Time passed by extremely fast and on November 5th we meet for the eight edition of VentureConnect. The project started in early 2010 and since then, with each new session, we bring more start-ups and mature companies in the investment spotlight, more potential investors and businessmen interested in supporting the start-up community and more young and ambitions entrepreneurs eager to shine on the VentureConnect cinema stage.
The following meeting, on November 5, brings to the table both early stage start-ups as well as more mature companies; all of them businesses which have reached a certain stage of development and are looking for more financial and mentoring boost in order to further develop their activity.
We are very proud to present the final 12 projects, out of a line-up of 54 applying companies:
1. Fashion Up (www.fashionup.ro)
FashionUp.ro was launched in 2009 and is the first Romanian online mall with over 400 national and international fashion brands with more than 25.000 products: from apparel, accessories, perfumes and decorations, for both men and women.
2. FlorideLux.ro (www.floridelux.ro)
FlorideLux flower shops, with an experience of more than 10 years on the Romanian market, offers quality products and services, for bouquets and floral arrangements, gift baskets, funeral flowers, business gifts, large floral concepts, professional design for Christmas and other significant events, with delivery anywhere in Romania. From July 2013, FlorideLux group expanded globally, through the affiliation to 1800Flowers.com and joining the largest network of florists worldwide, called Bloomnet, which allows fast delivery of bouquets anywhere in the world.
3. Expressoft (www.expressoft.eu)
Expressoft was estabilished in Romania in 1991, and has since provided software & hardware solutions for businesses on international level, in the hospitality & retail industry: hotels, restaurants, delivery & catering services, pubs, clubs, cafes, pastry shops, retail, beauty & fitness salons, SPA centers.
Expressoft brand is the result of over 20 years of experience in the development of computer applications for business administration. It has steadily developed its reputation by providing solutions to over 3,000 companies, with over 15,000 licenses sold and installed.
4. GameMatch (gamematch.me)
Game Match is a free mobile platform that matches players with the right games and developers with their target audience. The first service that puts game quality and accurate player taste in front of everything else. Offering gamers a completely new experience for finding their next favorite title that lies buried under a million other apps.
5. Gloria Food (www.gloriafood.com)
The mission of GloriaFood is to create an amazing experience of online food ordering for all food lovers and makers. We think that should be possible without ripping off restaurants by charging high commission payments on every order. GloriaFood provides an online ordering system integrated across web, mobile and social platforms and we are the first to introduce the freemium business model to the food and restaurant industry.
6. Wallet Buzz (www.walletbuzz.ro)
Mobile marketing platform, unique in Romania, that expands the surface of your store hundreds of times and at the same time maximizes the response rate of smartphone holder clients located near your company.
7. Minutizer (www.minutizer.com)
We bring the payment where real human interaction already happens: on Instant Messaging applications like Skype and soon on ooVoo, Yahoo! Messenger & AIM. We developed a system that allows the customer to pay-per-minute for the time and knowledge provided by a service provider on a video/audio call on Skype. Verticals we target in the beginning: online after school teaching, online psychic reading, online coaching, online guitar lessons and many many other business verticals.
8. Simbound (www.simbound.com)
We at Simbound believe that we can revolutionise e-Marketing education. To date, students from the best universities from around the world have experienced e-Marketing operations in a risk-free, realistic environment using our simulation game system. As a leader in Online Courseware Content Publishing & Edtech services we are looking to expand our reach beyond universities and address a global, fast emerging demographic of online marketing enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, freelancers, self-studying professionals and marketing instructors. One day Simbound will turn into an efficient e-Commerce ecosystem, a place in which people transfer value in a transparent and easy to follow manner.
9. Hypertalk (www.hypertalk.net)
HyperTalk Systems offers professional video communications tools and services through an innovative web platform that supports web meeting, webinar and online training sessions.
HyperTalk Web Meeting implements modern virtual collaboration mechanisms and provides with video communication, web presence, document/presentation sharing, and annotation tools.
HyperTalk Webinar is an effective environment for managing and delivering multimedia content during special events and wide classes.
Online Training is designed to meet the requirements of individual trainers, training companies and academics, by providing interactive e-learning / training components doubled by video communication capabilities.
HyperTalk collaborative cloud environment provides with flexible solutions, easily to customize and integrate as a service (SaaS) with CMS, CRM LMS, LMCS systems.
10. Omnipaste (www.omnipasteapp.com)
Omnipaste enables multi-screen and cross-platform communication, simple as Copy and Paste. Multiple screens make people feel more efficient because they can act spontaneously and get a sense of accomplishment. Our vision is to blur the line between devices to enable us to use their specialized hardware. We want to give developers the tools necessary to build device interconnected applications using an API, an errors tracking service and a marketplace. We have multiple devices, all connected to the Internet, but they aren’t aware one of each other. For example, a simple and habitual task as Copy from one device and Paste to another is not possible. It’s need more than 8 steps using email, Dropbox or even Evernote. Why? Because we have different operating systems that don’t speak the same language. The experience that you get with two devices isn’t better than the experience that you have with just one device. Moreover, the smartphone has more technology than the entire Apollo 11 mission, but sometimes stays in a drawer.
11. The Small Island (www.insulacelormici.ro)
The Small Island is an educational cross-media project set in the small world of the bugs and aimed at children ages 5 to 9. Targeted platforms are website, touch devices, e-comics, tv. The project is about the exploration of this funny world in which four bugs with human like appearance live, being the leading characters for all the adventures and games. Using different media content, children will learn math and develop specific skills through playing games, will become part of each adventure along with our characters and discover values like friendship and creativity. The 1st stage of the project is the website and there we encourage children to experience math through funny and rewarding activities, by playing different games set in this universe.
12. Jobs Alert (www.jobsalert.ro)
JobsAlert is the platform for recruiting abroad.We facilitate hundreds of employers and recruitment agencies to look for the best candidates for their open jobs position. Daily, thousands of applicants are using JobsAlert.ro to find a job abroad on a contract base.
We are happy to announce the beginning of the Venture Mentoring program. The first session is planned on 8th May, together with Radu Georgescu: Serial Entrepreneur & Venture Capitalist, Founder of GECAD Group.
