• Utorg develops a widget for apps and websites that allows you to buy cryptocurrency without hidden fees using more than 15 different payment methods.
• Utorg is based in Estonia and allows you to buy cryptocurrency from over 187 countries.
• Currently, the startup’s business model is based on transaction fees. However, by the end of 2022, the company aims to create a “super-app” that combines classic financial services with Web3.

“Utorg will provide banking services as well as standard services from the Web3 world: NFT integration, swaps, and more,”

the company says.

Founded in 2020, the startup currently has a team of 35 people and legal entities in Estonia, Lithuania, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Canada, and Thailand. According to the LinkedIn, at least 15 people from the team live in Ukraine.

In September, TA Ventures participated in the financing of the American biotechnology startup Gameto, which raised $17 million for its new round. And in November, the Hypra fund acquired 25% of the shares in Boosty Labs. Before that, the share belonged to another Ukrainian fund, NetSolid Investments.

Details of the deal

The company is a provider of financial metrics. Such data helps hedge funds and other institutional investors analyze the development of both the market and specific companies to improve their investment strategies.

The startup was acquired by another well-known data provider, Consumer Edge, which operates in the US and UK markets. The exit occurred after eight months, representing a record for club members.  

“We entered the deal in October 2021, and already this June, the startup team announced the M&A. Our previous record was 11 months,”

Anton Poleskov, head of ICLUB Global in Kyiv.

ICLUB Global had 15 investors participating. This is the sixth exit in the club’s history since its founding.

ICLUB Global is an international network of private investor clubs founded by TA Ventures, which allows you to invest in European and American startups together with TA Ventures. ICLUB Global was opened in Kyiv, Zurich, Dubai, London, Monaco, Almaty, and Cyprus.

Investor perspective

At the beginning of acquaintance with the startup, analysts at TA Ventures drew attention to a wide list of exit opportunities, among which M&A was the most likely. Potential buyers could be traditional data providers (S&P, Bloomberg, Pitchbook) and statistical agencies (Nielsen or Jfk). As a result, Qentnis was bought by a data-related company.

The global alternative data market was estimated at $1.72 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow 58.5% annually through 2028. However, at the same time as this growth, there is still no clear leader in Europe, while competition is limited in the U.S.

As the representatives of the firm told AIN.UA, they had actually started investing in Web3 startups earlier, but only now are they creating a separate vertical and additionally expanding the fund size. Over the past year, TA Ventures added the following startups to its portfolio:

• Gemini is the Winklevoss brothers’ group of companies, which includes the crypto exchange Gemini Exchange, the NFT platform Nifty Gateway, the asset management platform Stablecoin, and other projects.
• Aerial is a startup that has developed a tool for tracking and offsetting the carbon footprint, including CO2 emissions from the creation of NFTs.
• Party.Space is a platform featuring three-dimensional virtual corporate and themed parties, celebrations, seminars, and gaming activities.
• Moonpay is a company that offers the fastest way to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using convenient payment tools such as credit cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay.
• Alt is a marketplace for selling alternative assets and collectibles that also plans to work with NFTs.
• Brickit is an app that helps rebuild the old Lego models into new models and characters. It scans your Lego parts collection and shows you what items you can create with them.

We are very far from full decentralization, so at this stage, we are investing in a wide range of consumer DeFi, DAO, NF, and infrastructure solutions for the ecosystem. We started investing in Web3 at the end of last year. To understand how fast the industry is changing — one of the most popular blockchain platforms in the world, Solana, was launched in 2020. Our investment strategy adapts to the new paradigm but still keeps its key components: investing in early-stage startups, focusing on the team, co-investing with our netbook, and global markets,” comments Oleg Malenkov.

Traditional venture capital firms and hedge funds Sequoia, Benchmark, Coatue, Tiger, and others have been investing in Web3 projects for some time without much focus on the industry. Thanks to the emergence of traditional players in the market, an alternative asset class is already developing, and there is a demand for it. TA Ventures does not want to ignore the new direction and the startups operating in this market. Moreover, this direction has been growing extremely fast lately. For example, in 2021 alone, cryptocurrency projects raised more investments than in the previous ten years.

At the same time, TA Ventures continues to invest in companies according to its core strategy: early-stage startups from the digital health, transportation technology, enterprise software, and direct-to-consumer sectors. It has closed about 50 deals and invested more than $10 million in less than a year.

According to Tigipko, in the near future, TA Ventures plans to open a new fund, 2-3 times larger than the existing one.

• Vochi has developed the Vochi Video Effects app, which allows the users to apply various effects to individual objects in a video.
• The parties have not disclosed the financial terms of the deal. However, it is known that the founders and the team will continue working on the project. And the Vochi app will continue to be available as a standalone app.
• Pinterest says that the deal will help them build more innovative creator tools for dynamic videos.
• In May 2020, Flyer One Ventures led the startup’s $1.5 million seed round.
• In July 2021, Viktoriya Tigipko’s fund, TA Ventures, invested in the company. Both funds exited after the Pinterest deal.
• After the last round, the startup reported more than 500,000 monthly active users and $4 million in annual revenue.

