Estonian start-up stories by Toivo Tänavsuu
In: Mobile|New start-ups
20 Oct 2010An almost oven-fresh Estonian startup GoSpotIt, born during the Garage48 Tartu event, is preparing to launch their oven-fresh mobile services called SpeedCameraSpotter and PoliceSpotter. GoSpotIt calls itself a location-based service on mobile which allows you to spot and track interesting objects and persons at your location. Crowd-sourced and open platform for any kind of alert [...]
I’ve had few posts recently on an Estonian startup Inner Circle, planning to launch a new social networking tool. This is it – introducing here PosterBee, the new crap-free (FarmVille- and optionally even ads-free) private socializing tool, developed by Allan Martinson’s company Inner Circle, co-funded by Estonian Development Fund.
In: New start-ups|R&D
8 Sep 2010I asked Ragnar Sass, one of the founders of Cashmuse, „a magical tool, that converts your paper receipts into valuable digital data“, how are they doing. He told me they are going „step by step“, currently learning the market needs. How they can use their technology in a meaningful way, helping people in their personal [...]
New „intelligent“ Facebook game RichRats, that has merged the features of Monopoly with Google Maps will be available in new version by the end of this week, says one of the founders, Marko Praakli. Since the end of August, when RichRats kicked-off at the Garage48 event, the team have made few important decisions. One of [...]
Smashr – the free and addictive Android game testing how strong you are in smashing your phone became an attention magnet in last weeks Garage48 event in Tartu. “This is f…ing sick!” Kresten Buch, the Founder of HumanIPO has apparently said to this. Yet, the crazy startup has received a quite a response from social media and Estonian media. Hundreds of [...]
Estonian VC Allan Martinson’s newest startup Inner Circle has apparently closed its first seed investment round just few days ago. Estonian business registry shows that new investors behind the project are Regio (the well-known mapping, mobile positioning and GIS software developer), Estonian Development Fund (Arengufond) and its Chairman of the Supervisory Board, entrepreneur Raivo Vare. Investment [...]
Yet to be officially registered startup Defolio, built over a weekend and developing a collaborative design tool for freelancers and small creative agencies, was the winner of Garage48 event in Tartu. A group of eight people, among them Ahti Heinla – a founding engineer of Skype, Siim Teller – a well-known blogger and Tõnu Runnel [...]
In: New start-ups|R&D
30 Aug 2010Yesterday evening at 22, when crowds at Garage48 event in Tartu had already gone off for a well-deserved rest and beer, I spotted exhausted-looking Priit Salumaa, one of the main organizers of the event. He gave me a video interview, describing his gushy, yet concealed feelings after 48 hours of intensive collaborative startup building, heavy brainwork in [...]
In: New start-ups
27 Aug 2010Well-known Estonian businessman Rain Lõhmus (pictured), Co-Founder of Hansapank and current Chairman of the Board of LHV Pank is entering into a new business. He already has paper archives in all three Baltic States. But Lõhmus is now going digital as well – he is to be found in a new startup called Baltic Digital Archive (BDA). [...]
Estonian startup Vecly, owned by entrepreneurs Indrek Raig, Yrjö and Rait Ojasaar and Artec Group, aims to benefit from the global digital revolution. They are developing software for Digital TV STBs (set-top boxes) to turn them into multimedia centers and make us use them for many other means than just TV. Artec’s STB’s with Vecly’s software [...]