Last week Wishround, a Ukrainian startup developing an innovative social commerce solution, came in third place at the startup competition of the SVOD Europe conference. Supported by Google, the event was held on January 27-28 at the US firm’s European headquarters in Dublin.
Presenting itself as “Europe’s number one friends fund-raising platform,” Wishround enables group payments via social networks. After filling in information about the gift they would like to get for their birthday, users spread the word about their wish on Facebook and Twitter, or share a link to invite their friends to contribute to the purchase financially.
If there’s a shortfall, the person can add more money. If the person chose a gift from one of Wishround’s partnering online stores, the purchases can be made on the Wishround site.
Last year Wishround was distinguished in the Ukrainian Startup Rating, an initiative of the GrowthUP accelerator to highlight the country’s most promising tech projects.
Irish and Israeli winners
Twenty-five projects from across Europe were competing at the SVOD conference. The first place was taken by Irish bioprinting company Ourobotics, which also won Google Adwords credits to promote its business.
Israeli project Recast, whose main idea is to “paint” anyone next to, or in place of, actors in famous movie scenes, came second.
The winners will participate in the Silicon Valley Open Doors conference, which will be held in the United States on May 25, 2016.
“What really makes this event a success is the high quality of startups involved. Investors are interested to see who will capture their imagination and are afraid to miss out on a hot investment,” said Alexander Galitsky, co-founder and Managing Partner of Almaz Capital Partners.
“The idea behind the event is to provide a platform for efficient networking between entrepreneurs from Central and Eastern Europe, on the one hand, and investors and experts from Western Europe and Silicon Valley, on the other hand. With a 3:1 ratio, i.e one investor to every three entrepreneurs, there was a high level of interest and excellent networking opportunities for both at the event,” commented Denis Dovgopoliy, Executive director of SVOD Europe.
The next SVOD Europe conference will be held within the Kiev Startup Week in Kyiv in April 2016.
The article was first published at Ukraine Digital News.
