Reface, Vochi, Playkey: “our” startups that succeeded during the pandemic

According to 2019 statistics , 90% of startups die. Of those that survive, only 1% achieve significant commercial success. These disappointing statistics were added to in 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic, which knocked out even business giants. But despite this, many startups were able to not only stay afloat, but also grow significantly. For some projects, for example, the Ukrainian startup 3DLOOK, quarantine even played into the hands: online fitting of clothes, applications for which the startup develops, has become even more popular during the pandemic. In this text, we have collected successful Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian startups that have grown despite the coronavirus crisis.

Belarus

Vochi

App Store / Google Play

Startup idea

Vochi is a mobile application that allows you to apply effects to individual objects in the frame without losing quality. It is also called “Photoshop for video.” Using the application, you can separate objects from the background, turning them into a mask, and then apply any effects: from glow to sparks and explosions. “We believe that computer vision can enable every user to create and edit video at the level of a visual effects specialist,” said Vochi CEO Ilya Lesun. The application was downloaded by more than 500 thousand people, and the project team consisted of 30 people at the end of 2020. According to the creators of the project, on average 3 thousand people a day register with Vochi, mainly from the USA, China, and the CIS.

What happened during the pandemic

In May 2020, the project attracted $1.5 million in investments from the Ukrainian fund Genesis Investments. According to the CEO of the project, Ilya Lesun, in 2020 the startup grew 35 times in user downloads and received 250 thousand active monthly audience. Users also saved 2 million videos created over the course of a year.

Flo

App Store / Google Play

Startup idea

Flo's menstrual cycle tracker is one of the most famous apps in the women's health space. And this is a startup originally from Belarus. At the time of Flo's launch, women's apps had good potential. “The market was not competitive; there were only very simple applications, which we called among ourselves “pink calendars,” recalls Flo co-founder Dmitry Gursky. “This topic was incomprehensible to male entrepreneurs, and in general, many men consciously did not want to deal with it, and, unfortunately, there are still few female entrepreneurs.” The application tracks the user’s menstrual cycle, and also analyzes the data and, based on it, recognizes the disease (if any), helps plan pregnancy and provides access to educational articles and courses. Content for Flo is created by 40 doctors and specialized authors from around the world.

What happened during the pandemic

In February 2021, Flo's revenue exceeded $3 million, and in the first two months of the year it crossed the $6.5 million mark. This is 50% more than during the same period in 2020. At the same time, in 2020, the application became the most downloaded in the world for iPad and iPhone in the “Health and Fitness” category. It has 165 million downloads and 38 million monthly active users. The application was also included in the top 5 popular developments for health; the startup was written about in the ratings of the American publication CNBC.

Eightydays.me

Startup idea

The Eightydays.me web service helps travelers create a route through several cities and selects tickets that are convenient for them. You can include up to 25 cities in your route. The travel builder allows you to combine planes, trains and ferries into one route and buy tickets for three types of transport in one payment. The service analyzes the transport situation in Europe and builds a tour taking into account maximum user convenience while traveling. Not only the cost of flights is taken into account, but also weather conditions, the popularity of the city, travel time, whether there is a developed connection in this city and other factors by which the route is optimized. For now, Eightydays.me only works in Europe , but the team plans to connect other parts of the world. “The product knows a lot and learns every day. Yes, it’s not ideal, but it already takes into account the weather, crowding, cost and convenience of flights, time - which is important,” said Oleg Tikhonov, CEO of Eightydays.me.

What happened during the pandemic

In 2020, Eightydays.me was included in the TechMinsk accelerator, which operates on the basis of Imaguru. Russian designer and traveler Artemy Lebedev also invested in the startup, but the investment amount was not disclosed.

LingvaNex

App Store / Google Play / Chrome

Startup idea

The LingvaNex startup team makes translators as accessible as possible: they create applications for mobile platforms, smart watches, Amazon Echo and Google Home voice assistants, browser add-ons, and clients for Windows and Mac. In addition, Lingvanex has chatbots for instant messengers, a keyboard with translation and translation of inscriptions on images, a voice translator for conferences and other solutions that have not yet entered the market. “To create our translation API, we spent more than 600 thousand dollars, which we earned from translators over almost three years of work. In May 2020, we significantly improved the quality of our translation in European languages, becoming better than Microsoft and Amazon and getting closer to Google. This has greatly improved the metrics of our products,” said product creator Alexey Rudak.

What happened during the pandemic

In the fall of 2020, the company’s founders noted that they had reached 2 million transfers per day with 400 thousand users. Now the creators of the project are looking for investments that they want to attract for the first time in the entire existence of the startup.

Russia

Playkey

Startup idea

This startup is developing a cloud service that helps you save money on an expensive gaming computer. All computing takes place on powerful gaming PCs via the cloud, so gamers can play on virtually any computer. It works like this: the player launches the game, the gaming PC closest to him is activated, which makes it possible to reduce latency - there is practically no difference from playing on his own gaming PC. Playkey receives money from gamers and passes it on to gaming PC owners, keeping a certain percentage for itself.