• Among the investors are co-founders of Wise (Transferwise), Teleport, Pipedrive, and Bolt. The round was supported by Horizon Capital and existing investors TA Ventures and Flyer One Ventures, which invested in the startup in 2019.
• According to the startup’s representatives, the funds raised will go toward expansion in the American and Polish markets.
• Mate Academy is an online academy for IT professions that provides a four-month programming course in exchange for a percentage of salary after employment. The students of the academy learn Java, Front-end, Full Stack Web, and UI/UX Design. In exchange for free courses, students pay 17% of their salary after employment for two years.
• After the seed round in 2019, Mate Academy’s revenue grew 20-fold. Currently, the online academy has 1,300 employed students and 60 employees.

Eyeota acquisition means the second exit in a week for the Ukrainian VC firm TA Venture, as said by its Founder and Managing Partner, Viktoriya Tigipko. The deal was announced on the 4th of November, soon after TA Ventures exited British Fintech startup Finimize.

About Eyeota

Eyeota was founded in 2010 with a mission to create a sustainable, interoperable, and globally available data solution that supports a privacy-first world of digital marketing and advertising. The company provides a methodology that onboards offline and online data in a privacy-complaint and globally consistent way without the use of personally identifiable information (PII). In that way, Eyota helps brands to get digital insights in order to communicate more effectively with their customers and prospective customers.

Acquisitions will bolster the power of the Dun & Bradstreet D-U-N-S Number to make it easier for marketers to combine offline and online data to enable personalized B2B marketing and activation around the world.

“The acquisition by Dun & Bradstreet is driven by Eyeota’s ability to provide access to global, privacy-conscious B2B and B2C audience data solutions through a valuable worldwide ecosystem of digital activation, data management, and social platforms. By joining forces with Dun & Bradstreet and NetWise, we are able to execute on our shared visions to help revenue-generating teams get out of the business of wrangling data and technology and get back to engaging with their customers and prospects to drive growth for their companies. The combined entities’ technology and trusted data will provide peace of mind to marketers, enabling them to target B2B customers and prospects with confidence and create holistic targetable audiences enriched with consumer signals to drive better engagement across every major marketing channel or platform,” said Kristina Prokop, CEO & Co-Founder of Eyeola.

About Finimize

FinTech startup Finimize is a finance media product with a focus on the investment community. Using the Finimize app and RSS feed, their clients follow investment trends, receive information on financial and investment topics, and communicate with each other. The main feature of the project is a strong community of experts. Finimize helps you to make informed investment decisions.

The startup was founded in 2016 by Max Rofaga.

Finimize has already had over a million users at the time of purchase. About 1 million of them use the free version of the application. The company makes money from premium users who get access to more detailed analytics and investment advice for a subscription of $82/year. Nowadays, the company has 40,000 such clients.

Acquisition details

The British investment company Abrdn acquired Finimize in October 2021. The deal will allow the startup to take advantage of the company’s global partner network and operating infrastructure.

Abrdn will receive unique newsletter technology, as well as be able to take advantage of the editorial skills of the Finimize team. Also, the company will gain a deeper understanding of the investor community.

Abrdn CEO Stephen Bird comments on the deal, “The acquisition further supports our strategic ambition to deliver client-led growth through enabling our clients to be better investors. Finimize’s vision to empower smarter investors is a perfect fit for the group.”

TA Ventures and ICLUB exit details

TA Ventures and ICLUB invested in Finimize in July 2020 and exited 15 months later. ICLUB Regional Director Igor Pertsiya says that Finimize is one of the examples of successful businesses that came into being «in the right place and at the right time»:

“Platforms with a community at the center of their business model are interesting because they are growing rapidly due to organic traffic and content reposts between users. Finimize is an example of a successful business that came into being in the right place at the right time. The startup was launched at the beginning of the growth of free capital for individuals — in 2016. That is why they were able to help a huge number of users to understand the world of investments in more detail and faster. It attracted the large companies’ attention. As a result, they were bought for their competence in the topic and the base of relevant customers.”

• Party.Space is a platform featuring three-dimensional virtual corporate and themed parties, celebrations, seminars, afterparties, and gaming activities.

• The startup has raised $1 million from TA Ventures, ICLUB, and Day One Capital in its seed financing round.
• Yuri Filipchuk, Dmytro Zavada, and Arthur Ostapenko co-founded the company during the pandemic when all communication moved online. Before founding Party.Space, they worked in venture capital firms, blockchain projects, and the game industry. CTO Maxym Rodionov, who previously worked as CTO at Ubisoft, is responsible for the technical part of the project.
• After closing the round, the Party.Space team will launch its first metaverse setting for virtual events and create a collection of NFT devoted to the purpose.

Party.Space allows creating separate virtual spaces for corporate events. The startup solves the problem of team communication in a remote work environment through gamification of meetings, video communication, and 3D. Now the project has 11 types of virtual spaces for different types of virtual events. In addition, Party.Space analyzes how long people stay at the event, their behavior, who they communicate with, and what content they prefer.

Among Party.Space’s clients are Scania, Wargaming, Grammarly, Epidemic Sound, Plug’n’Play, and DevGamm. At the Epidemic Sound event, the average user interaction time in the virtual room was three hours and seven minutes.

