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What it’s like to found a startup in Estonia

The Next Web

I happen to be from Estonia, a small, but fiercely proud country near the Baltic Sea, one with a burgeoning startup scene that’s full of driven, intelligent and hungry entrepreneurs. In Estonia, people who set out to build a great business can’t expect to be greeted with encouragement and support from the broader community.

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Identity verification provider Veriff raises $100M Series C co-led by Tiger Global and Alkeon

TechCrunch

Identity verification (IDV) provider Veriff , has raised a $100 million Series C round co-led by Tiger Global and Alkeon. The Estonia-based startup’s “special sauce” is using AI-powered video to verify identifies. The new funding means the company is now valued at $1.5

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Ukraine, Estonia, Chile, Finland: The saga of four accelerators

The Next Web

At the moment of writing, Seed-DB, a global database of seed stage accelerators, listed 235 programs (both active and defunct) that 5,688 startups had gone through. It’s hard to get the exact data on how many startup acceleration programs are being launched every year, but it’s definitely a lot.

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Bolt raises $709M at an $8.4B valuation to expand its transportation and food delivery super app

TechCrunch

“At Sequoia, we believe in the global potential for technology and entrepreneurship and have been inspired by Bolt’s growth from Tallinn, Estonia to over 400 cities and 100 million customers across Europe and Africa. ”

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Sales CRM Pipedrive takes majority investment from Vista Equity Partners to reach unicorn status

TechCrunch

Founded in Estonia and now headquartered in New York, the company has taken a majority investment from U.S. “Pipedrive is now Europe and Estonia’s newest SaaS unicorn,” says Zennström. Pipedrive , the sales CRM tool for small and medium-sized businesses, is the latest European company to reach unicorn status.

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Woola raises €2.5M seed led by Future Ventures to replace bubble wrap with wool

TechCrunch

Woola opened a production facility in Estonia and launched its first product in December 2020. Woola says this is enough to fulfill 120% of the global bubble wrap demand. Wool envelopes were the first products to hit the market. It’s now expanding to the U.K., France and Germany.

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UK’s Magical Mushroom Company uses mycelium to replace plastic packaging

TechCrunch

Global plastic waste has more than doubled , and 40% of that waste comes from packaging. Woola (Estonia), Papkot (France), Biotic (Israel), FunCell (France) and Traceless (Germany). Luckily there is no shortage of sustainable packaging startups in Europe. Just take a look: Circleback (Germany), Recup (Germany), Sourceful (U.K.),

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