Innovestor invests in Navigine
Innovestor leads a syndicate of investors that provides funding for Navigine, a growth company which develops enterprise indoor positioning systems for production facilities, the logistics sector as well as malls and airports. Previously, Navigine has raised funding in total of USD 350k. The current seed round is USD 400k.
Founded in 2014, Innovestor is a Finnish fintech company which offers a unique concept for venture investments in the Nordic area and Russia. ”Innovestor’s concept combines an easy-to-use digital investment platform available for everyone, with a professional VC-standard investment process”, describes Antti Parviainen, Chairman of Innovestor.
”Many investors want to choose for themselves where to invest, they prefer to own shares directly in the respective companies, as opposed to through a fund. Innovestor’s selection process is carefully designed, we do due diligence and negotiate attractive terms for the investors. We also invest in all the cases ourselves”, Parviainen explains.
Navigine is Innovestor’s first investment on the Russian market, and the company appealed to investors globally. The funding round includes participants from the Nordic area, Russia and the US. One of the US investors is John Ason, business angel and Navigine’s current mentor at Starta Accelerator Program in New York. Navigine has developed a very competitive B-2-B platform for developers and system integrators who need simple tools to create indoor navigation and tracking solutions, and received significant pilot projects from both Russian and international markets (e.g. Dubai Airport). As a result of the company’s unique technology, customers can save costs on positioning infrastructure. Due to depreciation of Russian rouble, Navigine now also has a cost advantage over its Western competitors.
“In Russia we want to invest in innovations developed by local top talents, that can be commercialized on the global markets”, notes Wilhelm Lindholm, partner responsible for Innovestor’s investment in Russia. Know-how is on a high level in the country, due to the traditionally strong position of science and research in the society.
“On markets covered by Innovestor, there has been an extraordinary amount of success stories, and we believe this trend will continue. We also see that our investment channel attracts interest in different parts of the world”, Lindholm continues.
