- The Sofia-based early-stage VC, Eleven Ventures invests a total of €1.2M in the first four startups which enter Eleven Alpha – a dedicated program for supporting pre-seed CEE founders.
- The four regional startups joining the program are Perfeqt, MyTeam, True Insights, and FlatAway, which respectively fall in the healthcare, fintech, ecomtech, and future of work target verticals.
- Each startup receives a €300K investment for 10% equity, alongside a tailored game plan, and access to all the resources and network of Eleven Ventures.
The team of Eleven dubs the terms of the program “Unicorn deal” as they invested on similar terms as the first institutional investor in Bulgarian-born fintech unicorn Payhawk.
“We got to meet many great entrepreneurs and some amazing projects in just over a month, so it was very hard for us to choose and I’m sure we missed some good ones along the way. The whole region is buzzing with startup activity, and we are very grateful to all local partners, who spread the word for us. We probably just scratched the surface, but the turnout was amazing. We are extremely happy with the four selected companies and their enthusiasm to take full advantage of our platform. We do love working with builders like them,” Ivaylo Simov, Managing Partner at Eleven, highlights.
The Eleven team reviewed over 450 applications from 25 countries, selecting four startup teams after a rigorous process, all of whom received a signed term sheet less than two months after submitting their application.
“We believe that by offering such a deal, which is a bit higher than the standard deal of first institutional investors, we provide founders with peace of mind. Our main goal is to allow them to work on what matters the most during these early stages of development – namely reaching a product-market fit,” Nikola Yanev, Marketing Manager at Eleven Ventures, explains in a previous interview.
Who are the Alpha stars?
Name: Perfeqt
About: Perfeqt is a healthcare startup from Slovenia that offers an at-home urine test and mobile application that tracks your body’s wellness and provides personalized lifestyle and nutritional advice based on your results. The user sees results and explanations about all parameters being tested within the app, along with a personalized plan and suggestions for lifestyle/nutrition changes that could improve certain parameters.
Name: MyTeam
MyTeam is a Greek B2B SaaS ecosystem that incorporates technology and digital tools to manage sports clubs. This platform streamlines the daily operations of sports clubs by offering a centralized web-based platform. Moreover, MyTeam enables athletes and their parents to keep track of all aspects of their sports life through its user-friendly interface. By leveraging MyTeam’s features, sports clubs can improve their overall efficiency and provide a better experience for their athletes.
Name: True Insight
True Insights is a Bulgarian ecomtech startup that provides a SaaS product to help e-commerce brands and store owners analyze the quality of their product pages and listings, track and compare products of their competitors, find out what could be improved, and receive content improvement advice. The product uses its own AI algorithm to spot specific elements, their variables, and return results of the product listing state.
Name: FlatAway
FlatAway is a Bulgarian startup that provides housing as a service to the remote generation. The platform features professionally managed properties that can be rented for flexible periods, and it has a subscription model enabling digital nomads to switch places hassle-free, paying the same monthly rent regardless of the location. FlatAway addresses the underserved demand of the multi-billion dollar digital nomad rental market, solving the main problems for landlords: operational hassle, piled-up costs, and time-consuming guesswork involved with utilizing multiple property management software providers and services. Alongside with the investment of Eleven Ventures, FlatAway raised money through the crowdfunding platform Seedblink.
During the three months of Eleven Alpha, founders will go through three learning and development stages: discover, design, and deliver. All of that with the aim to help them reach their product-market fit.
With the support of Eleven’s team, wide network, and entrepreneurs in residence, founders will get to know their customers better, understand how to provide value to them, design their business model, build a go-to-market strategy, start selling, and prepare for future fundraising.
