career&entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship
comment 1

Maltese Start-Ups Do Exist

Anastasiia LinnasLife as an Investment has asked again our dear friend – Anastasiia Linnas  – a finance and marketing consultant, start-up lover and blogger, to be our guest author and  introduce our dear readers this time to Maltese start -ups. 

If you haven’t heard of Maltese start-ups, you soon will because right now they are major players in Europe’s hub of start-ups. In Malta, there is an impressive range of start-ups emerging, and in this article you will learn about the more significant ones which contribute to the islands start-up DNA.

Similar to Estonian’s start-up scene with Skype at its centre, the Maltese start-up concept is quickly catching on with the help of GFI Software.

GFI

GFI Software is now a global IT company valued at approximately $500million (2013), with one of its divisions planted in Malta and responsible for key developments and progressions.

GFI is probably best known for its TeamViewer product (acquired by Permira in 2014), as well as security, anti-malware and cloud services.

altaro

One very successfull start-up in Malta, Altaro, was founded in 2009 by two ex-managers originally from GFI—David Vella & Stephen Checuti Bonavita…with Simon Attard & Julian Pace Ross.

 

Offering virtual backup solutions for SME’s, Altaro during its first three years in the market managed to acquire 10,000 users.

rawstream-logo-med-wp1Rawstream, the only Maltese start-up that went through an acceleration program with Seedcamp UK, was founded by Brian Azzopardi—a former 11-year software developer at GFI.

Rawstream offers SAAS web filtering solutions for SME’s and the public sector. It’s a unique tool that combines security, permission-management, monitoring, and control functions.

Founded in 2010 by ex-employees of GFI (Keith Fenech, Clifford Farrugia, Anthony Spiteri), Tracker bird was very close to getting into Seedcamp.

tracker bird

Tracker offers software analytic tools with various features that track user activity, installations, in-app feedback and more.

Those three start-ups are GFI’s first “children,” so to speak. And today they actively help next-generation start-ups by offering mentorship, sponsorship, internships and more.

As always, I can’t restrict myself to only three  Maltese start-ups, so here’s three more!

mighty boxMighty Box and B. Game just this year have introduced a new board game—posthuman, which raised more than $340.000 on Kickstarter (Read more).

If you’re not a fan of board games, I still suggest watching their promo video—it’s very cool!

ifDiscountIf applies its expertise gained from Maltese gaming industry to create a new shopping model. They offer a chance to get up to 100% money back for your online purchases if you win the bet (Read more).

DiscountIF was one of the semi-finalists in the Pitch to Rich competition (Virgin Airlines, Richard Branson). They have also raised more than $400.000 in three rounds of investments.

reaqtaReaQta is a promising IT Security start-up that received $300.000 as a seed investment. The guys behind this Company have decades of experience developing malware and anti-virus utilities. They came up with disruptive technology—a security system that sits outside your OS.

***

If you’re interested in Malta and its amazing startups—stay tuned and subscribe to Startup Gateway Malta, or subscribe to my personal blog regarding Malta.

Also check out – Hot Estonian Startups.

1 Comment

  1. Pingback: Maltese startups you need to know about! | Startup Gateway Malta

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *