. The platform is highly modular and flexible, thanks to which it was for example very smooth to adapt it to NFC technology.”

NOW! Innovations was established in 2003, and it specializes on solutions for issuing mobile permits and tickets. It is among the five leading providers of mobile parking solutions in Europe and America. Last year it was selected the 13th most outstanding company in the world by Guidewire Group, a global market intelligence and advisory firm

Estonian Development Fund has been established by the Estonian Parliament for promoting foresighted projects and investing in innovative ambitious Estonian technology enterprises. NOW! Innovations is the 12th investment in their portfolio.

Additional information:

Kalju Rüütli NOW! Innovations, CEO, phone +372 5505 724, kalju.ruutli[A]nowinnovations.com

Heidi Kakko Estonian Development Fund, Head of Investments,  + 372 5624 9959, heidi.kakko[A]arengufond.ee

Estonian Development Fund, Ambient Sound Investments and Bellus invested altogether 1,85 million Euros into ASI’s portfolio company Modesat Communications.

 Additional funds were raised to finance the company’s market entry activities. The proceeds will be primarily used for covering costs related to sales negotiations with telecom equipment manufacturers and integration projects in which Modesat’s technology is integrated into the clients’ products. Modesat is targeting telecommunication, satellite communications and military communication system industries and is currently in negotiations with the worlds leading communication system equipment manufacturers that cover 98% of total wireless radio link market. After finalizing the core technology development the company started the first integration projects with customers in 2010.

Modesat Communications is a developer of new modem technologies for wireless and wired communication systems. The company is headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia with part of the R&D departments located in Gomel, Belarus.

 
For additional information please contact: 
peep.poldsamm[A]modesat.com, CEO of Modesat Communicationsi, mob +372 545 10100,
andrus.oks[A]arengufond.ee, Investment expert, mob +372 5087123 

Development Fund invests circa 5,5 million EEK in Estonian firm Cellin Technologies OÜ which develops stem cell cultivation technology.

Cellin Technologies OÜ has developed a quickened technology for cultivating tissue preparations suitable for medical treatment from human tissue or bone marrow. As the list of stem cells prodecures used in medicine is quite short, firm also sees as important market the cosmetic medicine (e.g. smoothing the facial skin) and regenerative medicine (e.g. restoration of joint cartilage).

Some possible partners have already shown interest in Cellin Technologies OÜ. Among other effeciencies they see good prespective in bringing into Estonia the validity clients from vicinal states and hence promoting so called health care tourism.

Cellin Technologies OÜ belongs to the campus of Tallinn University of Technology. The main stakeholeders have so far been through researh  and development center Protobios OÜ Estonian scientists Dr. Kaia Palm and Prof. Toomas Neuman.

Through investment more than third of the firm will be owned by Development Fund and co-investor, an enterprise connected to business angel Sirli Sipp Kulli. Development Fund used the same co-investor in the deal with BiotaP OÜ.

Estonian Development Fund has been established by Riigikogu (Parliament) for orginising foresight projects and for investing in innovative ambitious  Estonian technology enterprises. For livening the local venture capital market a private investor/s are always included under same conditions as Development Fund’s own investment.  Also in Development Fund the international business incubator SeedBooster is acting for developing ambitious business models to increase their readyness  for investments and market potential.

Additional information:

 Indrek Kelder, Investments expert, Estonian Development Fund  tel +372 6161 083

"Online apparel sales to date has been exceptionally challenging due to the lack of a fitting room however, it is also the fastest growing e-commerce category and will produce an estimated annual revenue of $31 billion dollars in the US in 2010," stated Heikki Haldre, CEO and cofounder of Fits.me.
"Only 8% of clothing is currently sold online, and the Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room is the disruptive technology that will enable online apparel retailers to successfully
compete with traditional brick-and-mortar clothing shops."
According to a recent report produced by Forrester Research: "US online sales of apparel,accessories, and footwear reached $27 billion in 2009 representing a staggering 17% growth year-on-year. The online apparel category has a young, tech-savvy shopper base, and doubledigit growth is forecast over the next several years with the apparel category predicted to outpace overall online retail sales. A large part of this growth will come from broader retailer adoption of visual tools that mimic the tactile offline shopping experience."

Additional independent research supports this and forecasts that one in four brick-and-mortar clothing
shops will face closure by 2018 as sales shift to the Internet - a trend already realized in the
books and travel sectors.

Fits.me aims to reduce apparel returns and increase sales by allowing online shoppers to see clothes on a robotic mannequin with the exact dimensions of the buyer's body via a Virtual Fitting Room. It accomplishes this by using robotic mannequins with artificial muscles that can
simulate the shape and size of any body type. The robotic mannequins were created using biorobotics and scientific algorithms based on more than 30,000 3-D human body scans, and are capable of shape shifting into nearly 100,000 different types of body shapes. Fits.me is
currently live with its Virtual Fitting Room for men and plans to launch its Virtual Fitting Room for women by the end of 2010.

