Oana Coșman
Unlike other funds or grants StartersHub provides companies with a mentoring process that includes business optimization and vital managerial guidance for startups. Geography of future investments includes all countries in CEE, with the most focus on Baltic area, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Greece.
“Despite the fact that a record €0.7 billion was invested in CEE startups in 2018, there is still a predetermined gap between pre-seed and seed funding that yet detain a potential the market has. We address this issue by offering a beneficial investment model - it implies quick tranche investment along with the mentoring. It lasts for 2-3 months and includes business optimization, legal & financial assistance and networking support. This kind of full and consistent mentoring is highly needed and is really missing now in the whole CEE startup ecosystem”, explains Arda Aşkin, managing director at StartersHub.
StartersHub was founded in 2015 and for the first 4 years it has partnered with Startupbootcamp in Istanbul and San Francisco - one of the leading accelerators in the world.
Today StartersHub portfolio counts over 60 startups from all over the globe with a total valuation of more than $250 mln. Among successful startups who have grown with StartersHub are Turkish collaboration app for designers and developers Zeplin, mindfulness app Meditopia from Berlin and cloud-computing startup Sixa. Zeplin and Sixa are both graduates from Y Combinator.
To insculp great tech startups, StartersHub emphasizes its focus on a mentoring phase. It includes safe $25K to $50K investment and allows startups to optimize business processes, polish both their product during 2-3 months period.
In this process, StartersHub helps startup spot the gaps to clear the path for future growth. After successfully accomplished stage, startups might receive further investment in the amount of up to $250K. StartersHub is also an Amazon Credit partner, meaning that every company the fund invests in can receive $100k AWS services credit.
“CEE region is booming with over one million developers. The market proliferates with tech solutions where fintech enterprise software and SaaS are the leading categories. In this era of expansion opportunities we are planning to increase our scope around CEE to promote business growth for uprising innovative startups of the region. Globally engaged mentor network together with StartersHub team in San Francisco allows to boost financial growth and promotes global expansion for CEE startups”, added Arda Aşkin, Managing Director of StartersHub.
StartersHub is a vertically agnostic fund - it aims at fueling tech startups that will have a real impact on the chosen market and disrupt the industry where they operate. StartersHub also assists companies to scale globally and land at international markets with main focus on the USA.
During the last 3 months StartersHub has invested in Latvian startup Asya.ai - an app for mindful conversation powered by Ethical AI and Romanian online video editing tool Flixier. By the end of this year micro VC aims to finalize 3 more investments coming from Eastern Europe and local accelerators to mutually discover potential entrepreneurs in the region in 2020.
StartersHub is a US&Turkey based early-stage micro VC focusing on investing in Eastern Europe and Turkey. StartersHub mission is to assist promising projects with scalable solution that will have a real impact on the chosen market and disrupt the industry where they operate. In its turn, StartersHub offers startups financial, legal and tailor-made mentoring assistance that will help them scale globally and land in the USA.
