Invesdor, an equity-based crowdfunding platform, bills itself as “[t]he go-to place” for European companies to raise money for their business. Similar to Kickstarter, it follows an “all-or-nothing” model. If a business launches a campaign and they don’t reach their goal, then no money is transferred. It gives the funders some sort of protection in case a goal cannot be achieved.
Tellybean, the award-winning video chat application for smart TVs, is looking to raise at least 375,000 Euros on the service in order to help fund international growth of the service, allowing it to be supported on more platforms and improve the quality.
You can help out by visiting Invesdor.
The press release is below.
Tellybean, the award winning TV video call service company launches crowdfunding
campaign on Invesdor
HELSINKI 14.3.2017 – Tellybean, the winner of the Best Smart TV App award, launches
crowdfunding campaign on Invesdor to fund its global rollout and user acquisition, as
well as expansion to new TV platforms. More information is available at
www.invesdor.com/tellybean.
Tellybean was founded in 2011 to solve a personal problem: a grandmother wanted to
be with her two grandsons more often, but she was in Australia and they were in
Finland. It soon became clear that others had the same problem, even people living
very close to each other. Video calling provided the best solution and sitting the whole
family on the couch with grandma life-sized on TV was the most natural way to do calls.
But there was no simple way of doing this.
The winning solution was found in early 2016 when Tellybean launched an app to turn a
mobile phone into a wireless webcam for a video call on TV. This innovatively solved the
main challenges with video calling on TV. The service won the Best Smart TV App award
at TV Connect 2016 in London and convinced Sony and Philips to enter into
partnerships with Tellybean.
Tellybean is the leading video calling service for Smart TVs and set-top boxes. In
addition to enabling video calls on TV, Tellybean also works on mobiles and computers.
Tellybean launched its service on the Android TV platform in 2015. Now Tellybean is
preparing to launch a second TV app, which works on new Samsung and LG TVs.
”Skype showed millions of users and all the large TV manufacturers that video calling on
TV is great. After Skype no longer supports TVs, Tellybean fills a void and allows
thousands of happy users to enjoy rich interaction with far away family members. Our
distribution strategy based on close co-operation with partners, such as Sony and
Philips, has proven to be very cost-effective and scalable”, says Cami Hongell,
Tellybean’s CEO and Co-founder. ”The potential is huge. We target to be available on
500 million TVs by 2019. The crowdfunding campaign will provide us with growth
funding and supports our marketing efforts”, continues Hongell.
Tellybean launches its crowdfunding campaign today on Invesdor and the campaign is
open until April 11th. The minimum investment is only 750 euros and the targeted
round size is at least 375 000 euros. The majority of the shares has already been
subscribed for during the two week hidden phase preceding the public launch. The
campaign maximum is 700 000 euros.
“It’s extremely interesting to see Tellybean riding the wave of change in how people
communicate. Both voice and video calling is shifting from traditional telephone
networks to the internet. Tellybean’s innovative technological solution as well as market leading position makes them well positioned for this change,” says Lasse Mäkelä, CEO
and Co-founder of Invesdor.
More information: www.invesdor.com/tellybean
About Tellybean
Tellybean is driven by a few simple but powerful observations: modern life separates
families and technology usually makes video calling inaccessible to the whole family. To
solve this problem, Tellybean delivers a life-sized video call experience that the whole
family can enjoy. Tellybean’s service works on compatible Smart TVs and set-top boxes,
on computers and on mobile phones and tablets.
Tellybean was founded in 2011 and is based in Helsinki, Finland. Tellybean received
recognition and awards as the Best Smart TV App at TV Connect 2016 in London and as
the most innovative app in Philips’ Android TV app competition 2016.
www.tellybean.com