During Seedcamp Week 2010 we also had the opportunity to interview another one of our main speakers: Christopher Grew, partner at Orrick. Chris told us that he thinks Eastern Europe has got a lot of web business potential and that he is looking forward to meeting Eastern Europe entrepreneurs at How To Web 2010. During his presentation at the conference, Chris Grew will explain to you how to ensure that you and your technology business are suitable for investment in a few easy steps.
Past articles
Erply – fresh $2 mil Estonian start-up hit
It seems like there is a lot more to hear from Estonia as far as the online business is concerned. Erply, the ERP on the web, is one of the most successful European startups at the moment and it is coming from the baltic country. Some say that Erply will be the new Skype and it will do for business software what Skype did for the telecom business. We certainly do hope so and look forward to hearing a lot from these Estonian guys in the future.
Erply is a business software company founded by Kristian Hiiemaa
in Estonia in 2008. The new Estonian software start-up is a web-based on demand business suite, consisting
of a powerful ERP, software for comercial retail inventory, invoicing and e-commerce that handles data across several sales locations, online stores and offices and provides real-time dashboards with relevant data. Erply means to offer its users an extensive set of business modules: CRM, full featured financials, inventory, POS, billing and webshop software. Due to the currrent economic context and to the need to focus on productivity, Erply is based on cloud computing technology, thus providing the convenience of computing capacity on-demand over the internet.
Erply won the 2009 Seedcamp and its clients number is growing rapidly, the business being already profitable. The client focus of Erply is very strategically thought as they are focusing on small businesses and requesting smaller business fees, unlike their competitors SAP, Microsoft and Oracle.
So far, Erply has raised $2 million in funding from Redpoint and Index Ventures, Marten Mickos, Zack Urlocker (both formerly of MySQL, Kenny van Zant (SolarWinds), Aydin Senkut, David McClure and the Accelerator Group. Erply will invest this funding mainly in marketing activities and team development.
Eastern Europe’s Got Web Talent!
Web innovation is global nowadays. It has never been easier for web innovators and entrepreneurs all over the world to get out in the open. I would dare say that nowadays web truly is a global language. However, Eastern Europe’s focus on this area is unexpectedly low and very few EE startups are launched eevery year. Nevertheless, the few international success stories seem to be proving that inspite of this small numbers of daring EE entrepreneurs, Eastern Europe’s got the web talent it needs.
The Slovenian Httpool, the Estonian Skype, the Romanian Interakt and Gecad, the Czech NetBeans and GoodData are all good examples of Eastern Europe’s web know-how. Zemanta, Codility, Erply, UberVU, Brainient are also a wonderful proof of Eastern Europe’s drive and energy.
According to Reshma Sohoni, CEO Seedcamp the EE entrepreneurs are: “Very talented from a technical standpoint. I find Eastern Europe’s entrepreneurs really driven and dream big. Many of them display the sense of urgency that is really critical for a startup entrepreneur to have“.
As a matter of fact this is exactly what the Seedcamp competition is all about. Seedcamp believes that Europe has the talent, the role models, and the capital founders it needs to succeed. That’s why Seedcamp is trying and, based on the success stories, it is also succeeding to empower web entrepreneurs all over Europe, including EE.
So, Eastern Europe has got the energy, the skills and the opportunities to make web things happen. But it no longer has any excuses.
According to Loic Le Meur, founder and CEO of Seesmic.com and LeWeb Europe tech event, “the fact that the largest investor in Facebook this year is a Russian company says a lot about the Internet industry in eastern europe, I am expecting entrepreneurs from the east to build more international leaders very soon“.
Alex van Someren, UK IT Entrepreneur, states the exactly main idea: “I’ve met a lot of exciting and imaginative entrepreneurs and technology businesses from Eastern Europe recently, and I think How to Web looks like a great opportunity to meet and spend time with even more of them!“.
So… do you speak web? Then, what are you waiting for?
Skype – 2.6 bil $ web success made in Estonia
There is no doubt that Skype has managed to make the world a better place. It has infinitely simplified the way we communicate internationally. Nevertheless, very few people know that the foundation of Skype, the software that allows users to make free calls over the internet, has been called by the worldwide tech press ”a real baltic success story”.
Baltic development made Skype happen
The application software Skype was initially developed by Estonian developers Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn, the same developers that have started
the peer-to-peer file sharing software Kazaa. Jaan Tallinn, the main engineer behind Skype, is now a well known worldwide specialist in P2P technologies and is the only one of the 3 initial developers which is still around the company, performing various tech tasks.
Even though the company is based in Luxembourg and most of the management and marketing jobs are done in London, the main development center for Skype is in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, and this is where over 80% of the Skype employees work. Due to this successful team of web developers, Estonia is now the country, which could be called the homeland of 2 technological super achievements Skype and Kazaa. Not to mention that Hotmail is another great Estonian development success.
The sky is the limit for Skype
Skype Limited, the company that operates Skype, was founded in 2003 by the Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennstrom and the Danish entrepreneur Janus Friis. The name of Skype comes from the initial idea of „sky peer-to-peer”. The 2 founders have decided to hire the same successful Estonian developers that made Kazaa possible for the development of the new Skype.
eBay acquired Skype Limited in September 2005 for 2.1 billion € (2.6 billion $) and later on, during november 2009 decided to sell a majority stake of 70% to a consortium comprising Silver Lake Partners, CPPIB, Andreessen Horowitz, and the original founders.
Skype recently reached 500 million registered users worldwide and the sky seems to be the limit for the plans that Skype owners have for their business.
From Skype to Erply
For Estonia, Skype’s international success has meant more than just 3 happy Estonian engineers who earned worldwide fame. It has also meant a big push to start new successful tech startups, looking more actively at international markets, something that has been very limited until now. A recent Estonian success, Erply, won the 2009 Seedcamp and is already profitable, proves that we will be hearing more and more great things about Estonian web startups.