How To Web

In July 2017, Planable (www.planable.io), a two-year-old startup from Chisinau & Cluj was accepted to TechStars London, probably the best acceleration program in Europe. Annually, TechStars accepts 20 companies into its programs (in London and Berlin) out of 2000-2500 applications – not an easy treat.

However, at first sight Planable is not that special. What are the growth prospects for a social media tool in 2017, when Hootsuite and Buffer are already 10 years old established businesses? What is so disruptive about it? How did they impress TechStars? What makes them special?

In June 2017, Onyx Beacon announced a pilot project with Lockheed Martin, the $83bln aerospace & defence American corporation, which is using their newly launched Tracko product.

However, for Bogdan Oros it all started 4 years earlier. In April 2013, a young team from Cluj was pitching a feedback via-SMS solution at the Launchub Demo Day in Sofia. As team lead, Bogdan Oros convinced the investors and, with $30k in their pockets, they took their shot at building TXT Feedback. It did not work.

Almost 7 years ago, Mihai Rotaru and Alexandru Dumitru were starting a new project during the first ever Startup Weekend event organised in Romania. The project would become CleverTaxi – launched in 2011 in partnership with Orange as an aggregator of taxi services accessible via the CleverTaxi mobile app.

Backed by Andrei Pitis as an early investor and technical expert, the company started to grow. In 2013 it introduced the now famous command desks at the Otopeni Airport, then in 2014 raised an undisclosed round from Neogen / Calin Fusu.

But competition grew significantly. Meridian Taxi and Speed Taxi developed their own apps and command desks in 2013, and in 2014 Uber was launched in Romania. Not many people were confident that CleverTaxi, which scaled in 20 cities in Romania, would become a success story.