TA Ventures investment rationale

Existing solutions for online events do not provide enough engagement and interaction between participants. Corporate events are increasingly moving online, but despite high demand, the industry faces a lack of products that would deliver a quality of engagement similar to offline.

Party.Space solves these issues through room customization and a strong technical component that allows many 3D avatars of real people to be present in the same room.

“Our fund was impressed with the project team: the technology and speed of the Party.Space product are significantly higher than those of other projects in the field of virtual spaces,” said Igor Pertsiya, venture partner at TA Ventures.

About June Homes

June Homes is a platform to rent fully furnished apartments in the US. The company has a unique approach to sourcing the supply side. Unlike other startups that work with professional developers or institutional landlords, June Homes go after a different market. They cover mom-and-pop landlords that own just one building, landlords that have typically held the property for 10+ years and have already paid off their mortgage, and other underpriced segments.

The company has built an algorithm that helps them find an underpriced rental property that needs some additional repair work. After that, in under 72 hours, June Homes can get the apartment ready to be rented. June Homes clients can choose whether they want a furnished or unfurnished apartment. Also, they can live alone or with flatmates.

A data-driven approach with an asset-light financing model allows June Homes to scale faster than the competitors.

TA Ventures and ICLUB investment rationale

TA Ventures founding partner, Viktoriya Tigipko, met Daniel Mishin, startup founder, and CEO a long time ago — while he was working for his previous company in the hotel/hostel market. After that, the TA Ventures team became a part of the new Mishin’s project — June Homes.

“June Homes has become one of the largest residential real estate operators in the US in a few years, with a business model that includes lightweight components that allow it not to own properties directly, thereby freeing up its balance sheet. There are already several players in Asia with valuations over a billion, and here, the experience of Softbank (leading Series A and B) helps us a lot in achieving such goals,” explains TA Ventures partner Oleg Malenkov.

The Series A funds will be used for expansion in London and the UK in general. The company is also giving access to its tech platform to delivery players in international markets.

About Jiffy

Jiffy is a startup for 15-minute delivery of groceries, cooked food, medicine, alcohol, and tobacco from its network of dark stores.

Founded in April 2021, Jiffy currently has eight London stores and 20,000 customers. The startup was launched by serial entrepreneurs Vladimir Kholiaznikov and Artur Shamalov, who previously built other startups like KupiVIP, Foodza, MixCart, and DC Daily. Kholiaznikov was also CEO of big e-grocery player X5 Food Tech.

TA Ventures and ICLUB investment rationale

TA Ventures and ICLUB have invested in Jiffy for the first time in the previous £2.6 million seed round. Investors told AIN.UA that they were happy with Jiffy’s results and decided to participate also in Series A.

“Our portfolio company Impress founder Vladimir Lupenko introduced us to the Jiffy team earlier this year. He introduced us not for the purpose of investing but to give advice on strategy and fundraising since we had just closed a big round for Impress itself. We ended up chatting and immediately decided to invest. Similar models had not yet been launched on the market by then, and we knew that the best time to invest was now.

A month after our investment, several companies working with such a model appeared on the market, and the world’s most famous venture capital funds began to invest in them one after another. As it turned out in this market, the winner is not the one who started first (although Jiffy was one of the first), but the operationally efficient one. Jiffy is now one of the most efficient companies in the market by a number of key metrics, and as a result, it became of interest to Heartland, one of the largest investment funds (owner of Jack & Jones, Bestseller, Asos, a major shareholder in Zalando, Klarna, and other companies), which ended up leading the Series A,” says TA Ventures partner Oleg Malenkov.

Deal details

Founded in 2018 in Spain, Bipi is now present in Spain, France, and Italy. With 120 employees, it has serviced over 10,000 customers in the last three years. Its subscription offer provides a turnkey solution, from the subscription to the return of a vehicle. Everything is included in one monthly payment, avoiding any surprises or unexpected expenses for the customer. The customer creates a tailor-made subscription — he chooses the duration of use of a car (from 1 to 36 months) and can change the mileage, the category, or the model of the car according to his needs. The subscription can be terminated at any time and with full transparency.

In July 2021, RCI Bank and Services, the Renault Group’s automotive captive, acquired Bipi, a multi-brand platform that is a reference in car subscription offers for used vehicles, a growing segment. RCI Bank and Services will support Bipi to accelerate its growth and to open new markets, together with Bipi’s current supply partners and in conjunction with RCI Bank and Services’ dealership partners.

Through this acquisition, RCI Bank and Services will extend its range of flexible all-inclusive products with multi-brand subscriptions dedicated to used vehicles. Bipi will also enable the design of subscription formulae for Mobilize’s activities, to meet the new expectations of car drivers.

TA Ventures and ICLUB exit details

Since 2014, the Mobility Industry has been a core focus area for TA Ventures, a Kyiv-based international Venture Capital firm. When the car subscription model started to emerge in Europe, the firm identified Bipi as one of the most promising teams and made the initial investment in 2019. TA Ventures has helped to structure the Series A round and brought along their co-investment club, ICLUB. Both entities doubled down in the following Series B in 2020. Bipi was also backed by leading investors such as Kibo Ventures, Maniv Mobility, Adevinta Ventures, and Toyota Ventures.