What happened during quarantine

According to the founder of the startup, Egor Guryev, in 2020, the startup entered the status of an operationally profitable service for the first time . Before this, the project’s economy lived on investments: low prices for the user and high costs for servers brought monthly losses of 80-100 thousand dollars. According to the founder of the startup, Egor Guryev, during the quarantine the number of visitors increased by 1.5 times. “Conversion increased from 1.5 to 5 times depending on the region: in Russia it doubled, and in Italy and Germany it increased 5 times. The total amount of time users spend playing games has increased. Since the company’s revenue directly depends on gaming time, our income has increased by 150-200% compared to February 2019,” Guryev noted.

"Netcoins"

Startup idea

The Netcoin service launched in mid-2019. It allows you to transfer tips to waiters using a QR code and earns from a 5% commission for withdrawing money. Over the course of the year, 750 establishments in Moscow and Russian regions joined the service, including restaurants belonging to the Novikov Group and Rosinter, as well as Maison Dellos, Friends Forever and Correas.

What happened during the pandemic

Thanks to the surge in demand after the lifting of restrictions on the work of public catering and beauty salons, Netcoin’s turnover in June 2020 amounted to 4 million rubles, in July it reached 15.3 million rubles and grew steadily until the end of the year. For the entire 2020, a total of about 250 million rubles in tips were left through the service. The startup turned out to be so successful that in March 2021 it was bought by Alfa Bank . Experts estimate the transaction amount to range from 100 million to 1.5 billion rubles.

Ukraine

3DLook

Startup idea

The startup 3DLOOK is working on technology for scanning the human body from photos using artificial intelligence, neural networks and 3D technologies. The program searches for the main points on the human body and creates a contour based on them. 3DLOOK can find and scan the body even under clothing, which is especially convenient for online stores. The company provides an application for sellers for online marketplaces. They take photographs of clients and offer them the correct clothing size. This is especially true during the pandemic, when fitting rooms or brick-and-mortar stores are closed in many countries. In 2018, the founder of the startup, Vadim Rogovsky, valued the business at $10 million . At that time, up to $2 million was invested in the startup. Among the initial investments are funds from investors who believe in the promise of the technology, as well as the personal funds of Vadim Rogovsky. The startup later raised $1 million from UVentures, 500 Startups and a number of business angels.

What happened during the pandemic

Already during the coronavirus pandemic, the startup managed to attract new investments - $6.5 million from the venture fund Almaz Capital, TMT Investments and Zubr Capital. The received investments will be used to expand the team of top managers in the USA and to open new R&D centers in the USA and Western Europe. The money will also be spent on developing a new product that will allow customers to virtually try on clothes in real time using AR. Since April 2020, the company's annual revenue has grown 5.6 times and exceeded $1 million. Customers were able to reduce item returns by 30%, and conversions increased 4 times when compared year on year.

Reface

App Store / Google Play

Startup idea

This super successful app reached 100 million downloads in 14 months. The mobile application makes Face Swap, that is, it changes a face to a photo or video while maintaining facial expressions. The program uses machine learning and works on the basis of deepfake (creating fake images using artificial intelligence), but unlike numerous analogues, it does not use CGI (computer generated images) or 3D modeling. The new technology takes a few seconds and just one photo - this is its advantage.

What happened during the pandemic

Overall, the success of the Reface app occurred during the pandemic, although the foundation for it was laid earlier. Reface became the first Ukrainian-made application to take first place in the top of the American AppStore, ahead of Tik Tok, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon applications. At the beginning of September 2020, the application was in the top 20 in the overall ratings of free applications in the AppStore and Google Play Market in the United States. Forbes, The Verge and Mashabl have already written about the application. In August 2020, according to the SensorTower analytical platform, the program earned $2 million in AppStore and $1 million in Google Store. “We are working to zero,” said business development director Dmitry Shvets. “We invest everything we earn into development.” In December 2020, one of the most influential venture funds in the world, the American Andreessen Horowitz, invested in Reface. Since then, the company has increased staff and changed its work structure.

Scalarr

Startup idea

The founders of Scalarr came up with a mobile advertising tool that weeds out scammers and saves marketing budgets. In 2020, he helped the startup’s clients save $22 million, Ushakova said in an interview with Techcrunch. Among the startup's products are the AutoBlock application, a program for blocking suspicious ads, and DeepView, a service for in-depth analysis of publications for fraud. They are used on adtech platforms, including ad exchanges, demand-side and supply-side platforms.

What happened during the pandemic

The startup’s revenues doubled over the past year, although the company does not disclose specific figures, according to the Ukrainian Forbes startup ranking. In February 2021, Scalarr closed a $7.5 million round. With this money, the founders plan to promote their product in Asia.

Preply

Startup idea

Preply is an international EdTech marketplace for learning foreign languages. Students and tutors from different countries find each other and conduct online classes. Preply’s business model is unique in that the cost of its services is determined by the teacher himself, and payment occurs immediately after the lesson through an electronic wallet. Over the past three years, the revenue of the service for finding tutors Preply has grown 10 times, although the founders do not disclose specific figures.

What happened during the pandemic

Due to the popularity of online learning during the pandemic, as well as AI technologies used in teaching, the company has increased the number of active students and tutors recently. The number of lessons per student increased by 16%. In the midst of a pandemic, the startup raised $10 million. In March 2021, Preply received another $35 million in investments - twice as much as in the entire history of the company. Now the startup, which has 250 employees in Kyiv and Barcelona, ​​plans to double its team and expand its training program.