UberVU, Brainient and eRepublik, on Telegraph’s Start-Up 100 finalist list
Telegraph’s Start-Up 100 final list, based on jurors evaluations, includes 3 start-ups that saw their adventure in business-land starting in Romania: UberVU, Brainient and eRepublik
Brainient was selected finalist in “Advertising and Marketing” section, eRepublik is in finals in “Gaming, Virtual Worlds” section, while UberVu is on the list in “Social Networking and Collaboration” section
The Start-Up 100, in conjunction with TechCrunch Europe, is supported by Orrick, Silicon Valley Bank and Microsoft BizSpark.
Brainient is an interactive advertising platform which is set to revolutionize the online video advertising industry. The company received, in september 2010, $800,000 in VC funding from by Venture Capital Investor Arts Alliance (that also invested in LOVEFILM, Kenshoo, Opera Software and lastminute.com) and a group of prominent individuals such as Dave McClure, Sherry Coutu, Alex Hoye and Algy Williams.
Brainient has created an innovative platform that enables brands to easily add layers of interactive “add-ons” to their video adverts. Publishers & agencies can head to the BrainStudio Library and get access to “layers” which they can easily place inside their video adverts by using a drag & drop interface.
Brainient, Emi Gal’s third company, was founded in late 2008. In 2009, it won the early stage UK start-up competition Seedcamp Week, and received €50,000 in seed funding.
At its turn, eRepublik.com was launched in November 2007 by George Lemnaru, with a financing of Euro 200,000 from Alexis Bonte. Some of eRepublik investors are Brent Hoberman, Stefan Glaenzer, Mihai Crasneanu, Alexandre Almajeanu, Diego Meller, Philippe Seignol and AGF Private Equity. Nowadays, eRepublik team has over 50 members, while the game has over 300,000 active citizens and an important community of fans.
eRepublik hit the one million citizens’ (registered users) 15 months after releasing its public version and reached the 2 million unique visitors per month in January 2010.
uberVU was founded by Dan Ciotu, Vladimir Oane and Dragos Ilinca in early 2008. The company won Seedcamp 2008, an event that was of major importance in company’s evolution. Moreover, the company received funding, in early 2009, from Eden Ventures UK. uberVu’s team has 9 members.
uberVU offers community metrics and analytics related to a certain brand or blog. uberVU makes it easy to keep track of and interact with the community, and gives it client great tools and analytics oriented around this Web-wide community.
Later update: Romanian press also wrote about that, on Wednesday