The investment was sourced and led by Frankfurt-based Pawel Schapiro, who is a Partner at TA Ventures and responsible for the Mobility vertical at TA Ventures.

“We are very excited to see Bipi join forces with RCI Bank and Services, who have the right resources and experience to bring Bipi to the next level. We think it is only the beginning for Bipi, who has built an incredible infrastructure for a new alternative to car ownership. All the credit should go to Hans, Alejandro, and the rest of the amazing Bipi team.”

For the private investors club ICLUB, this is one of the first exits through M&A. Twenty private investors have invested in the startup through the club model alongside TA Ventures, and exited the deal as part of this transaction only two years after the initial investment.

“Bipi received a lot of interest from ICLUB members. We presented it to club members twice as part of both rounds A and B, and in the end, we gathered 20 investors. The reason for the excitement is clear: a great team, an interesting market, and a clear, understandable model. That said, the investors who invested in the last round exited super fast in 11 months,” says Igor Pertsiya, ICLUB Regional Director.

VOCHI raised $2,4 million in a late-seed round. Besides TA Ventures and ICLUB, the company got financing from Angelsdeck, A.Partners, Startup Wise Guys, Kolos VC.

What is Vochi

VOCHI is an app for creative video editing. At the moment, video editing apps don’t allow creating professional and creative content “on-the-go.” The established tools like Premiere Pro, Final Cut, or iMovie are complicated, while mobile apps provide monotonous presets.

There is a need to have several costly subscriptions for professional content creators, and VOCHI solves this problem with one app. AI algorithms allow you to create professional content with presets and on-the-go effects. The technology is key to a company’s success: thanks to the algorithms, users can create complex effects using their mobile devices.

VOCHI’s users pay a weekly subscription fee for access to all the tools and presents: $7.99 per week or $39.99 for 12 weeks. But one of the reasons for the company’s success is the fact that around 60% of the effects and filters are available for free.

Currently, the startup has over 500,000 monthly users and has achieved a $4 million-plus annual run rate.

TA Ventures Investment Rationale

Elya Chiechienieva, Investment Manager at TA Ventures explains the fund’s rationale for this investment: “The global market for content editing applications is already large and rapidly growing due to the popularity of social media and services for creating and viewing short videos. Made for professional content creators, influencers, and bloggers, Vochi helps to create unique viral content on a smartphone in real-time, without loss of quality. The technology behind uses a top-notch AI-based computer vision video segmentation algorithm, this makes it hard to replicate. The highly-motivated and talented team showed top-line growth in user base, key metrics and is not going to stop there.”

The company will use new funds to grow its subscription base, improve engagement, and add new features, which will create a path to raising Series A.

Since November 2019, Xometry has owned the startup Shift, which in August 2019, raised funding from Ukrainian firm TA Ventures and private investor club iCLUB Global. As reported by the founder of TA Ventures Viktoria Tigipko, this is the fastest exit for the firm so far.

Updated: As representatives of TA Ventures explained to AIN.UA, the deal is not yet closed. So, a formal exit process will occur within a couple of months.

Investments in Shift GmbH

As of 2019, Shift GmbH was Europe’s largest network of CNC machining companies. Shift’s digital platform organized order processing between manufacturers and customers in over 20 countries. The platform helped the customer to avoid long negotiations about prices, deadlines, or materials, and took care of documentation, communication, and logistics. 

In November 2019, the American competitor Xometry acquired Shift GmbH.

“When we invested in Shift, it was mainly to support the great founding team. They had this rare combination of highly relevant experience and a willingness to execute their vision relentlessly. The acquisition by Xometry soon after our investment was a perfect match at the time and helped Xometry to accelerate its international expansion. We could not have foreseen that less than two years after our investment, we would be part of this IPO and the tremendous growth story of Xometry,” says Pawel Schapiro, partner at TA Ventures.

Xometry IPO

Xometry filed for an IPO in early June 2021, initially saying it expected to raise $100 million. Upon going public on the NASDAQ, the company’s stock began trading at $44 per share, which was already above the expected $38-$42 range. By market closing, the stock price had jumped to $87.39 apiece, which was 98% higher than its original price. This allowed Xometry to raise about $302 million.

Besides TA Ventures and ICLUB, the company got seed financing from IBB Ventures, Wille Finance, Sanner Ventures, and several business angels.

The company intends to use the funding in two ways. Firstly, the expansion of the team and clinic network is to be driven forward in order to meet the strong increase in demand in the core markets of Germany, France, and Italy. In addition, further markets are to be developed. The use of the platform www.fertilly.com remains free of charge for patients.

What is Fertilly

Fertilly advises women, men, and couples free of charge on the subjects of fertility, family planning, and assisted reproduction. Despite 1 in 7 couples being unable to conceive naturally, the discussion about infertility is still heavily stigmatized in today’s society – Fertilly wants to change that. 

“Today, in every school class, there’s on average one child that has been born through assisted reproduction. This number will continue to increase significantly in the future, due to far-reaching social and cultural changes,” says Christoph Müller-Guntrum, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Fertilly.

By digitizing major steps along the fertility journey, Fertilly ensures more transparency in the process while providing a better patient experience.

