After falling by nearly half last year, is the Ukrainian venture market showing some signs of recovery? Just weeks after Clickky, a mobile-marketing app service headquartered in Odessa, raised $2 million, here comes Ajax Systems, maker of smart devices for home security, announcing that they have raised $1 million from SMRK.
This injection of capital is only the first part of a financing deal, the potential total amount of which has not been disclosed.
Based in Kyiv (Kiev), Ajax Systems works with security systems and sensors for the “smart home”.
“In the near future, devices for the security and automation of the home will become increasingly popular and we will look with bewilderment at items in the home that are insufficiently ‘smart’ enough to display a status on the screen of a smart watch or cannot be managed from a smartphone”, says Oleksandr Kosovan of SMRK.
Ajax Systems was founded in 2011 and its team has, up to this point, dealt with security systems. At some point, the team noticed a trend with regards to Internet of Things (IoT) and “smart” systems for the home and decided to move in this direction, Ajax Systems CEO Alexander Konotopsky told Ukrainian tech blog AIN.UA.
At the moment, the startup is running a private beta of its first products, which include wireless window and door-opening sensors, movement sensors, etc. All told, they are planning to create 40 devices and combine them into a home-management system by 2016. It is interesting that nearly all R&D and production of the gadgets takes place in Ukraine, with only the printed circuit boards imported. They are planning to begin sales this September and then launch in Europe, CIS, and the US next year.
“Our goal is to make the smart home as affordable as microwaves or kettles currently are”, states the startup’s CEO. It is expected that the system will cost around $200-250.
Ukrainian fund SMRK launched in November 2013 to invest in startups from Ukraine and other CEE countries at the pre-seed and seed stage. Among SMRK’s portfolio companies are AmazingHiring, a Moscow-based service for finding IT professionals, and Settle, a Kyiv-based startup which has developed a mobile booking and payment system for restaurants.
