“We want to make it easy and convenient to order and pay for one’s takeaway and Bitcoin plays a role in this. We daren’t predict how many will exploit this option, but we’ve already seen an interest which exceeds our expectations.” explains Hungry.dk CEO, Rune Risom to Trendsonline.

Meanwhile, competitor JustEat.dk, the only alternative to Hungry.dk available to Danish consumers, is yet to integrate Bitcoin into their service.

The Benefits of Bitcoin

The currency which was first introduced in 2009 and has since gained a lot of attention and praise, but is yet to be adopted by the majority of online merchants. The system works entirely independent of banks or governments, making it the first decentralized, digital currency. Transmitted from person to person, and kept by the individual in a digital ‘wallet’, Bitcoins are bought and sold through online exchanges and can be earned, with the help of providers like Coinify, through mobile devices by push advertising.

Prior to Hungry.dk’s strategic move to incorporate Bitcoin into its services, the currency had been chiefly used in Denmark to purchase such items as digital services, books and electronics. Risom believes the primary advantages of using the currency lie in the honesty it demands:

“Bitcoin has the distinct advantage that it is not possible to cheat, unlike as it is with credit cards. This means that we needn’t be concerned about scams using stolen cards, but can be sure of receiving money for the food which has been ordered.” Risom deems.

Other pros include that they allow the consumer to dodge the pesky Danish taxes, minimize the transaction fees of the firms using them and eliminate the chance of charge-backs.

Hungry for more? Check out our previous posts documenting some of the biggest milestones in Hungry.dk history.

Also, have a look at the trendsonline.dk article on the same subject.

The post Hungry.dk Bites into the BitCoin Craze appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Above is a spreadsheet from my investment newsletter club with all the investments that we have gotten to our attention during 2013.
Disclaimer: There are, most likely, many more investments that we do not know about (yet), and we will try to update the document when we get to know about more.

Some interesting stats from investments in the region 2013

Updated 2014-01-02: got more information from Hampus Jakobsson. If you have any further info we should add, let us know.

• Total sum of investments: 55 million euros (roughly, with qualified estimates in those cases where the sum is unknown)
• Total number of investments: 52
• Most number of investments: SEED Capital (7)
• Largest investments: Sol Voltaics and Vivino

As can be seen from the numbers, none of them is big single investment (such as last years € 45M investment in Zendesk). So this year it has been mostly seed, series A and series B investments in the region.

Other interesting things from 2013

A very noteworthy happening from 2013 was Unitys rumored ‘no thanks’ to a € 575 million deal. Very interesting for them and the whole startup and gaming scene in the region!

There where also some interesting crowdfunding projects, most notably the release of the game Forced which got a lot of attention for its story, but also gadgets such as Leikr and NSA defeating services such as Heml.is. Also two very high profile ones, that however are still ongoing – Airtame and No More Woof. These are not in the list (even though they are already 100% financed) because they will first close in the beginning of 2014.

Why a focus on investments and funding?

We look at investment and funding for a couple of reasons:

1. It is relatively easy to get the information.
2. A startup that receives investment is ‘validated’ – it is not just a cool idea, somebody believes in it enough to put money into it.
3. Especially the later stage investment rounds (series A and above) are crucial for a startup to make it big. Therefor we deem those as very important.

What do we think about bootstrapping?

Our focus on investments does not mean that we think bootstrapping is in any way wrong. Indeed, my own company, Contentor, is bootstrapped. However, bootstrapping is in my opinion something that is great, especially in the first 1-5 years, but after that to grow truly international and make a difference, funding is almost always needed. Not just for the money and the people that can be hired because of the investment. It’s just as much for the connections and knowledge that the right investors bring. Connections such as inside-people at Google, Facebook or other important collaborators for the startup. Or connections to goverment and politicians that are relevant. Or for further investments and a future IPO. Having people onboard who have experience from earlier in very helpful in those cases.
So I believe bootstrapping is great to get going, try the product and build the first million euros in revenue. But to take it to the next level, to reach € 10M or more in revenue, funding often makes the crucial differences and speeds up the process.

Because of this, we care about funding here at Øresund startups.

Reporting on other stats as well

We will aim to try to get more numbers out in the future. Both Sweden and Denmark have core company numbers available for companies public. We will see what kind of report we can build form that – such as matching the startups in region to their revenues!

The post Updated: The year of 2013 – investments in startups in the region appeared first on Øresund Startups.

“We contacted Hungry.dk as it is a very exciting startup with experienced people at it’s core. The industry is also interesting and has great potential. The target group of ekstrabladet.dk matches incredibly well with the one of Hungry.dk. With our wide range we can help Hungry.dk to increase exposure and create a level of awareness that delivers results,” said Ekatrabladet digital director Søren Svendsen to TrendsOnline.

The reason of Hungry.dk’s huge success is the right and timely focus on demand of services through mobile phones and apps. Launched in March of 2013, Hungry.dk is currently working with 600 restaurants in the home-delivery market.

Ekstra Bladet, on the other hand, is a mobile pioneer in the Danish media market. The company has the expertise to boost attention to the mobile services and this is exactly why this new partnership is very important. It is amongst the top newspapers in Denmark and ekstrabladet.dk is the most read digital newssite.

“I am very proud that we have achieved high growth rates and attract investors and partners in just 8 months. Ekstra Bladet is a very interesting partner for Hungry.dk as their platform has a strong marketing power and a startup like ours is really happy about such partnership,” says Morten Larsen, founder and president of Hungry.dk.

