Jüri Kaljundi, December 29, 2012
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.
The author, Jüri Kaljundi, is a serial entrepreneur, micro-angel and co-founder of Weekdone weekly employee status reporting service. (
http://kaljundi.com/2012/12/29... )
