Let’s start with the bad news first: Telefonica’s well-loved accelerator Wayra CEE, which is based in Prague, is shutting down. The closure will take place at the end of March, when the current programme finishes. They state that the reason behind this is “to focus on the strategic regions in which Telefonica operates”. The CEE region should now be handled by Wayra Munich.
Croatian startup TeddyTheGuardian, the creator of a smart teddy bear, is making a lot of progress, including raising a seed round of $400K and generating $716,000 in pre-orders (Update – July 2023: The startup seems to be no longer in business under this website, and we therefore deactivated the original link). Teddy the Guardian measures the child’s heart rate and temperature when they squeeze the bear’s paw. It’s a lot friendlier and less threatening for kids than other ways of getting vital signs; i’s about making healthcare more humanised.
Neulogy Ventures has invested in Slovak Vectary, which is developing an online tool for 3D modelling of complex structures. The investment was made in syndicate with a group of angel investors, Danube Ventures and 3TS Capital.
Russian venture capital firm SBT Venture Capital is betting on NFC and investments abroad. The three-year old Montreal-based firm Mobeewave has secured a $6.5 million funding round led by SBT VC, an investment arm of Sberbank (Update – July 2023: The website seems to be out of use, and we therefore deactivated the original link). Mobeewave turns any NFC-enabled phone into a secure contactless mPOS terminal, to receive payments from ApplePay, contactless cards or NFC wallets without the use of any additional hardware. The company says the funding will support new market openings worldwide. SBT Venture Capital says the investment is the firm’s first big bet of 2015.
Slovenia’s shuttle transport booking startup GoOpti is looking for capital for itsEuropean expansion, after four years of bootstrapping. GoOpti lets users book low-cost transportation (private shuttles, for example) to airports, ports, train stations and other places, including smaller towns that are typically poorly connected by public transport. In the next 3-6 months, GoOpti will expand to new cities in Slovenia and Croatia. In 12-18 months, GoOpti should be active in three cities in Italy and two cities in Austria, according to this interview on Tech.eu with the company’s founders.
Hub:raum Krakow, which is German Deutsche Telekom’s business incubator, has announced its sixth investment, this time in KoalaMetrics, who are known as the “psychographic profiles of your mobile users” (Update – July 2023: The website seems to be out of use, and we therefore deactivated the original link). The solution provided by KoalaMetrics analyses data used by telecoms and mobile commerce platforms, improving customer experience for mobile users. By combining thousands of data points about cross app usage, KoalaMetrics claims to reach 94% accuracy rate in predicting users interests, behaviour and intents. KoalaMetrics was founded by Kamil Burczyk, Kamil Stanuch and Mateusz Pluta.
Domainer Rick Schwartz has sold Porno.com for $8,888,888, the fourth highest reported domain sale of all time to a Czech company. According to the Whois, the registrant resides in Prague, Czech Republic. This is the fifth time Schwartz has closed a publicly-disclosed seven-figure domain sale with Porno.com joining Property.com ($4 million + 5% equity in 2009), Candy.com ($3 million + 12% equity in 2008), eBet.com (for $1,365,000 in 2013) and his first one at this level, Men.com (at $1.3 million in 2003). While Schwartz has booked some of the biggest sales in industry history, he is not a frequent seller, having let only 20 domains go over the 20 years he has been in the business.
By the way: If you’re a corporate or investor looking for exciting startups in a specific market for a potential investment or acquisition, check out our Startup Sourcing Service!
