Led · Debt Financing · Dec 2022

Upstream is a mobile marketing technology company led by CEO Dimitris Maniatis that provides digital marketing solutions across telecom, insurance, education, FMCG and retail sectors. Its products and services reach approximately 1.2 billion consumers and aim to optimize user experience, increase engagement, attract customers, and boost revenues. The company operates in more than 45 countries across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia. Upstream has offices in the UK, Greece, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, and the UAE and works with major names in telco and other industries. The company plans to further expand and develop its mobile marketing efforts. Recently it obtained a €14M debt financing to support these expansion plans and to partly repay a 2017 EIB loan. Upstream operates a software and infrastructure mobile commerce platform that enables consumers to receive and pay for digital subscription services on their mobile devices. The company serves over 60 mobile operators, reaches 1.2 billion consumers in high-growth markets and counts 80 million paying subscribers. In 2016 its users made purchases worth $237 million. Upstream offers products including infotainment, microinsurance, mobile security and antivirus, cloud storage, gaming, video portals, app stores and language-learning courses. It employs over 330 professionals across 10 regional hubs and emphasizes R&D and big-data capabilities. Management says the company has a 15-year track record and plans to use new capital to further invest in R&D, improve its platform and expand its international presence. Upstream is the industry leader in emerging markets mobile monetisation, working with mobile operators, ecommerce brands and app developers across 40 markets to sell products to mobile consumers via demand-fulfillment marketing campaigns. The company provides personalised propositions, deep customer insights and has direct marketing and billing access to more than 1 billion emerging market consumers through mobile handsets. Upstream’s clients include Vodafone Group, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), MTN, T-Mobile and Etisalat. The company has already generated an estimated $1 billion of incremental revenue for its clients and grew its revenues by 61% in 2013. Following the investment, Upstream plans to leverage its investor’s relationships and expertise to expand its customer base and solution suite and drive continued expansion. Marco Veremis, who founded Upstream in 2001, will continue to lead the company after the investment.

Participated · Equity · Nov 2016

Goodvidio provides a conversion rate optimization platform for ecommerce stores and brands that automates product video discovery, curation, publishing, video management and optimization. The service helps online retailers utilize social-media product videos to engage shoppers and drive sales. The company reports more than 40 international brands and retailers as beta customers, including Tassimo, Mondelez, Travis Perkins and Deutsche Telekom. Goodvidio plans to use recently raised funds to expand its customer base in Europe and the USA. Founded in 2014 by CEO Dimitrios Kourtesis, the company is based in Thessaloniki, Greece and London, UK. The platform is positioned for growth through increased customer acquisition and broader geographic expansion.

Led · Equity · Nov 2014

SourceLair is a freemium browser-based integrated development environment that runs a Linux shell in the browser and supports Python, Ruby, HTML5, JavaScript, PHP, and C++. The service supports Git and Mercurial and integrates with external services like GitHub, JIRA, and Heroku to augment the development workflow. Users can run projects immediately from the browser and have access to a full file system; the product is positioned for quick, one-off projects and rapid demos. The company offers a free tier with one project and a paid plan at $8 per month for 10 private projects. SourceLair began as a university assignment by founders who all attended the University of Athens and have held development positions at Warp.ly, ARM, and Niobium Labs. The company reports about 1,000 users and has closed a $250,000 funding round with the National Bank of Greece.