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Who Was the Founder of the Year? – Recap of the Estonian Startup Awards 2022
Estonian Startup Awards 2022 took place on January 27th. This year Trind portfolio companies and founders were well-represented in the awards. Timmu Töke / Ready Player Me The Founder of the Year 2022 was Timmu Töke of Ready Player Me. Timmu Tõke has overseen Ready Player Me as the CEO for nine years, through countless pivots, and in 2022 raised a $56M B-round led by US investor Andreessen Horowitz (total funding is now $72M). Ready Player Me – in its current form – was launched in 2020 and has since been rapidly scaled to 5,000+ customers across the metaverse. Clients
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In the spotlight: Fractory
Fractory is an on-demand metal fabrication platform. It helps manufacturers find the part they need and connect with customers. They’re not in charge of making anything themselves; instead, their marketplace serves as an interface between those who manufacture and those who need it. Fractory was founded in 2017 by Martin Vares, Joosep Merelaht, and Rein Torm. The company’s mission is to provide a platform for Engineers and Manufacturers to meet and guide manufacturing toward sustainability. Three pillars of sustainability The focus on environmental sustainability sets Fractory apart from many other B2B marketplaces. They believe that sustainability goes beyond simply being
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What are the key SaaS metrics for a startup?
Trind Ventures invests in companies with a consumer or community component. A lot of these companies are Software as Service (SaaS) companies. When we look at SaaS companies, it is essential to see metrics: We use those to assess the case, and the founders’ can use those to drive and scale the company. This blog post looks at a startup’s key SaaS metrics. SaaS has become a popular business model for many companies, offering businesses a convenient and cost-effective way to access and use software applications. As a result, tracking the right metrics is crucial for the success of a
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In Spotlight: Tise
Tise is a second-hand marketplace based in Oslo, Norway. It was designed so that users not only buy products from its platform but also save the planet, reducing their climate footprint. This application was created in 2014 by Eirik Rime and Axel Franck Næss, but its official launch was in 2016. The fast-paced world in which we live has shown many advances in all areas, including technology, textile fashion, electronics, and health. Still, unfortunately, they have negatively affected our planet. Knowing this, the founders of Tise felt the need to show the world that living a quality life sustainably is
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Trind leads €2 million round of Barcelona-based nightlife technology company Xceed
Trind leads a €2 million investment round in Xceed, one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the live events scene, to grow Xceed’s intelligent event discovery platform. The funding round comes on top of an astonishing track record of two years of profitability and positive cash flow and will fuel the company’s growth and new market expansion across the EU in 2023. That has been driven by the fact that Xceed is unique in the industry as both a leading marketplace solution for end customers, i.e. event-goers, but also has one of the strongest software offerings for event organizers and
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In the Spotlight: Tandem
Tandem provides a language learning app where millions of people teach each other. It was launched in Berlin in 2015 by three friends on a mission to connect the world through languages. Tandem is a mobile app that brings together millions of language learners. Members of the community form one-on-one partnerships to teach each other their native languages via text, audio, and video chat. The tandem learning method has been developed by Tandem Fundazioa. On the Tandem App, the user will be shown members from all over the world who speak the language the user wants to learn and who
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First Investment from Fund II: Social eCommerce Company Yaga
We are proud to announce our first investment from our second fund, closed in September: Yaga, a female-founded social eCommerce company that allows people to buy and sell second-hand fashion. Launched in 2019 by Aune Aunapuu, the startup’s female co-founder and CEO, Yaga has quickly risen to become one of South Africa’s most popular online fashion platforms. Showing its ability to thrive throughout pandemics and economic downturns, it has grown to receive over 5 million visits per month. Over 5000 new items are listed on Yaga every day, with 750 000 items currently on sale just in South Africa. Yaga
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Douglas Castro of Neural DSP is the Entrepreneur Of The Year
Douglas Castro, the founder of our portfolio company Neural DSP, was selected as Finland’s growth entrepreneur in the 2022 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year competition. The annual competition organized by the audit and consulting firm EY rewards entrepreneurs who inspire others with their vision, leadership, and achievements. 51 Finnish growth companies participated in the 2022 competition. Douglas Castro was awarded as growth entrepreneur of the year at the Finnish Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022 gala held on November 4, 2022. With the win, Castro will be able to compete for the world championship of entrepreneurship at the World Entrepreneur Of
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In the Spotlight: Jobilla
Jobilla provides a digital recruiting solution that helps you to find the right candidates in less time. Founded by Henri Nordström and Tommi Siro in 2015, their mission is to make digital recruiting as easy and effective as hiring a headhunter. Jobilla was founded by serial entrepreneurs. Starting with the very first business we established, finding good employees was always one of the biggest challenges. Whether we were trying to hire developers, sales managers, or customer service staff, recruitment was never as easy as it should have been. We either did not get good applicants at all or we got
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Trind VC raises new €55M fund to invest in startups with a consumer or community component in Europe
We are proud to announce closing our €55M second fund. We aim to invest in 30–40 startups with proven traction in four years. The fund is backed by institutional investors such as European Investment Fund, Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment), LHV Pension Funds, and Swedbank Investment Funds. “We were targeting to raise €50 million, but as we already have more commitments, we will go slightly above that in the second closing. Most of our LPs from Fund I joined Fund II, a sign of trust we truly appreciate. We are honored to have top-tier institutions from the region investing in the
