Page 15 - Buy Russia - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine April 2017

bne April 2017 Companies & Markets I 15
The new wave of Romanian IT start-ups
Clare Nuttall in Bucharest
Ahandful of Romanian serial entrepreneurs who have achieved success in the software field are now launching innovative hardware products that span areas from education to agriculture to medicine.
Woogie creator Bogdan Coman says the inspiration for the “alien buddy” came from his daughter Daria, who used to imagine herself as an alien sent to earth to make life more fun for humans. The voice-activated device, slightly reminiscent of an alien penguin with a single antenna protruding from its head, chats to children and answers their questions as well as helping them learn.
Woogie, which is currently at the beta-testing stage, is based on artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing and machine learning technologies that allow it to converse with its child owner. It can remember the child’s age, gender and preferences and deliver content based on previous interactions.
“The goal is to inspire kids to explore more, nurture curiosity and grow their interest in the world around them,” Coman tells bne IntelliNews. “Woogie is not just an edtech smart device; its main purpose is to deliver a unique user experience to every child he encounters. He is a character with his own story and personality, as he doesn’t just answer questions but he even has opinions on different topics.” Woogie’s creators were delighted when one child described an early version as “Siri with personality”.
Coman calls himself as a “lifetime entrepreneur”, who has been running several businesses since he was at college. His colleague product director Oana Korda is also the founder of a social business, while CTO Andrei Voinescu has a PhD in wireless sensor networks.
Coman and Korda have something in common with the founders of several other innovative hardware startups; they are the latest ventures of serial entrepreneurs who initially made their mark in other areas of the IT industry, mainly software development.
Woogie is currently at the beta-testing stage.
Romania has developed a strong IT sector, with numerous international companies targeting the country for offshore activities, and local firms offering similar services. Because
of its low costs and skilled workforce, Romania was at first attractive as a location mainly for call centres. Later, however, multinationals started moving higher value-added activities to the country, such as Deutsche Bank’s global technology centre in Bucharest.
The strong local IT sector has also created a spawning ground for startups. Initially most of these were in software, which has already produced some stars like antivirus company Bitdefender. But, according to Tudor Stanciu of TechHub Bucharest, now a growing number of hardware startups have been launched, with most still at an early stage.
“We see a lot of potential in the area of hardware,” he tells bne IntelliNews. “Once software is quite established, you can bring the additional complexity of hardware products that
“Getting our hands dirty is a cool thing”
can appeal even more to customers by providing something touchable.” He considers this has even bigger market potential.
“We are seeing companies being built by people who have previously worked as a team on small outsourcing companies, or built several teams providing IT services or consultancy,” he says. “They now have a revenue stream, and have shifted to building a core product. This may be based on personal experience, rather than being related to what they were doing in the past.”
Common problem
This was the case for entrepreneur and former jiu jitsu champion Camil Moldoveanu, who was inspired to
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