Based on input from Estonian startup thought leaders and investors (including yours truly), the weekly Estonian popular tech & startup themed radio show & podcast Restart (run by MP of the Estonian Parliament and a startup founder himself, Andrei Korobeinik) has selected the most promising Estonian startups to keep an eye on in 2013. Here is the list:
- Transferwise – cheap money transfers. Charges a fraction of the price that banks and others charge for currency conversion. $1.3m seed round from Index Ventures, IA Ventures, Max Levchin (co-founder of PayPal), TAG, Seedcamp and others. Co-founded by Skype’s first employee. Seedcamp alumni.
- Creative Mobile – mobile games. Hugely profitable. Drag Racing on Android has close to 100 million installs.
- Erply – POS and ERP tools. In use at close to 100k seats. Largest customers have 10k employees. Seedcamp alumni.
- ZeroTurnaround – Java productivity tools, loved by developers.
- Marinexplore – marine data place for the ocean community. Only one in top 10 started in 2012. Raised $1.4m from Intertrust Technologies Corporation, Fredrik Astrup, Lars Erik Baustad, Marek Kiisa (Astrec Invest) and Ivar Siimar (WNB).
- Grabcad – community of mechanical engineers & engineering workflow tools. $14 million raised from Charles River Ventures, Yammer’s David Sacks, Atlas Venture, Matrix Partners et al. Seedcamp and Techstars alumni.
- Pipedrive – CRM and pipeline management tool. $1 m raised from TMT Investments, Andy McLoughlin, Christopher Muenchhoff and Angelpad. AngelPad alumni.
- Vital Fields – farming weather forecasts. $318k from Estonian Development Fund et al. StartupWiseGuys alumni.
- Flirtic.com – dating service.
- Click and Grow – a self-watering flower pot. Over 80k units sold.
My personal goal for 2013 is to have my own Weekdone on next year’s list. Launched only 2 months ago, the beginnings for us have been promising, with first happy users from around 100 teams across the world, including some Fortune 500 teams. If you run a team of at least a few people – or even a few hundred – have a look at how we can help you communicate better and you as a manager always know what your team members are doing. Start here.
The author, Jüri Kaljundi, is a serial entrepreneur, micro-angel and co-founder of Weekdone weekly employee status reporting service. To try out Weekdone for free and be up to date with your team’s progress, register here or have a look at the walkthrough here.
Prominent investors is not measure of success. I’m not saying anything bad about the companies, just presentation emphasizes too much on how much and where they got investments. This gives wrong sign to other startups out there.