Oveit, the company that brought Live Stream Shopping to Romania, through its own technological solution – Streams.live, opens a round of SAFE financing on SeedBlink, the equity crowdfunding platform. The company aims to attract 400,000 euros from private investors interested in technology, but also from individuals who seek to invest their capital in technology startups with great potential for growth and scaling.
The current SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) investment, which the company aims to attract, has a 32% discount and represents an opportunity for individual investors who can participate with vouchers with a minimum value of 2,500 euros. The SeedBlink campaign starts on January 21st and lasts 30 days.
„The high capital in this round of financing, the only public listing until a possible IPO, will help us support the accelerated growth so far and will strengthen our efforts to attract a Series A investment, which we expect by the end of the year, at an estimated value of between 3 to 5 million dollars”, says Mihai Dragan, COO and co-founder of Oveit.
The company aims to expand its operations in the United States, where it has already been operating for 3 years, in Austin, Texas, and has a solid portfolio of clients. The two founders now invite Romanian investors to contribute to the surprising growth generated by the wave of opportunity identified in the market. Oveit’s plans for the next 5 years are for Streams.live, the solution that brings the experience of offline shopping in the digital environment, to become a leading platform in technology and the main choice for retailers who want to offer an innovative and interactive experience for consumers.
“We have been following Oveit for several years, always being amazed by the achievements of the two founders. We appreciated their success up to the pandemic as we appreciate the new Streams.live business line. Regardless of the volatility of the times, a quality team always finds the right paths to success „, says Andrei Dudoiu, CEO of SeedBlink.
The founders foresaw in the pandemic a favorable context for the growth of interactive live shopping. The demand came mainly from the younger generations – Gen Z and Millennials who prefer a direct, personal and interactive interaction with the brand when shopping online, enjoying experiences almost as much as the products they buy. It is a change in global consumer behavior.
„This is the biggest change in trade from the last 70 years. Amazon has 15 years of activity, someone will be the leader in live stream shopping, and we will be among them, with the Streams.Live product. We rely on stable and powerful technology. We have solid experience and international results on global tech cashless payments and distribution points in all strategic markets – the USA, Asia through Japan and Europe through the UK and Ireland, and in Africa with South Africa. We are on the B2B segment, on a global market of 250 billion dollars in 2020, with an estimated growth of up to 1 trillion dollars in 2023, ”continues Mihai.
The Live Stream Shopping market has a huge potential and is projected to reach $ 1 billion in 2019 to $ 320 billion in 2023 in the United States alone, and $ 474 billion in China, an opportunity capitalized on by the founders.
The success of this technology is based on the interactivity between the brand and the consumer, an increasingly important aspect in the retail industry. Online merchants and retailers can connect much more easily and authentically with their audience, through live online videos, giving them the opportunity to buy without leaving the video session. The founders relied on their expertise in cashless payments and digital wallets to create the competitive advantage of the live stream shopping platform.
Following its launch in October, major brands such as Renault Group, L’Oreal, Vodafone and Medlife have already begun adopting Streams.live technology, developed by Oveit. An eloquent example is the launch of the new Dacia model in December, the first global digital sales initiative of its kind, which managed to generate an extraordinary increase in car sales through live streams.
“These initial sales and the partnerships we developed are due to our base of over 3,000 customers, from previous events where we implemented cashless payment and access control solutions. We will continue our strategic partnerships with some of the most important brands globally, in the media, telecommunications, beauty and fashion, automotive and other industries, to help them connect with their audiences through live ecommerce experiences. The financing from SeedBlink will help us further expand on the global market and continue working on defining the new experiential era in online commerce”, concludes Mihai Dragan.
Pre-pandemic, Oveit has already generated incomes over $500,000, and by 2023, the co-founders forecast an income growth of over $11 million dollars. The company is evaluated at $7 million dollars.
The two founders of Oveit, Mihai Drăgan and Andrei Ștefan, gathered the insights that led to the shaping of the Streams.live solution from the previous business, an omnichannel retail platform, which they sold to a German corporation, but also from previous experiences. Mihai Drăgan has been helping companies for 17 years to improve their online presence and better market their products, and had founded his first company at the age of 25. Andrei Ștefan has over 15 years of experience in leading technology driven companies in several industries, working with both startups and large corporations.
In 2015 they founded Oveit, which offered software solutions for live experiences (access control, ticketing or data analysis), when they decided to create experiences such as conferences or live festivals, to allow access to a wider audience. In 2017 they developed the concept of cashless payments for events and locations, being in the top 4 companies in the world in this segment. They began to expand their operations internationally and in 2019, the company moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas, operating its event management platform, cashless payments and digital wallets for events and locations. So far, they have managed to raise more than $850,000 in funding, and in 2019, Oveit was voted the most promising start-up of 2019 at the NO CASH Gala, and the WTO, part of the United Nations, awarded them the title of „disruptive technology innovator.”
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About Oveit
Oveit is a company originating from Romania, founded in 2015 and established in 2019 in the United States of America, respectively in Austin, Texas. The company aims to improve access to marketing solutions and experiential commerce through its products.
Oveit has so far launched cashless payments and loyalty solutions for events and leisure spaces, as well as access control and registration solutions for virtual and physical events.
Oveit was named „The most promising fintech of 2019” at the NOCASH Gala, and the WTO, part of the United Nations, awarded them the title of „disruptive technology innovator.”
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
