Romanian startup Apiary Book, which has developed the most used beekeeping management application globally, is looking to get EUR 150,000 through an equity crowdfunding campaign on SeedBlink, the largest platform for technology startups in Southeast Europe.

The total round of financing is EUR 200,000 and is led by local venture capital fund GapMinder, which also invested EUR 25,000 (pre-seed investment) in Apiary Book in 2018.  The company will sell a 13.79% stake in exchange for the EUR 200,000, and its “pre-money” valuation is EUR 1.25 million.

Apiary Book is an application for managing the activities in an apiary, monitoring the hives, analyzing the data of bee families, and environmental factors that may affect their health. Bogdan Iordache (43 years old), an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the IT field, launched the application as a personal project in 2015. The company was registered as a business in 2018. At the end of the same year, Ionuț Țăranu (45 years old), a specialist with over two decades of experience in IT, joined the company.

“In 2014, after many years spent in front of the computer, I wanted to spend more time in nature. So, I attended a beekeeping course and bought some hives. In the beginning, I recorded the apiary activity in a classical way: I wrote with a pen in my notebook. But, as the apiary activity grew, I felt the need for more organization and information to help me make good decisions quickly. The application was very successful all over the world and became a leader in the field. Listing on SeedBlink will help us grow our team of software developers, but also our marketing & sales team to support growth in 2021,” said Bogdan Iordache, co-founder and CEO of Apiary Book.

Apiary Book is currently the most successful application for beekeepers worldwide, with 22,000 active users each month. The platform is available on Google Play and has versions in 18 languages. So far, it has been downloaded over 160,000 times.

The two co-founders plan to reach 50-60,000 users by the end of next year. They also estimate that revenues will increase from EUR 10,000 this year to about EUR 250,000 in 2021. The company has started to have revenues for about half a year from subscriptions and advertising.

Of the 22,000 Apiary users, only 800 are from Romania. Meanwhile, clients from Europe (especially France, Italy, Russia), the USA, and Canada represent 62% of the total.

In 2021, the management aims to expand on the European and North American markets and, starting 2022, in Brazil, India, and China. Next year, Bogdan Iordache and Ionut Țăranu also want to launch the iOS version of the application, create Apiary Book Academy with online courses for beekeepers, and introduce a marketplace to help beekeepers sell their products faster and at better prices.

The co-founders of Apiary Book also aim to obtain financing of EUR 700-800,000 at the end of next year, which would value their company at EUR 4-5 million.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Dreamstime.com)