By the end of 2014, growth opportunities for many technology businesses in Ukraine started to shrink as the war zone grew and the hryvnia shrank.
Hurt by the bad trends, Ukrainian startup Poptop decided to move to to the United Kingdom market with $30,000 investment it received in December 2014 from
the founder of Ciklum Torben Majgaard.
The online
service for finding performers for the events, Poptop.fm, has around 300 deals
monthly in Ukraine. It has a database with more than 3,000 artists during its existence since November 2013.
The Ukrainian
version of the service is still running profitably. The UK’s version is just
getting through the new market, but has some 600 artists already and around 90
deals monthly.
Poptop
website offers advanced search for an artist with the needed skills and the appealing
pay rate. Client can leave the info about the planned event and the contact
information request to a specific performer. If the performer accepts the
request, the client gets his contacts and they can communicate offline
afterwards.
There are
only two people in the team making the start-up’s successes possible. The chief
executive officer and chief technology officer both moved to the U.K. to look for new
clients and new partnerships. Sales and marketing is mostly outsourced through their
Ukrainian partners.
“The
investment from Torben will be just enough for us to break even while promoting
and developing Poptop on UK’s market,” says chief executive officer at Poptop,
Yevgen Shestopal.
In addition to already worthy investment of
Ciklum’s founder, Poptop team has a strong back up of Sirius entrepreneurship program
grant they received in November 2014.
Both team
members will receive 12,000 pounds monthly for a year, while they get involved
in mentorship program in Newcastle and have a free office space.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