“The topics of fertility, assisted reproduction, and family planning are moving into the digital world at a high pace. Patients want to take more ownership when it comes to their fertility, and have growing requirements regarding transparency and patient-centricity along the journey. We look forward to significantly shaping the development in this field over the coming years,” Stephanie Kaiser, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Fertilly, explains.

TA Ventures Investment Rationale

TA Ventures is an early-stage venture fund, backing companies in Europe and North America at Seed and Series A, alongside high-profile co-investors, across a wide range of tech sectors. ICLUB Global is a network of investment clubs where private investors can co-invest with TA Ventures into fast-growing startups in the EU and US.

“In reviewing Fertilly as an investment opportunity, we saw not only an attractive market but also a strong team that has developed a product to capture and digitize this market. In the face of modernizing legislation, confusing decision-making processes, and the ongoing stigma surrounding the topic of “unfulfilled desire to have children,” we see Fertilly as the optimal way to serve expectant parents both through comprehensive counseling and with a hand-picked network of fertility centers,” says Elya Chechenieva, Investment Manager at TA Ventures.

• TA Ventures, the ICLUB private investors club, and Imperia Holding invested in this round.
• Together with the $150,000 pre-seed round, the total amount invested in OVO was $500,000.
• In one year of operation, by March 2021, the startup had more than 7,500 clients with an average order amount of UAH 950-1,000. Since then, besides fruits and vegetables, the company added its own-produced bread, cereals, teas and continues expanding the product range. Also, the team developed packaging for greens, which helps to keep them fresh during delivery.
• OVO employs 50 people.
• The company processes over 190 orders daily.
• By the end of 2021, OVO plans to use the funds raised to open up to seven dark stores and cover all of Kyiv with express delivery.

OVO is a service for the delivery of fresh fruits and vegetables from dark stores. The startup was launched in the spring of 2020 by the founders of Bluocean marketing agency Roman Melkumov and Stepan Zyniakov.

About the Impress

Impress was founded by orthodontist Dr. Khaled Kasem and serial entrepreneurs Diliara and Vladimir Lupenko in 2019 in Barcelona. The idea was to “combine the best orthodontic tradition with the most innovative technology in the sector.”

Impress is a chain of company-owned clinics specializing exclusively in invisible orthodontics – a treatment that consists of using a set of transparent aligners, personalized with AI-assisted 3D scanning for each patient, in order to trigger the gradual movement of the teeth to the desired position. The methodology combines traditional treatment with the latest technology, individualized app-based digital monitoring 24/7 from anywhere, and a qualified medical team.

Impress combines approaches of Direct-to-Consumer brands with high-quality medical care. A client only needs to come to the clinic once for an oral scan; all other services are provided remotely, which allows the startup to grow faster.

Impress is led by the Chief Orthodontist Dr. Kh. Kasem and serial entrepreneurs Dilara and Vladimir Lupenko.

Today Impress operates in Spain, Italy, Portugal, the U.K., and France and plans to scale across Europe. It already has 75 clinics and now is approaching €50 million in annual run-rate. Impress is projected to grow to €150 million of revenue in 12 months, as reported by TechCrunch.

Why TA Ventures and ICLUB invested

TA Ventures and ICLUB were among the first investors in Impress back in 2019. After exceptional growth in 2019 and quickly after raising the seed round the company is ready to grow even more.

TA Ventures partner Oleg Malenkov explains the fund’s investment rationale: “Impress didn’t copy what other companies in the space were doing and approached the market from a different angle from the get-go. They doubled down on the doctor-led digital model which brought way better conversion rates and treatment quality even though on paper it looked complex in the beginning. It’s still very complex but the team was able to crack it and scale exponentially. We at TA Ventures couldn’t be more proud of the team today! Long way to go.”

For private investors club ICLUB Global, Impress became the record deal in terms of investment size from club members. ICLUB members participated in each round raised by Impress so far.

“We presented Impress to ICLUB members three times, and it caused a furor among them. The first time we showed it, the company was just an idea, but still, Ukrainian angels believed in it,” says ICLUB Regional Partner Igor Pertsiya.

The new funding will be used to open new clinics in more countries and overall growth.

Aerial closed a $2M seed funding round with participation from Global Founders Capital, Lachy Groom, Canaan, Climate Capital, Great Oaks VC, Fourth Realm VC, Whalebone Ventures, Derek Dolin, and Paul Veugen. 

What is Aerial

Aerial is a startup that allows people to offset the carbon emissions produced primarily by their travel. Aerial founders shed light on the environmental impact of each one of us.

“We know things like flying, driving, and home energy produce a carbon footprint and drive demand for fossil fuels. But we do not know how much, how to track it, and what to do about it.”

Aerial gives an opportunity to live sustainably for the price of Netflix. A user just connects their email history to Aerial, so the app can sift through their emails to find taxi rides and flights. After that, it calculates emissions and proposes to compensate it with payment to environmental organizations that are restoring more carbon to the earth through practices such as forest conservation.

