volders, a Berlin-based contract management startup raised two million euros. The company describes itself as a personal contract assistant. You feed the application with your contracts and it manages them for you. You are alerted about contract expiration, you can cancel or prolong contracts and in combination with a built-in price comparison tool you can compare and sign up for new contracts. Overview of your contracts in volders (Source) In essence, volders wants you to do the following things in a repetitive circle: Upload all your contracts Receive notifications about contract expiration Cancel contracts Compare and switch contracts volders started as vertragslotse.com in 2014 and received a six-figure investment in 2015. Also in 2015, Vertragslotse.com was renamed into volders. (It seems to me that the major reason for the name change was internalization.) Finally, In 2016 they launched an iOS-App (pretty late) (volders’ history) With their latest investment they want to position themselves as your „personal digital contract assistant“. Furthermore, they want to make “their customer service more proactive and tailor the comparison and prolongation offers more towards their customers“. This year they increased their user base by 50 percent to 550.000 (from Gründerszene). Their plan (more proactive customer service and
Month: September 2017
volders, a Berlin-based contract management startup, raised two million euros
volders, a Berlin-based contract management startup raised two million euros. The company describes itself as a personal contract assistant. You feed the application with your contracts and it manages them for you. You are alerted about contract expiration, you can cancel or prolong contracts and in combination with a built-in price comparison tool you can compare and sign up for new contracts. Overview of your contracts in volders (Source) In essence, volders wants you to do the following things in a repetitive circle: Upload all your contracts Receive notifications about contract expiration Cancel contracts Compare and switch contracts volders started as vertragslotse.com in 2014 and received a six-figure investment in 2015. Also in 2015, Vertragslotse.com was renamed into volders. (It seems to me that the major reason for the name change was internalization.) Finally, In 2016 they launched an iOS-App (pretty late) (volders’ history) With their latest investment they want to position themselves as your „personal digital contract assistant“. Furthermore, they want to make “their customer service more proactive and tailor the comparison and prolongation offers more towards their customers“. This year they increased their user base by 50 percent to 550.000 (from Gründerszene). Their plan (more proactive customer service and
goUrban, an Austrian e-scooter sharing startup, received a six figure investment
Recently, the Austrian startup scooter sharing startup goUrban received a six-figure investment. The startup wants to deploy 50 NIU e-scooters in certain parts of Vienna focusing on local recreation areas and inner-city travel. The scooters are free-floating and goUrban will swap the empty batteries. The scooters have space for two people and come with two helmets and a net to put over your head for hygienic reasons. With car sharing, public transportation and bike sharing, the most pressing question is which — if any — role can scooter sharing play. There are two general aspects. Scooters are either a tool for getting from A to B (like public transportation) or they are recreational vehicles (like sports cars). As goUrban positions their scooters as a low priced way to avoid parking issues while driving through the city, let’s look at scooter sharing as a tool for getting from A to B. Based on scooter sharing’s vague relative advantage goUrban should offer lifestyle instead of practicality In this context the success of scooter sharing depends on whether it is better than the other means of transportation it competes against. It competes against car sharing and public transportation. In comparison to public transportation
Tech stuff I found interesting in CW35
One-click-knowledge-providers, the decentralization of the smartphone and coaching for X as “killer applications” for smartwatches “One-click-knowledge-providers” Despite — or especially due to — the vast availability of knowledge on the Internet, people are looking for a “source of authority” in the online world, similar to a person of authority or expert in the offline world. Wikipedia, wikiHow, and Quora are only a few examples for that. For many these sites and the first and only places they go to look for information. They are “one-click-information-providers”. The Buzzard and BadAbout go into the direction of “one-click-opinion-providers” and aggregate opinions about a certain topic. (The Buzzard curates pro and contra arguments about political topics and BadAbout criticism). In essence, they tell you what to think. Whereas I am unsure whether such niche companies like The Buzzard or BadAbout will prevail in the long-run I do think that “one-click-knowledge-providers” (information and opinion providers) will be important in the future. However, their appearance is likely to change as they get increasingly integrated into whatever platform you use as your virtual assistant (Alexa, Siri, Google…). In this development your virtual assistant will be your one and only “source of authority” telling you what to know
ZENJOB, a German tech company matching companies with temporary employee shortages and students, raises five million euros
ZENJOB is German startup which matches companies with temporary employee shortages with students.The company hires the students, trains them, pays them minimum wage (on average above minimum wage) and lends them to companies either for side jobs or on an hourly-basis for one-time jobs. The positions they fill are typical job students jobs such as being a waitress, doorman or handing out flyers. Job matching is usually spontaneous and they promise to find a match for companies within within 1,5 hours on average [3]. When a company needs help they contact ZENJOB who then sends out the job offer to all their students through the app. Students can then accept or decline the job through the app. ZENJOB was founded in 2015, employs 1.500 students , works with 450 companies [2] and is active in Berlin and Munich. In March they received their first investment in the amount of three million euros and a second one in September in the size of five million. With the raised money they want to expand further, amongst others, into Munich, Cologne, and Hamburg. I find it fascinating that they not only enable hourly jobs for the mainstream but also that their lead time is
ZENJOB, a German tech company matching companies with temporary employee shortages and students, raises five million euros
ZENJOB is German startup which matches companies with temporary employee shortages with students.The company hires the students, trains them, pays them minimum wage (on average above minimum wage) and lends them to companies either for side jobs or on an hourly-basis for one-time jobs. The positions they fill are typical job students jobs such as being a waitress, doorman or handing out flyers. Job matching is usually spontaneous and they promise to find a match for companies within within 1,5 hours on average [3]. When a company needs help they contact ZENJOB who then sends out the job offer to all their students through the app. Students can then accept or decline the job through the app. ZENJOB was founded in 2015, employs 1.500 students , works with 450 companies [2] and is active in Berlin and Munich. In March they received their first investment in the amount of three million euros and a second one in September in the size of five million. With the raised money they want to expand further, amongst others, into Munich, Cologne, and Hamburg. I find it fascinating that they not only enable hourly jobs for the mainstream but also that their lead time is