With the new Startup Law in motion and more investors looking towards Riga, will this be the year of Latvian startups? Here are 10 interesting early stage startups from the heart of the Baltics, with a potential to make headlines in 2017.
Anatomy Next is an augmented reality, web-based software for medical education and healthcare professionals. Most of the medical students still use books, notes and youtube videos as the main sources for learning human anatomy. Some of the medical students go as far as drawing blood vessels on their hands to try to picture how anatomical systems works in a real life. Anatomy Next is a 3D and augmented/virtual reality software for medical education and healthcare. We are addressing $1.5 billion medical education software market which includes 500 medical schools in US and Europe and 2M medical students from around the globe. Our team consists of medical experts, software developers and 3D artists that work closely together to bring medical education into the 21st century.
The startup graduated from Startup Wise Guys accelerator in December 2016 and raised 300,000 euros in funding straight after. They are negotiating with more investors to close the round, and also one of the 10 finalists at TechChill pitch battle – look out for them on the main stage.
Twitter: @AnatomyNext
Demo video: https://vimeo.com/195601416
Sonarworks are building a new audio file format that will enable musicians to better monetize their music. It promises to deliver a premium audio experience to artists superfans – hearing music exactly as the artist heard it in the recording studio on any consumer headphones, without requiring any additional hardware. Hearing is believing, but the format delivers a dramatic, audible improvement in the listening experience. Sonarworks are addressing the untapped revenue potential in the superfan market that is estimated to be at least $2.6 billion.
Over the last year, Sonarworks has reached 1 million euros annual sales, brought on board 12 grammy winning record engineers and producers, landed 2 product of the year awards from the biggest industry media outlets, as well as raised 700,000 euros investment, raising the total amount of investment to 1.5 million.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SonarWorks
Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOm6OQJSnek
Nordigen is the most promising among early stage B2B startups with a fintech focus. Their solution helps banks use customer transaction data to improve credit scoring. Today banks reject 30-90% of all loan applications, but among the rejected applicants there are many whose riskiness has been overestimated. Nordigen allows banks to reduce the number of falsely rejected loan applications, which increases revenue for banks and makes more customers happy. The uniqueness of solution is the ability to precisely and instantly understand the context of customer transactions, which is based on artificial intelligence and extensive research in the field of credit scoring.
Nordigen was the winner of TechChill Pitch Battle in 2016, as well as among the 20 finalists at Slush 100. They work with more than 20 banks and alternative lenders in 5 countries.
Pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9prukXWgOM&t=6s
Funderful is a software for universities that helps make sure young alumni donate to their alma mater year after year through fun social media challenges and friendly rivalry. They create custom digital campaigns and high-impact volunteer management software to help universities increase alumni participation and grow their annual fund. Funderful addresses the root cause of low participation rates, bringing alumni donation campaigns into the digital and social era. Their clients already include big names such as Oxford colleges, Cambridge colleges, London Business School and American University in D.C. One of their advisors is a top fundraiser, Dave Celone who is the former fund director at an Ivy League school, where he achieved the highest alumni giving rate in the world. The startup raised $160,000 last summer, has hired sales team in US, and was selected by 500Startups as a winner in Digital Freedom Festival pitch competition.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsfunderful
Edurio allows education organisations to easily survey students, families and teachers about their unique experiences and points of view, providing deep insights that go beyond grades. Grades provide a limited view of what’s going on in education, and Edurio bridges this gap between the limited data available and the valuable insights needed to improve. Insights drawn from Edurio surveys can inform investment decisions, professional development programmes or day-to-day lesson planning. It can also be used to measure the impact of new educational materials or school improvement initiatives.
After successful pilots across hundreds of schools, Edurio received 1.86 million euros in funding from the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 Open Disruptive Innovation scheme for SMEs this past summer. Since then, they’ve grown their team and kicked off a number of partnerships, working with globally leading researchers at the UCL Institute of Education to take Edurio’s survey and analytic capability to the next level. Other projects include collaborations with Oxford University Press, the Western Cape Education Department in South Africa, as well as continuing our work with municipalities and the Ministry of Education and Science in Latvia.
Twitter and Instagram: @eduriocom
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eduriocom/
Blog: https://medium.com/edurio
Finch is among the youngest startups on the list. Their product is a desktop application designers can tweak and edit any website’s design just like they would do it in Photoshop or Sketch, but the canvas in Finch is the actual website. Designers can alter the page and see the effect directly on the website in real–time, on any device. Finch improves the feedback loop between designers and developers and by using Finch, web development teams can fix visual bugs at least two times faster. They’ve already launched a beta version with 1000 testers after taking part in Startup Sauna in 2016, and plan to relaunch for a general public in March 2017.
Dripit helps online marketers understand customer journey and how it is affected by marketing and advertising. The solution helps companies understand the efficiency of all marketing channels in one place, analyzing anonymous data with the help of game theory and mathematics. It can reduce marketing budget waste by up to 75 percent, helping marketers discover opportunities. The company CEO Ernests Stals has also played a crucial role in developing Latvia’s startup community, being on of the founders and driving forces of TechHub Riga, the center and coworking space that hosts most Startup events. Dripit took part in Startup Sauna accelerator in 2016 and raised 100 000 from Superhero Capital.
Monea has the biggest potential for widespread success, as they offer a simple and useful app for a potentially widespread audience. Their app is a payments platform offering the fastest interbank gross settlement system in the country (up to 20-second gross clearing, including over weekends and non-banking hours). The service is delivered as a C2C and C2B payments application on IOS, Android with 14K registered users so far, and as an API for businesses to send in payment orders. Monea already holds an EU-wide payments institution’s license. It has raised 1.05 million euros equity funding, as well as 400K EUR loan. The team, which includes experienced banking professionals, is looking at expanding both geographically and product-wise, and currently planning an investment round.
Twitter: @MoneaApp
Vividly is the easiest VR platform for new generation architects and creatives, facilitating design process between teams of professionals and clients. We empower architects to provide higher value service to their clients and partners. Just simply drag&drop a 3D model on the web and get instant VR view on your phone that you can share with team or clients in an early project-phase. The company was founded in early 2016, but already has built a wide-spread network of 12,000 professionals and entered in closed beta testing phase with 5 companies and 500 architects. Vividly team consists of striving professionals from architecture, tech and brand strategies seen in Forbes 30under30, TEDxRiga. Archipreneur. The team has been part of Startup Sauna accelerator and Top 100 companies in Slush. Vividly main functions are seated in Riga with hotspots in London and Helsinki.
Here is how you do it to get to VR experience – an example of a private house or a concert hall on your phone.
Twitter: @Vividlyapp
Beta demo: http://bit.ly/VividlyBetademo
Giraffe360 Visual provides interactive visualizations service and develops applications for immersive presentation devices. Their visualization products are virtual tours, 3D 360 video and aerial drone footage and they are working with virtual reality and interactive surface technologies to bring the best experience. Giraffe360 builds virtual tour technology enabling real estate industry to elevate property viewing into virtual reality experience. Company’s goal is to change how real estate world works, how people find their homes, how brokers become digital artists. The company recently raised 500,000 euros in seed capital.
Facebook:www.facebook.com/Giraffe360-225423961183317/