TA Ventures partner Oleg Malenkov explains the fund’s rationale for this deal, “Think of it as a mindfulness phenomenon which Calm and others started 10 years ago. Sustainable living is the next big movement people follow to save our planet. Aerial is definitely a long shot for TA Ventures, and even though they’re catching the momentum with NFTs right now, we believe there’s so much value underneath to capture in the long run. Why wouldn’t people pay monthly to offset their emissions? They would, if not today, then tomorrow.”

Recently Aerial launched a subscription model. Further, it can see how its footprint stacks up against the average user and learn from scientific articles about ways to improve.

NFT carbon footprint tracker

The latest feature from the Aerial team is a footprint tracker for NFT (non-fungible-tokens). New blocks of information for blockchain are “mined,” which requires expensive computer hardware that consumes a lot of power and produces a lot of waste. The Aerial online tool allows users to calculate the carbon footprint of their NFT collection and instantly offset the emissions through verified carbon offset and carbon capture programs.

Several celebrities, including Calvin Harris and street artist Mr. Brainwash, have already used Aerial’s online tool to offset their own NFTs.

“We at TA Ventures strongly believe in the space, healthcare should be democratized for everyone despite the credit score. Walnut makes healthcare affordable for most Americans. Now, 60% of the US population cannot cover a single $400 in case of emergency. At the same time, hospitals and general practitioners lose tons of money because of the bad debt. With 0% interest buy now – pay later offering, patients are good to split bills and feel comfortable paying for medical services (planned in advance or due to unexpected cases). We’re happy to join forces together with best-in-class VCs like Gradient Ventures (Google), Lightspeed, Afore, 2048 Ventures, and others,” says TA Ventures partner, Oleg Malenkov.

Angels include the CEOs of Giphy and PillPack, and the CTO of Rampm Financial as well as an NFL coach. The company is also a part of Plaid’s inaugural accelerator.

About Walnut

Healthcare insurance only covers a subset of conditions in the United States. For the uninsured and insured alike, innovative ways of managing big bills are in high demand.

Walnut, founded by Roshan Patel, uses a “buy now, pay later” model to help patients pay for healthcare over a period of time, instead of in one $3,000 chunk. Walnut works with healthcare providers so that a patient’s bill can be paid back through $100-a-month increments for 30 months, instead of one aggressive credit card swipe.

The startup doesn’t charge any interest or fees to consumers. Walnut is charging healthcare providers a percentage of each sale or transaction. If a provider’s collection rate for an out-of-pocket is 50%, Walnut would go to them and say “give us a 40% discount, and we’ll guarantee the cash for you upfront.” The startup will take the risk, and then the provider is able to make 60% of the collection rate.

Ideally, a provider would want to get 100% of payments they are owed, but in a real world a large number of bills go unpaid due to bankruptcies or a default on payments. As a result, the average collections rate for hospitals out of pocket is less than 20%. And Walnut can offer at least some stable upfront cash to hospitals, even if it ends up being 60% of overall bills versus 100%.

The startup is starting by working with small private practices of one to five physicians that focus on specialties like dentistry, dermatology, and fertility. Walnut’s two biggest customer groups are the uninsured (people who have lost their jobs from COVID-19), and consumers who have high deductible plans.

It is reported that the deal took place back in 2020. The funds will be used for further development of OVO – the startup plans to become the market leader in fresh fruit and vegetable delivery by the end of 2021. Moreover, the company plans to raise another round of investment by the end of March. The company plans to spend it, in particular, on launching five “dark stores” in Kyiv.

According to OVO co-founder Roman Melkumov, initially, the company did not plan to raise funds:

“We launched the service in the midst of quarantine and were developing it with working capital. Since the business was profitable from the first day, we thought about a business loan, but we met Andriy Fedoriv, and he offered to become a partner in our company.”

“OVO and Liki24 prove that even the crisis doesn’t keep good companies from raising investments. These two startups aroused the most interest from investors within our club, which is an indicator of demand for Ukrainian products among local investors,” commented Igor Pertsiya, ICLUB Managing Partner.

About OVO

• OVO is a service for ordering and delivering fruits and vegetables in Kyiv and within 25 kilometers of the city.
• The service was initially called Kyiv Vegetables and was created by Roman Melkumov and Stepan Zinyakov on April 22, 2020, when quarantine restrictions were already in effect in Ukraine.
• Roman and Stepan did market research, calculated several business models, and launched the MVP of the service in 2 weeks with a $55 investment.
• In October 2020, the startup secured an angel investment from Fedoriv Group. The funds were used to build a new brand (OVO), restart the IT infrastructure, and launch a large-scale advertising campaign.

“There are several problems with buying fruits and vegetables in the grocery store: the product range is more limited than in a warehouse, visitors touch the products with their hands, and the selection process takes a lot of time. OVO offers to deliver fruits, vegetables, and related products to a doorstep in 60 minutes,” the company says.

What is Coterie?

Launched in 2019, a sustainable diapers company with its headquarters in New York, Coterie, was aimed to simplify parents’ baby care with a better diaper. The company guarantees leakage protection due to 2 times more absorbency than leading brands, including Pampers and Huggies. Coterie says that it produces the driest diapers in North America that moreover effectively helps reduce skin irritation. Compared to the industry average of 30 seconds moisture-wicking, with Coterie diapers, it takes 16 seconds.

