October

Top News: Building companies and friendship at Startup Weekend Skopje

The Startup Weekend Skopje batch; Photo credit: SWS

Your favourite news in October was about the Skopje Startup Weekend where aspiring entrepreneurs went through a challenging two-day race  to validate and grow ideas with the help of experienced founders and investors in Macedonia. Take a look at the winning ideas here.

Top Profile: Battling the Google Goliath

We live in a time when “internet search” is almost ubiquitous to Google, but this failed to discourage Gjirafa.com, a search engine designed especially for the particularities of the Albanian language. Find out more about Mergim Cahani, CEO and cofounder of Girafa.com and his startup in October’s profile.

Top Startup Pick: Tep

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Your favourite Startup Pick in October reveals one of your timeless ambitions – to get in shape. Hungarian startup Tep developed an app that allows you to track your trainings. An element of gamification is involved as you boost your online pet and get feedback on your workout sessions at the same time. Meet the team that aims to increase your motivation in our Startup Pick.

Top Investor Pick: Irena Chaushevska

This October you also met Irena Chaushevska, CEO and cofounder of the Macedonian-US NewMan’s Business Accelerator. This investor aims to support and educate young talents with specialised programmes and career centres. Read more Chaushevska in your favourite Investor Pick.

Top Features: On The Road, Interview of the Month, Company Culture

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And how can we forget our road trip Vesselina Tasheva? In October we followed this ambitious lady as she visited six CEE cities in 12 days with Eleven and friends in order to build bridges between the startup communities. Go back on the road to retrace our steps.

October’s interview of the month zoomed in on inventor Peter Florjančič. This legendary Slovenian investor has a career spanning over 75 years, has built 43 cars and registered 400 patents. If you think this is impressive, then go back to this captivating interview to discover a whole new meaning to the word “inventive”.

Last but not least, definitely not least favourite this October, was our peek into Tesseract Interactive’s company culture. This Macedonian startup is already a recognized name in the gaming industry, partly thanks to its first hit game Excubitor. From the company’s naming to favourite startup food, take a look Tesseract Interactive’s company culture here.

November

Top News: econob successful at Gewinn-Awards

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November was definitely econob’s month. This Carinthian software startup successfully launched the new website www.atrap.biz and won the IT/E-Commerce category at the GEWINN-Youth Entrepreneurship Awards in Vienna. Read the news here.

Top Profile: Stand up for startups

Aleks, the stand up comedian and cat person; Photo credit: Goran Kovacevic

Our November profile took a turn on the funny side with Croatian Aleks Curac Saric, professional stand-up comedian for the last eight years. Outside of comedy clubs, he applies his out-of-the-box thinking as a trainer to startups. Meet Curac in our profile.

Top Startup Pick: Settle

The most loved startup of November was Ukrainian team that’s pulling a double shift: running the mobile payment service Settle and the loyalty startup Advice Wallet. Meet the ambitious team in our Startup Pick.

Top Investor Pick: Hrvoje Prpic

In November we also made friends with investor Hrvoje Prpic, who is not only an expert entrepreneur but also cofounder of the Croatian Business Angel Network (CRANE). Meet Prpic in our Investor Pick to find out how he first made money, what he does these days and everything in between the two.

Top Features: On The Road, Company Culture

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And how can we forget the biggest event of November? Go back on location with us to reminisce on the Web Summit 2014. Our exclusive insights from Dublin are worth checking out.

November also brought us a look behind the scenes at TATTOOMODELS.AT. Read more about Christine Zimmer and the company culture she built here.

December

Top News: The Ventures Almanach Austria

Our first book: Ventures Almanach Austria 2015

We’ve come full circle to December, one of our greatest months. Why so great? Well, because we published the Ventures Almanach Austria 2015. The book gives an overview of the Austrian venture scene and its current trends and challenges from the perspective of 20 founders of different industries. Take a look behind the scenes and find out what this book is all about in December’s biggest newshere.

Top Profile: A band-aid for your credit card

December’s favourite startup profile was about Bulgarian startup SkimProt, who invented a simple and elegant solution to keep your money safe – a sticker that goes on your credit card and covers your delicate information. With over one billion dollars lost to skimming in 2014 in Europe alone, this simple sticker is poised to make quite an impact. Read SkimProt’s story here.

Top Startup Pick: Cityzenic

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How about your favourite Startup Pick this holiday season? This honour goes out to Cityzenic, which aims to spice up your travel experiences. Cityzenic provides a marketplace for local advisors, providing travelers with the best possible experience using advice custom tailored to their needs. Find out more about the founding team here.

Top Investor Pick: Thomas Andrae

December’s favourite investor is Thomas Andrae, the Director of 3M New Venture.  Find out more about his focus, his goal to boost companies in the EMEA region and what impresses him most in a startup team in our Investor Pick.

24 days of presents on our Xmas Calender; Photo credit: Paul Anca & Freepik.com

Since this month is all about the Christmas spirit, the inventures team helped spread some holiday cheer with the inventures Xmas calendar. From winter socks to valuable press kits, our lovely inventures readers got a chance to win 24 amazing gifts as we counted down to Christmas.

Curious what’s in store for next year? We heard a rumour that more surprises are coming to our readers in 2015, but you’ll have to stick around, just to be sure.