"We are excited to be involved with a dynamic, disruptive company like Fits.me," added Andrus Oks of Estonian Development Fund. "The company is extremely well positioned to capitalize on the evolving trend of broader retailer adoption and will allow online retailers to successfully
compete with traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. Our investment in Fits.me will ensure the company has the necessary resources to build upon current market traction and grow at a rapid pace."

Fits.me is the virtual fitting room for online clothing retailers that addresses and solves the single biggest problem for the apparel e-commerce category: the lack of a fitting room. Accomplished through biorobotic and scientific algorithms, the company uses robotic mannequins that are capable of shape shifting into almost 100,000 different types of body shapes so a consumer can visualize how different sizes and styles of clothing might look on their body type before they purchase. The Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room makes buying clothing online
much easier for consumers because they can see the actual fit of a piece of clothing based on their own unique measurements - just like in the real-life fitting room. The biorobotics "visual size chart" is also capable of increasing sales and reducing costly returns for online clothing retailers.

Founded in 2009 and based in Estonia and London, Fits.me is a privately held company backed by the Estonian Development Fund and Enterprise Estonia. Learn more at http://www.fits.me.

Additonal information:

andrus.oks[A]arengufond.ee

Media Echo

• TechCrunch Europe 22.09.2010

A portfolio enterprise od Development Fund, BiotaP opened in Tallinn an experimental lab for metagenomic analysis, which in Europe is an unique research centre of environment monitoring. The development of the lab is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund. 

„The goal of the subsidies is to support Estonian experimental servicies for entreprises," Pralla explained.

 „The better ties the enterpreneurs have with experimental labs, the easier Estonian firms can work out internationally successful products or services." The aim of  BiotaP OÜ is to create new, metagenomics based metholodgy for environmental monitoring and analysis of antropogenic factors. BiotaP does differnt studies on basic and development level, combining first time in Estonia the classical ecology and modern molecular biology to solve environmental problems. The primary goal of the enterprise is to describe the metagenomic 'fingerprint' of the soli of our own and our immediate neighbourhood's ecosystems to create the quantitative and certificated system of environmental monitoring. .

Estonian Development Fund moves with it’s new investments into even earlier project phase. Freshest investment has been made to emerging enterprises Sportlyzer and Inner Circle in total up to 3 million EEK (Estonian kroon).

Sportlyzer is developing a internet environment connecting athletic people with training and motivational software for the international market. For now the solution for internet-based has been created. The goal of Sportlyzeri is to create software of training advices and feedback to ensure service for hobby sport-people independent from the hourly fees and working schedules of the advisers. Sportlyzer has passed through the international business incubator of Development Fund, the SeedBooster, where the business plan and realization tactics were polished up to clear goals and milestones. Sportlyzer’s team is led by the establisher of Vomax Tõnis Saag. Also the creator of CV Online and Nagi Jüri Kaljundi is participating. Former CEO of Playtech Rein Lemberpuu acts as co-investor.

Inner Circle presents itself as trashfree Facebook'ina. The ambition of the enterprise is to create and go global with an user-friendly environment for group socialising, which differes from the current Facebook by privacy principles.     The co-establisher of Inner Circle is Allan Martinson and team is led by former head of Estonian Delfi Andrus Raudsalu. Next to Development Fund the private co-investors are AS Regio (CEO Teet Jagomägi) and Live Nature Eesti OÜ (board member Raivo Vare).

The head of investment division of Development Fund Heidi Kakko stated that both Sportlyzer and Inner Circle are investments into seed stage enterprises and the prototype or business model is only in testing.

"The seed stage start-ups have difficulties in finding investments all over the world, so as the developer of local venture capital market we pay more attention to the competent teams and emerging enterprises in very earlier stage.

 In the beginning the amount of investment is small, but new investments will be necessary when the in time with the seizing markets the need for additional capital arises.  For instance an the portfolio enterprise Massi Miliano, which was chosen for investment by Development Fund a year ago, has given results and persuaded current and new investors to increase the investment capital by one million euro,”  said Heidi Kakko.

Estonian Development Fund has been established by Riigikogu (Parliament) for orginising foresight projects and for investing in innovative ambitious  Estonian technology enterprises. For livening the local venture capital market a private investor/s are always included under same conditions as Development Fund’s own investment.  Also in Development Fund the international business incubator SeedBooster is acting for developing ambitious business models to increase their readyness  for investments and market potential.

Additional information:

Online shopping has taken over most facets of modern retail, but buying clothes via the interwebs is something more of a hard sell. As noticed by BBC and endgadet , Estonian firm Massi Miliano, introduces the Fits.me virtual fitting room with a shape-shifting mannequin that makes that a little easier for men. After three years of research in combining robotics with fashion this portfolio enterprise of Estonian Development Fund came up with robotic torso, comprised of flexible panels that can shift between thousands of different shapes and sizes from small to extra large. A clothing company puts a new shirt on the bot and a camera captures it cycling through a variety of body types like a T-1000 sinking into a pit of molten steel. When you enter your measurements online, the e-tailer looks up the appropriate pics and buyer can see how he will look in that Warwick Tailored semi-cutaway.

As for women - the latest word is that a female model might be ready in October.

Based on BBC and endgadget.