Skype Engineers Spin Up $1M for Innovative Nordic Startup
In an effort to become the biggest mechanical engineering marketplace in the world, Boston-based GrabCAD received $1.1 million series A funding from investors Matrix Partners, Atlas Venture and Next View Ventures , as well as angel investors John McEleney, Alex Ott, Angus Davis and Jon Stevenson. ” Our plan is to be the biggest mechanical engineering team in the world,” said founder Hardi Meybaum.
The company was founded in 2009 and works pretty much like eLance or Odesk, but exclusive to engineers. It currently has 7,500 mechanical engineers which they connect with possible employers. Though Boston-based, its development team is in Estonia.
Meybaum pointed out that the hot air fueling Estonian startups popping out lately is rooted from Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype, which happened not too long ago. About half of GrabCAD community are former Skype personnel. “Skype has played a big role in this, about half of our [Estonia’s] companies are ex-Skype employees.”
There has been a lot of focus on startups lately and the Nordic area is a particular hot spot for the emergence of these groups. God knows who the next Nokia would be. Supercell, a Finish game developer focused on broad scope browser-based social games, recently got $12 million from Accel partners, on top of having London Venture Partners and Klaas Kersting,
“Now that the product is about to enter open beta and will become available for everyone to play, the investment will help Supercell accelerate its growth, expand its team and also release new games and target new platforms.”
In addition, we’ve seen the Nordic area hold Summer of Startups and Start-up weekend to encourage small companies to innovate. It’s an important initiative right now, especially as the growing access to emerging technologies has introduced an opportunity for new products that can make an impact. The dynamic we often see in the startup/investment/acquisition cycle is something Compellent CEO Phil Soran recently discussed at the Dell Storage Forum, saying some legacy companies have “big hats but no cattle.” The reference describes what happens to some startups once they’re acquired.
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