accounting systems. The FinTech startup provides company credit cards that help avoid manual processing of expenses, control budgets in real-time, and fully automate payment and expense approvals regardless of the payment method. The plans for future development are to use machine learning to create smart workflows and reduce the need for manual review and approval. The goal behindall of this is not simply tomake budgeting more manageable, but it actually solves the problem that when employees are returning to the office from business travel, they have to deal with the bureaucracy of writing an expense report for 2 hours and then waiting for a week to get their money back from the company. Payhawk experienced a crazy high transaction volume growth (triple-digit) last year. And if we’re monitoring the corporate card and spendmanagement startups in the US with Brex and Ramp, with valuations of $12 billion and $8 billion respectively, you’d know that this is a startup you should follow closely. Frisbo Founded back in 2014 by co-founders Bogdan Colceriu and Laura Frincu, this Romanian startup has one simple goal — to make cross-border shipping in the EU easier and quicker. This is still a relatively earlystage startup since they recently raised another round backed by Bulgarian VC fund Eleven Ventures to reach a valuation of $14 million. Nonetheless, the company has a rich network of warehouses already and is active in 15 European countries, offering next-day shipping to more than 200 online retailers. The company initially started purely as a fulfilment business, but when they realised the issues of scaling such a business, they pivoted to a product that connects retailers with other warehouses in their network, almost like an AirBnB for international shipping. Now Frisbo offers an end-to-end solution that takes over storage, processing, warehousing, and most importantly, next-day delivery at the cost of local shipment. The problem they are trying to solve is enormous. In short, the e-commerce industry in the EU is not where it should be and is way behind when compared with the US. In theUS, nearly 50%of all retailers offer same dayor next day shipping. In contrast, out of the top 50 retailers in the EU, only 13%offer same-day delivery, and 38%offer nextday delivery. Again, those are the biggest retailers. When we look at the broad picture, 90% of all online retailers operate only within the borders of their respective countries. And the issue is clearly not one of demand, with multiple consumers studies showing that same-day delivery is the most wanted feature in e-commerce. If Frisbomanages to change the shipping landscape in the EU, this would be a huge breakthrough not only for the company but for the EU economy as awhole.Who doesn’t gain from increased cross-border trade? Dronamics Dronamics was founded in 2014 by two brothers—Svilen Rangelov andKonstantinRangelov, an economist and an aerospace engineer. The story starts when they embarked on a quest not to shave their beards until they’ve built an autonomous cargo drone. Well in 2017, they had the first test flight of their drone called The Black Swan, which was successful, though — plot twist, the brothers still didn’t shave their beards. Perhaps they’re aspiring towards a higher goal. That being said, no goal seems to be too far out of reach for this startup. They recently had an IPO on the Sofia stock exchange, which was oversubscribed nearly five times. It was an absolute success that raised 3 million euros, which will be used to fund the company’s daily operations. One might ask, however, what’s so special about that company? At the end of the day, many companies are making drones… That’s right. In order to understand if the brothers will shave their beards eventually, we need to look at the longterm goal of Dronamics. After they successfully built a small, unmanned, and extremely fuel-efficient airplane. The company is now aspiring to be a lot more than just a drone manufacturer. They’re in the business of operating Droneports. These Droneports are especially suitable for delivering highpriority goods, such as machinery spare parts, vaccines,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Mjk3Mzkz