ALL THE MEMORIES

Success stories

The success of Garage48 hackathons lies in pushing participants out of their comfort zones, networking, and learning from others. As a result, several ideas that have been born out of Garage48 hackathons have made successful exits. Masquerade, a video filter app that got first created in a Garage48 event in Belarus, was sold to Facebook. The Estonian weather prediction app, Vital Fields, was acquired by Monsanto, which merged with Bayer back in 2018. Many other success stories are being added to our archive on a regular basis, boosting our team-pride:) Go Garage48'ers!

MSQRD

How to build an app that reaches 1 million users in less than two months and gets acquired (for more than 100 million dollars) by Facebook just 4 months after it’s creation? This is the story of the fun face filter app MSQRD that got started in Garage48 GameHack in Minsk, back in November 2015. 


By using face recognition technology, the MSQRD allows applying various filters to your selfies or real-time videos and sharing them on social networks. MSQRD also has a filter store where any designer can have its artwork ready to be tried out on people’s faces.


Sergey Gonchar, Eugene Zatepyakin and Eugene Nevgen created the app in 48 hours during Garage48 Minsk Hackathon, which took place in November 2015, and the iOS version was already released in December. During the first month after the release, the app got more than 1 million downloads, and the user base grew as a snowball to 10 million in the following month. Now it is in the top free iPhone app in the USA, and the TOP-1 app in more than 50 countries. The developers got a lot of visibility in Eastern Europe when popular artists and comedians used the app to create fun viral videos, and the promotion abroad follows a similar strategy.

Shipitwise

Shipitwise is a platform for travellers to book shipping for their sports equipment and other belongings around the world. The founders attended Garage48 Tourism Pärnu 2015 hackathon and started to build something with the draft idea they had. During the hackathon, the team already found their very first customer - a guy who needed to transport his bike from Germany to Estonia. That was all the validation and motivation they needed to continue working on their idea!


From there, they applied to Startup Wise Guys accelerator and got accepted. After that, they got a €7,000 grant from Prototron — a fund that gives out equity free cash - and started their first crowdfunding campaign on Funderbeam. They visited many tech conferences in five different countries and helped to initiate the motorbike season in Estonia. They raised their first investment worth of €176,200 in a very short but effective time period.

GoWorkABit

GoWorkaBit started at Garage48 Women Special Hackathon in Pärnu in October 2013. Kei, the founder, had been working in HR industry and saw the need to connect companies that need urgent workforce for short periods and people who want to work for short terms, only for a bit so to say. She pitched the idea at Garage48 event and met Gerli and Ethel for the first time there. Kristjan, who is today CEO of GoWorkaBit, attended the event as a mentor.

The Story behind GoWorkaBit is that everyone should have freedom to choose when, where and how long they work. The biggest achievement for them is that they have been able to create revenue from the start and stay alive through difficult times. Their revenue in 2014 was 430K and 1M a year later.

VitalFields

VitalFields (previously known as WeatherMe), founded at and awarded with “Best Innovator“ prize at Garage48 Tartu hackathon in August 2011; which is also known as a proud alumni event for the tech accelerator Startup Wise Guys.


VitalFields helps you to manage your fields at ease with a modern simplified tracking and reporting tool. The company is based in Estonia with clients from the Baltics, UK, USA, Poland and Ukraine and with plans to rapidly expand its operations to Germany, Hungary and Denmark.


In 2016 the company was acquired by Monsanto, which merged with Bayer in 2018.

Fractory

Fractory is an on-demand manufacturing platform that streamlines outsourcing between engineers and suppliers. The founders built the idea during Garage48 Student Startup Camp in Tartu back in 2017 and developed it further ever since.


During their 1st year they acquired 80% Q2Q growth by moving from 1K to 100K monthly revenue. They have reached 10 countries and already established a significant market share in Nordics and Baltics. In 2019, they will be opening a new office in the UK, aiming to expand even further. In a very short period of time, they have collected recognition from industry leaders through well-established awards, including the Best Startup award at EuroBlech 2018 which hosted 65,000 attendees.

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Timbeter

Timbeter is a digital timber measurement solution that uses machine learning technology and artificial intelligence for accurate log detection. Anna-Greta Tsahkna, the founder, met her team Timbeter (previously TimberDiameter) at the first ever Garage48 Women Special Event in Pärnu in 2013. Following the hackathon, the startup has turned out to be incredibly successful with many prizes and titles under their belt: the winner of Garage48 Women Special 2013, Winner of Ajujaht 2014, Kuldmuna 2015 for Timbeter mobile app.


A forest tech company with locations worldwide, Timbeter’s aim is to eradicate illegal logging and improve timber supply for both log buyers and sellers using a pioneering algorithm. Today, Timbeter serves clients in 61 countries around the world, is available in 11 languages and has over 10,000 users, measuring more than 10 million cbm.

Natufia Labs

Natufia Labs is a leading research lab and a specialized manufacturer of high-tech hydroponic equipment specially designed for the greatest chefs who share the company’s vision about original taste, traceability, pesticides, GMOs, herbicides, and the responsibility toward the planet. The company rose from Garage48’s first ever Hardware and Arts Hackathon in 2014, where the team won the hackathon with their reverse engineering approach and laid the foundations of Natufia today. Later that year, the winning team lead Lauri Kapp later met Gregory Lu, who was looking for a technical team to help build a product with a very similar vision, and they co-founded Natufia together only few months later, by also involving other team members from the hackathon.