The post Hungry.dk to partner with danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Hungry.dk was launched in March 2013 and has since taken a great position in the Danish takeaway market, started collaboration with international brands as well as other startups in the European take-away market.

Morten reports that more than 500 restaurants have so far signed up and that food ordered for millions of kroner has been delivered since launch.

With a traction like that, a big market potential and an experienced team several potential investors have shown interest in Hungry.dk, according to Morten. But today he revealed that Jesper Buch will be the one that gets to invest in the startup.

“I’m really proud to be able to announce that my good friend and business partner Jesper Buch has chosen to invest in Hungry.dk and become part of Denmark’s new takeaway success. The old team is now back together and the energy we create will ensure Hungry a golden future.” Morten wrote on Google+

With this Jesper joins Henrik Østergaard as investors, and the team that once worked together at JustEat and made that company the biggest take-away company is now working together again.

The amount invested is so far undisclosed.

Trendsonline also has a longer interview with Morten on the subject.

The post Jesper Buch invests in Hungry.dk appeared first on Øresund Startups.

One of the things we want to focus on with Øresund Startups is tracking funding in startups in the region. The reason is simple: funding is an external validation that proves that somebody believes in a startup, and that it is not just a great idea, but also an idea that can be executed. We also believe that it is of interest for others seeking funding to know what funding deals have been made, and who possible investors are.

Therefor we have put together the data that we have been notified about the last 6 month, january – june 2013. We have done that in an simple spreadsheet, and listed a couple of data points:

• Date (approximatly)
• Invested amount (when disclosed)
• What startup
• Which investors
• Business sector of the startups (if B2B or B2C)
• What cluster in the region the startup belongs to

Some interesting investment highlights from the first 6 month of 2013:

Update: after publishing this we got some feedback with more investments we had missed. The numbers below are updated with the newest stats!

Of the investments we have registered:

• A total of 28 investments have been tracked. The total is not officially known, but our estimations and words from unofficial sources put the total to between 18-21 million euros.
• 14 of the 28 investments are Copenhagen based
• The biggest investment was in Crunchfish, but it was only slightly larger then others
• More or less equal B2B then B2C startups have received funding (14 B2B and 13 B2C and 1 that is both)
• SEED Capital was the most active investment fund
• SEED Capital was also the fund which has invested the most money in the period (according to released numbers)
• Half of the investments (14 of the 28) where from private investors, either a known angel / VC or a multitude of angels.
• Private investments also account for roughly half of the total value invested, around 8-10 million euros of the total 18-21 million euros (estimated in cases where not publicly known)

Note that the list above is only with data from 1 january – 30 june 2013. The recent big investments in Vivino as well as Opbeat are not part of it, they will be part of the next report.

As a bonus we also put together the numbers for our first month of operations, september – december 2012. However, as that is not a complete 6 month period we did not want to make a full report of that. The numbers can be found in the spreadsheet, in the second tab. These numbers may also be quite incomplete, as during that period we just started tracking startups and might have missed a lot.

Also – if you know about investments which we have missed, let us know! Either in an email or in the community group.

The stats are embeded at the top of the posts, but if you have trouble viewing them you can find them here as a Google Drive spreadsheet.

If you want to download the numbers as .csv you can find them here.

The post Updated! Report: investments in web and tech startups in the region – spring 2013 appeared first on Øresund Startups.

“We have chosen to work with Hungry.dk because we believe in their concept and the team behind the portal. Domino’s Pizza is in an expansion phase and hunting for reaching out to new customers. Hungry.dk can help it,” says Gustave Geisendorf from Domino’s Pizza.

During the short time of its existence Hungry.dk has witnessed a great progress. At the moment the portal works with over 400 restaurants nationwide and cooperates with international chain Just Eat.

“We are very pleased with the growth that we have had since we began three months ago. Welcoming such well established a partner as Domino’s is another step in the right direction,” says Rune Risom, CEO of Hungry.dk.

The post Hungry.dk now collaborates with Domino’s Pizza appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Østergaard is sure of his decision as he thinks that the industry needs a new strong player.

“It is time that there will be a good and strong alternative in the Danish market, which offers a better and more contemporary experience in the takeaway industry” says he.

The post Co-founder of JUST EAT invests in Hungry.dk appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Hungry.dk enables customers to quickly and easily order food via the internet. They do this by combining new technologies with supposingly great customer service. The food takeaway market is a two sided market where the demand from customers will largely depend on hungry.dk’s ability to mobilize restaurants on the other side. We wish Hungry.dk good luck with their lauch and will report if there is any news from this start-up in the future.

The post Competion in the take-away market; Hungry.dk goes live appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Hungry.dk is also announced that they have started a collaboration with Deliveryhero – a company that started as Lieferheld in Berlin and that later bought onlinepizza.se. Deliveryhero is now chaired by onlinepizzas founder, the swede Niklas Östberg, and a collaboration with them could definetly provide a good boost to the new startup.
In Berlin Deliveryhero has however been in the spotlight because of allegation of copying and sabotaging it’s main rivals business, and Deliveryheros founder and co-CEO just recently left over the reigns to Niklas Östberg.

What the future will hold for hungry.dk is impossible to foresee, but the digital food delivery marked is still new and there are still not many players in it, so with the right attitude and timing this could be a success even bigger then JustEat.

The post Hungry.dk – possibilities and emotions in the take-away sector appeared first on Øresund Startups.