Austrian Online Start-Ups on the Way to International Success

Oct. 30, 2012 - PRLog -- Vienna, October 30, 2012. The Austrian online and mobile start-up scene is buzzing. Some years ago, there were only a few exceptional individual entrepreneurs who were successful in the high-tech business. In the meantime, a very animated and successful start-up scene has developed in Vienna.

The highlight of the Austrian start-up year is about to take place next week. This will be the time when the heads of the international start-up elite will turn to the Vienna Hofburg. This is the location where the success levels and quality of Austrian start-ups will be under scrutiny at the Pioneers Festival (29th to 31st October, 2012). The Viennese incubator i5invest (www.i5invest.com) has made itself a name as an engine for innovation.

All i5invest projects on course for international expansion

Projects such as the subscription business company KochAbo (www.kochabo.at), digital agencies such as pMediaNetwork (www.pmedianetwork.com) and integra performance (www.integraperformance.at) ,the augmented reality innovator wikitude (www.wikitude.com), the first social media investment form wikifolio (www.wikifolio.com), the mobile travel guide tripwolf (www.tripwolf.com), the telephone call recognition platform adaffix (www.adaffix.com), and the social yellow pages provider tupalo.com (www.tupalo.com) are all part of the i5invest portfolio.

i5invest assists many of Austria’s most innovative start-ups through the provision of various services and support, including the leading social fitness platform runtastic (www.runtastic.com) and media technology company Spectralmind (www.spectralmind.com).

“All the projects we support are internationally oriented, except our agency projects,” says i5invest founder Markus Wagner. “Growth can lead to international recognition for an online or mobile start-up, given the small size of the Austrian market. An event such as the Pioneers Festival underscores the fact that successful start-ups have to think beyond local frameworks. The secret of sustainable success lies beyond Austrian borders.”

KochAbo.at: subscription business in four countries after just five months

The subscription business platform KochAbo (www.kochabo.at) is a perfect example of rapid and successful internationalization. This service delivers high-quality food to your front door, the number of products calculated exactly to the size of the household in question, including the appropriate recipes. “Cooking 2.0” was launched in Vienna in April this year and can also now be enjoyed by consumers in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. “The actual challenge, given our rapid growth, is to scale delivery logistics efficiently and to the best quality level to new markets. The internet sales business is a comparatively simple part in our expansion,” says Michael Ströck, CEO of KochAbo GmbH.

Meet us at the Pioneers Festival (29th – 31st October 2012, Vienna Hofburg)

Are you interested in a background interview on Austria’s start-up scene, insights into a specific project or simply in an informal exchange of ideas and experiences? i5invest will be there with the CEOs of our portfolio companies and four partners, as well as two additional start-up coaches with a different  focus (from fund raising/financing, company sale support, and HR, to strategy, marketing, internationalization, community building etc).

We look forward to meeting you! If you are interested, please write a short email to Patrick Manhardt (p.manhardt@i5invest.com) so we can coordinate meetings.

About i5invest

i5invest Beratungs GmbH (http://www.i5invest.com) in Vienna is a start-up factory for web and mobile projects. The company works as an incubator for the online and mobile business models of tomorrow, featuring a team of internationally experienced entrepreneurs and a network in New York, Silicon Valley and Europe. i5invest’s current project portfolio comprises the digital agency integra performance (www.integraperformance.at), the performance advertizing agency pMediaNetwork, the social media investment form wikifolio.com (www.wikifolio.com), subscription business start-up KochAbo (www. kochabo.at), online travel guide tripwolf (www.tripwolf.com), leading augmented reality company Wikitude (www.wikitude.com), social yellow pages site Tupalo.com (www.tupalo.com), and Call 3.0 Company Adaffix (www.adaffix.com). The i5invest start-up 123people.com was sold to the French Pages Jaunes Group in March 2010.

All Media inquiries:

Bernhard Lehner

i5comm for i5invest

Mobile: +43 664 439 86 09

Mail: b.lehner [at] i5invest.com (mailto:b.lehner@i5invest.com)