Emerging Europe’s start-up scene is thriving: new money and new ideas are coming onto the market all the time. To keep you up to date with the latest investments, innovations, movers and shakers, each Monday Emerging Europe brings you a round-up of the region’s start-ups which recently closed financing rounds, sealed partnerships, or dropped new innovations.
Binalyze: Enterprise forensics start-up from Estonia raises 10 million US dollars
Binalyze, an enterprise forensics platform which enables enterprises to respond faster and more effectively to cyber threats, last week announced it has raised 10 million US dollars in its seed funding round.
The investment will enable further innovation to define the standard for next-generation enterprise forensic solutions. It will support the extension of Binalyze’s cloud-native capabilities to enhance coverage in cloud and container environments and enable it to continue to be the fastest and most complete enterprise forensics platform on the market.
The investment will also accelerate Binalyze’s expansion in the US, Europe, and other key global markets enabling enterprises, MSP, and Incident Response partners to mount a forensic response to cybersecurity attacks in near-real-time. This minimises damage and cost to the business.
The investment, which brings total funding to date to 11.7 million US dollars, was led by European venture capital firm OpenOcean, with participation from Earlybird Digital East which led Binalyze’s pre-seed round last year.
Binalyze has grown quickly, with annual recurring revenue multiplying 20 times in the past year alone. It already has an impressive customer roster that includes international brands and Fortune 500 companies including global banks, auditing companies, airlines, and telcos.
The platform delivers real-time forensic visibility to the core security stack, redefining how enterprises can use forensics in real-world scenarios and helping them to minimise the extent of the breach and accelerate root cause analysis to ensure it cannot happen again.
Emre Tinaztepe, CEO and founder of Binalyze, says: “100 per cent breach prevention is no longer a realistic expectation. Forensic visibility is an integral part of an investigation. Enterprises need to be prepared with the right tools to mount an effective and quick response once a suspected breach is detected.
“Speed is of the essence. Cybercriminals work quickly once they gain access to a corporate network. Binalyze is designed to be fast, capturing the most comprehensive forensic snapshot and creating a detailed digital forensics report in less than 10 minutes. It dramatically speeds up all stages of incident response, from identification to remediation.”
Workee: No-code software for freelancers grabs 600,000 euros for US expansion
Workee, a Ukrainian-founded back office SaaS provider for appointment-based professionals, last week announced a funding round of 600,000 euros to grow its user base in the US and beyond.
The round included notable tech investor Ihar Mahaniok, former engineering lead for Google, Facebook, and WeWork.
Workee helps freelancers like coaches, health experts, consultants, tutors, and lawyers, to manage their client appointments, accounting, invoices, clients, and workflow in one place. The no-code software enables professionals to create their personal brand website automatically, without any coding experience, and then to efficiently connect the website to their back office management through Workee platform.
There are an estimated 1.2 billion freelancers around the world – nearly one third of the total global workforce. Freelancing is on the rise, along with remote work, growing three times faster than the traditional workforce.
“As the gig economy is booming worldwide, business management platforms are raising large funds. The Workee team has an impressive ability to execute, showing high commitment and pace in building an essential product for a growing industry,” says Michal Zalesak, managing partner of lead investor Lighthouse Ventures.
Other investors in the round include BRISE Capital, Startup Wise Guys, and Ihar Mahaniok, founder of Geek Ventures. Workee’s array of advisers includes technology executive Andrew Bourne, known to lead high-performing teams to success, having launched and commercialised over 50 SaaS products.
Industry competitors, like HoneyBook and Dubsado, focus on specific aspects of small business, like client management, while Workee’s unique offering is built on combining a variety of priority features to facilitate freelance workflow. Workee automates website building with full customisation, booking and scheduling appointments, issuing invoices, accepting payments, and tax management. The software enables freelancers to work directly with their clients through a simple interface while saving on marketplace fees.
The funding will be used to continue the company’s growth in the US freelance market. Founded in 2020 by Ihor Bauman, Artem Kanaki and Yevhen Kyselov, Workee launched its beta in 2021 and has since seen over 3,000 sign-ups.
In 2022, the company is planning to triple its team to support the rapid growth of the platform’s active user base to over 50,000.
“We aim to establish our presence as the default back office software to make working online easy. To deliver the simplest way to run a freelance business online, we design sophisticated systems that focus on functionality and connectivity with other external tools for optimisation of workflows and promotion to reach larger audiences,” says Workee CEO Ihor Bauman.
Humans.ai: Romanian deep-tech start-up seals partnership with Next Chymia Consulting
Humans.ai, deep-tech company building a next-generation blockchain platform that brings together an ecosystem of stakeholders around the use of AI to create at scale, last week announced a partnership with Next Chymia Consulting HK, one of the main investors in the company and well-known investment fund supporting commercial ventures that aim to revolutionise their industries using blockchain technology.
Next Chymia Consulting invests in innovative start-ups which implement or help the use of blockchain technology, by also offering advice on the strategic employment of blockchain technology based on a thorough analysis of the companies’ profile.
“We are very excited to have Next Chymia Consulting as our partner on this journey and we appreciate their investment in the company and their continued support. The team at Next Chymia Consulting has advised renowned blockchain companies around the world, helping them reach global adoption and recognition.” says Sabin Dima, CEO at Humans.ai.
“Blockchain has already become a technology disruptor that has impacted various business models, processes and supply chains. We at Humans.ai believe the AI market can have the greatest positive impact from the integration of blockchain given the challenges with control and transparency,” he adds.
Next Chymia Consulting carefully assesses the potential of blockchain technology companies and helps support high potential ventures in the field. Additionally, it offers firms support throughout the entire process of integration and adaptation of blockchain technology into already existing networks.
Humans.ai is developing the first framework for ethical AI and blockchain. It is creating an all-in-one platform for AI-based creation and governance at scale, beginning with an initial focus on synthetic media. Through its creative studio and token-based ownership and accountability system, Humans.ai is designed to ensure contributions are fairly rewarded and that every AI is kept honest over the long term.
It combines a library of AI tools into a creative studio suite where users will be able to pick and choose as they bring their ideas to life. Individuals are empowered to create and own their digital likenesses, which may be used by themselves and others in the creation of any number of digital assets. The synthetic media, AI apps, and other digital assets utilise blockchain technology to generate Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as a way of creating transparency, provenance, accountability, and long-term governance.
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