Finnish-Ukrainian startup PromoRepublic recently raised $1.5 million in a round led by Finnish Innovestor, which also took part in a previous round. As reported by AIN.UA, other investors include Finnish government organization Business Finland, Ukrainian investment firm Genesis Investments as well as individual investors Andres Mihalovits, Paul Melin, and Murat Abdrakhmanov.
PromoRepublic also brought on former Hootsuite VP Steve Johnson to their team.
PromoRepublic has developed a solution to help small companies grow their business leveraging social media in an affordable way. TechCrunch has called it the “WIX for a small business’s social presence.”
Meant to appear “crazy simple” to users, the solution is, in reality, the result of substantial research and development efforts. It is built on a library of hundreds of thousands of context-relevant social media templates and images which is constantly updated using content effectiveness data, user behavior, and interactions.
PromoRepublic was founded in Kiev in 2013 by Valeriy Grabko and Max Pecherskiy. In its early days, the startup completed several acceleration programs, including Ukrainian EastLabs, Estonian Startup Wise Guys, Startup Chile, and Finnish Startup Sauna.
The startup recently moved its headquarters from the Finnish capital to Palo Alto, California. But its team is distributed across multiple countries.
“We celebrate and value the opportunity to stay connected globally and work as a team from different parts of the world. In addition to the obvious cultural enrichment and mindset expansion of our team members, (…) a multicultural team (…) contributes significantly to risk assessment and effective strategic planning,” Pecherskiy said in an exchange with Forbes.
The latest funding will help PromoRepublic develop an enterprise product and strengthen its sales and marketing team in the US.
It is not the first time PromoRepublic attracts funding. Since inception, the startup has secured more than €1 million in grants and loans (including those provided by the acceleration programs) and completed several private equity funding rounds. Thus, in 2016, €400,000 were injected by Ukrainian and Finnish investors; then the startup raised $1.2 million in 2017 and €2 million in 2019.
