Last month, Ukrainian startup QROK, which has developed a mobile app for navigation within buildings and malls, received a capital injection of half a million US dollars from an unnamed Estonian investment company.
“The investor will launch its activities officially across the CIS in a few weeks, and it might be a big surprise for Ukraine,” QROK founder Igor Snizhko told Ukraine Digital News.
The mysterious investor received a 20% stake in QROK, which has incorporated a legal entity in Austria to conduct international development.
“We plan to move to Austria with our team in the next six months with Deloitte support,” said Snizhko.
While creating his product, Snizhko “tried to take the best from different approaches.” One of those was Canadian Wifarer, “but they stopped developing their indoor navigation technology after their CEO was hired by Apple,” Snizhko heard.
Many Ukrainian startup entrepreneurs base their companies abroad from the very beginning, or move their activities partly or fully as the company develops. Among the latest examples is Ecois, an energy-management startup that moved to Poland-based incubator Hubraum a few months ago.