“Parents today expect high-quality, high-performing products in every area of their lives; why should diapers be any different? There was a clear opportunity to deliver something so much better. Designing the best diaper, was just the start for Coterie. We will continue to look for ways to innovate and deliver better products and services that make parent’s lives easier,” says Frank Yu, founder and CEO of Coterie.

TA Ventures investment rational

TA Ventures first contacted Coterie early in 2020, the startup was founded by TA Ventures partner Oleg Malenkov.

“P&G and Kimberly Clark hold more than 85% of the market in the US by clearly winning the mass market segment, what Coterie does is a combination of a 10x better product made of organic materials and a direct-to-consumer approach fueled by super high retention rates. Owning a tiny % of a market share will result in hundreds of millions in revenues. It’s a tremendous opportunity that we want to tackle, and are already successfully tackling by selling more than 1m diapers per month,” commented Malenkov.

The company’s growth is not fully set up yet with launching a diaper-as-a-service subscription coupled with concierge and community features.

Currently, the company employs 25 people, with four new hires in the pipeline. By the end of 2021, Cast.ai plans to double the number of employees to 50 people.

What is Cast.ai

Yuri Frayman, CEO and co-founder of the company, says that they started the company with the idea that developers should be able to get the best of each of the public clouds without being locked in. They do this by creating Kubernetes clusters that are able to span multiple clouds.

“Cast does not require you to do anything except for launching your application. You don’t need to know  […] what cloud you are using [at any given time]. You don’t need to know anything except to identify the application, identify which [public] cloud providers you would like to use, the percentage of each [cloud provider’s] use and launch the application,” Frayman explained.

This means that you could use Amazon’s RDS database and Google’s ML engine, and the solution decides how to make that work based on your requirements and price. You set the policies when you are ready to launch and Cast will take care of distributing it for you in the location and providers that you desire, or that makes most sense for your application.

“The company takes advantage of cloud-native technologies, containerization, and Kubernetes to break the proprietary barriers that exist between clouds,” says company co-founder Laurent Gil. “We break these barriers of cloud providers so that an application does not need to sit in one place anymore. It can sit in several [providers] at the same time. And this is great for the Kubernetes application because they’re kind of designed with this [flexibility] in mind,” Gil said.

Developers use the policy engine to decide how much they want to control this process. They can simply set location and let Cast optimize the application across clouds automatically, or they can select at a granular level exactly the resources they want to use on which cloud. Regardless of how they do it, Cast will continually monitor the installation and optimize based on cost to give them the cheapest options available for their configuration.

“We invested in Cast.ai, because there shouldn’t be a monopoly for cloud services in the real world. The more options developers have while building new products, the more reliable products they would release at the end of the day. It’s a clear win for a tech community and a huge leap toward cloud independency”, – TA Ventures Partner Oleg Malenkov said.

“We look forward to unlocking new pools of demand and offering more people new ways of accessing a car. Our mission is to digitize the car experience, making vehicle access enjoyable and stress-free. We will use the funds to grow more aggressively in Spain, expand to new markets, and grow our tech and management team,” says Hans Christ, co-founder and CEO of Bipi.

About Bipi 

Bipi is a leading European car subscription startup that offers consumers a hassle-free alternative to car ownership, with flexible monthly subscriptions on high-quality new and used cars for a single, all-inclusive monthly payment, using a digital-first, 100% online transactional process. It’s a kind of Netflix for transport. 

Most players in the Mobility sector (carsharing, taxi, car rental) are working on the short-term goal of transporting you from point A to point B. Bipi’s product is different — it works for those who are not ready to give up personal transport.

Ninety-eight percent of car transactions in Europe occur offline today, and Bipi is transforming this market into a 100% online experience, making it as easy as buying a pair of jeans. Bipi’s subscription model is highly flexible and is a simple way for consumers to access a new car – and everything else that car ownership entails – without purchasing one outright. Bipi has become a new distribution, payment, and digital platform for many fleet owners, including some of the world’s leading leasing companies, carmakers, and dealerships.

Together with this new financing, Bipi has successfully raised a total of 20 million euros from investors in the last three years. Bipi leads the market in Spain for digital car subscriptions and will use the new funding to further accelerate its local growth, add new talents to its current team of 80 employees, invest in technology, and prepare its expansion to new European markets, including France. Bipi’s impressive growth has continued through the most difficult parts of the COVID period, with customers looking for private mobility options turning to Bipi as the most consumer-friendly car access platform in Spain.

TA Ventures and ICLUB investment rationale

TA Ventures and ICLUB have invested in Bipi for the first time in 2019. Expectations were exceeded by Bipi’s team, delivering outstanding growth, even in difficult times. So when Series B came together, it was not a hard decision to follow-on and double down on Bipi.

Viktoriya Tigipko, Founding Partner at TA Ventures and President of ICLUB, points to Bipi’s growth: “Bipi’s exceptional growth and outstanding customer feedback have confirmed their position at the forefront of the car-as-a-service market in Europe.”

About TA Ventures and ICLUB

TA Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm, backing companies in Europe and North America at Seed and Series A, alongside high-profile co-investors, across a wide range of tech sectors. It invests in Seed and Series A startups with a typical ticket ranging between $250k and $1M and the capacity to provide follow-on investments. Its portfolio is largely focused on Europe and North America.