Natufia team has raised more than 1.2M USD by 2018 FYE, and is focused on scaling up their manufacturing and distribution to meet the market demand. They have won some amazing clients over the years who are also now their brand ambassadors, like Simone Zanoni - a well renowned Italian chef in Paris. They are constantly entering into new markets and expanding networks by proving themselves in various Accelerator and Foodtech programmes. 

Creatomus

Creatomus Solutions provides marketing and sales technologies for modular and custom built houses. Ever since it was founded in 2015, they have developed a number of house configurators in the UK and Estonia, aiming to expand in the global market. Creatomus was founded by Renee Puusepp and Martins Untals, who attended one of the first Greentech Events of Garage48 in 2015 and laid the foundations of Creatomus Solutions after winning the hackathon.

The mission of the company is to change the way buildings, houses in particular, are designed and delivered. Their aspiration is to lead the way and to deliver the world best mass customisation software to assist both the buyers and suppliers of houses. We wish them best of luck!

Today, Creatomus has B2B customers in the UK, Switzerland, USA and a pilot project in Australia.

CareMate

CareMate is an Estonian organisation that helps you find a professional caregiver to provide the necessary home care and personal care services in an independent home environment. The platform simply matches care seekers with professional caregivers through web based video courses.


CareMate was founded as a result of them winning the Idea Garage: Estonian Wellbeing 2017 Hackathon and laying the foundations of this highly profitable and insightful company.

Footty

Footty uses image recognition AI technology to create high-quality foot scans and make an accurate shoe fit prediction based only on feet photos and sales data. This ensures people have the correct shoe fit. It can be used by offline and online retailers, without any application or hardware required.


Footty co-founders Vladyslav Ursul witandh Andrew Zhuravchak were in the winning team of Empowering Women Hackathon organised by Garage48 in Lviv, Ukraine in March 2018. Team “Footty” completed that hackathon with great success and recognition; and 8 months later they have been selected by Rockstart to participate in their AI accelerator program located in Den Bosch, the Netherlands.


There will be only 9 startups taking part in Rockstart’s AI 2018 program, where talented women and men from different countries will spend the next 180 days building and refining their products, talking to mentors, and connecting to potential investors and customers. Their first AI program is already showing how successful it was, with three alumni raising a total of €1.2 million within the first 6 months after the program ended and a vast range of technology collaborations between startups and corporates kicked-off.


We expect the best from team Footty and wish them great success.

Aeropoll

Aeropoll is a solution for air quality based congestion charge, shortly built after our Oslo Impact Hackathon in September 2018.


Aeropoll helps cities reduce traffic congestion and air pollution using AI-powered congestion charge solution. The app shows air quality in different areas in your city with up to 96% accuracy. They already have an investor on board from Business Angel Norway, and their primary markets are Germany, UK and France.

SecureBadger

SecureBadger was founded following the founders won the Garage48 Open Banking Hackathon in February 2018. 


SecureBadger performs credibility checks to help landlords select tenants, assessing behavioural and financial risks. The organisation aims to build trust between landlords & tenants through seamless yet secure renting process. They are currently testing their product with the biggest real estate agencies in Estonia- Scandium and Uusmaa.They are recognised in Ajujaht TOP 30 and attracting investors from US and Europe to change the dynamics in real estate market.

SpaceTree

SpaceTree is a forest evaluation and monitoring platform, developed in Garage48 SpaceTech Hackathon in May 2018 and launched shortly after. Founders have met at the hackathon for the first time and developed SpaceTree, which eventually changed their lives. The name of the brand was formerly Forest Numb, but the winning team members, aka today’s founders, have updated it before the launch.


Their idea is to provide an alternative to manual forest monitoring using ML system to recognise tree species, height, age and so on. Today they can monitor forests from space in real time.

Hugo (Eesti Õigusbüroo OÜ)

Justice is not a privilege. Hugo is an artificial intelligence who can help with common questions and legal documents. With harder enquiries, Hugo matches the right work, to the right talent, at the right time, in your jurisdiction and at the right cost. A Uber of legal services, so to call.


Hugo, formerly named as Eesti Õigusbüroo OÜ, was already a prototype-ready startup when the founders participated to our Base Camp in September 2018. The team have won the hackathon and awarded with an exclusive access to Super Angel Alpine House Programme - 12-month altitude training for startups. After this intense training program, Hugo has become a profitable and successful business, generated 1M+ total sales. Today the brand accommodates 15,000+ clients, 12 team members, 37 lawyers on their platform, and aiming to expand more.  


Within one year they became the largest legal platform in Estonia. About 92% of their clients.

MusicSpider

MusicSpider is an alternative way to listen to music while working in the browser, built during Garage48 Tashkent Hackathon in November 2018. The team launched their platform after winning the hackathon and today they offer 1 million songs for their subscribers.


The idea was to develop spiders which constantly crawl songs from different resources. It can be used as a chrome extension and you would never have to switch tabs/applications ever again while listening to music.

Parked

Parked is a an app which is connected to the network of parking lots for trucks across Europe. It offers real-time information about parking spots availability with an option to book a spot on the go.


The team came up with the idea at our Impact Hackathon, Oslo, 2018, and got awarded with Winner of Mobility Stream special prize. They are working on developing their brand further and creating real value for their audience.

Wishme

Wishme is built as a social network to share wish lists with your family and friends, with the aim of bringing a more inspirational touch to Ukraine culture. In the app, you can book your friends can book ideas and create gifts out of them. They laid the foundations of their organisation in our Empowering Women Hackathon Kharkiv 2018 and have been growing ever since.


During our hackathon, team members said with a little wordplay: “The greatest ideas were invented in garages. Thanks for helping us start ours.” Well, thank you guys for becoming our joy and pride!