ICLUB Global is a network of investment clubs where private investors can co-invest with TA Ventures into fast-growing startups in the EU and the US. ICLUB members invest only in startups funded by TA Ventures. Therefore, ICLUB members can build their portfolio with lower risk. TA Ventures has already conducted its due diligence, so members just need to review it and make their decision.

TA Ventures and ICLUB also invested in a startup from the US, Queue. The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

What is Impress

Impress is led by the Chief Orthodontist Dr. Kh. Kasem and serial entrepreneurs Dilara and Vladimir Lupenko.

Impress is a chain of company-owned clinics specializing exclusively in invisible orthodontics – a treatment that consists of using a set of transparent aligners, personalized with AI-assisted 3D scanning for each patient, in order to trigger the gradual movement of the teeth to the desired position.

The methodology combines traditional treatment with the latest technology, individualized app-based digital monitoring 24/7 from anywhere, and a highly qualified medical team with over 15 years of experience in the field.

Impress focuses on the digitization of the treatment process and customer experience. This is achieved predominantly by optimizing costs and, as a result, democratizing invisible orthodontics. The Impress model also allows unparalleled patient mobility, allowing a patient to access any of the Impress clinics across Europe during the treatment process for specialized and truly professional care.

Within just one year, Impress has managed to scale and provide access to its orthodontic treatments in over 40 cities in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, and is now planning to introduce the model to other world regions. In the next 12 months, they plan to launch in the UK, France, and the DACH region.

TA Ventures was the first VC firm that supported Impress in their idea on the early stage. TA Ventures Partner Oleg Malenkov became an Impress board member.

“Impress is not just another cosmetics company, but a digital orthodontics platform that operates accordingly, combining high-quality treatment and top-notch customer experience,” Viktoriya Tigipko, TA Ventures Founding Partner, ICLUB President.

Impress will use the funding to consolidate the markets by expanding territories and building of new clinics in cities where it already has a presence. Furthermore, it will bet on the digitalization of other processes to optimize the time and cost of treatments.

What is Queue

Queue.gg enables real-time video feedback and collaboration. It is a platform that lets creative professionals manage their clients, get feedback on their work, and get paid faster.

Queue enables creatives in the passion economy to start and scale their business online in the easiest way possible. Using Queue, users can review and give real-time feedback on the video, audio, images, etc.

Thousands of video producers and e-sport coaches already use its product.

2 weeks after Y Combinator, it raised a $1 million pre-seed round from TA Ventures, venture capital firms, and angel investors in Silicon Valley. TA Ventures partner, Oleg Malenkov, found this startup even before it completed the Y Combinator program and participated in Summer 2020 Demo Day 1.

“Queue is a classic story from Silicon Valley. Two excellent technicians have made a product for themselves that has found its fans. Now it’s their job to turn it into a business, and we’re happy to become a part of this journey,” Oleg Malenkov says.

The first thing Queue is going to focus on now is to hire talented engineers, marketers, and designers. The startup wants to make a platform that lets anyone in the passion economy start a business providing services online.

The round was led by the British fintech venture investor Anthemis along with K Fund and Encomenda Smart Capital. Other investors such as Atresmedia, the North American fund Hard Yaka, led by Twitter investor Gred Kidd, number two on Facebook, Javier Oliván, the founder of Letgo, Enrique Linares have also participated in the operation.

A private investment club from Ukraine ICLUB also participated in the deal. This is a network of clubs where private investors can co-invest with TA Ventures in fast-growing startups.

About Goin

Goin is an application that helps you achieve your short term goals of saving money or buying stuff. Goin covers the whole process — from setting a goal (to accumulate a certain amount of money, to buy a product) to the final transaction. Everything through one app.

Goin was founded in 2017 by David Riudor, Carlos Rodríguez Antón, and Gabriel Esteban Gullón. There are more than 20 team members (hiring currently, number changes constantly).

The startup plans to use the funds to strengthen its market share in Spain, grow its team, and look towards European expansion. Goin is currently focused on adding new savings features for users (like adding new partnerships), new monetization models, and user numbers growth.

About TA Venture

TA Ventures is a Ukrainian venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups from Europe and North America. It focuses on Seed and Series A startups with a typical ticket ranging between $250,000 to $1 million.

TA Ventures invests in startups from different sectors, with a focus on several dynamic ones – Digital Health, Mobility, Enterprise Software, Industrial Technology, Financial Technology, Cloud Technology, Supply Chain, Consumer Technology.

“We’ve met Goin’ founder at the beginning of the year, managed to visit their HQ in Barcelona and invite them to present the company to our private investors’ club ICLUB members in Kyiv and Monaco. There are a lot of savings products on the market, but none of them is focused on short-term goals, which gives Goin a unique positioning in the market,” Viktoriya Tigipko, TA Ventures founder and ICLUB Global President.

“Goin acquirers users much cheaper than most fintech-startups due to its high share of organic growth. At the same time, retention and engagement rates are unusually high for fintech products. We believe that these are very strong indicators of closeness to product-market fit,” Alex Matsiuk, Investment Manager at TA Ventures.