Sunday International Column: Startups around the world

Startups around the world is Sunday column series created with the ambition to unite the entrepreneurial community around the world by introducing to the audience different startups on weekly basis. The purpose of this column is to improve our knowledge of what is being created by entrepreneurs around the world, to expand our network, to get informed and hopefully inspired.

Bookme (Pakistan)

Our first destination is Pakistan. Earlier this week the biggest startup accelerator in Turkey, Etohum, made their first step into the Pakistani market by investing in Bookme, an online web and mobile application for buying bus and cinema tickets. This exciting event is the reason to present Bookme in first place in our Sunday International Column.

Created in March 2014, Bookme has already sold 93.000+ bus and cinema tickets. Based in Lahore, the company has the ambition to expand to other cities, starting with launching services in Islamabad on 1^st of November. The size of the targeted market is impressive as there are over 5 million bus commuters every day in Pakistan alone and 1.2 million moviegoers per day. The remarkable size of the target market combined with the weak competition in the sector, especially in the online cinema ticket selling, raises the big expectations for the bright future of BookMe.

Hike (India)

The second startup in our weekly list is also based in the South Asian region. Along with Pakistan, India is well-known with the talented and highly skilled startup community which deserves special attention.

Launched back in 2012 and based in Delhi, Hike is becoming one of the most fast-growing startups in India. This mobile messaging application is available on all mobile platforms. It has more than 35 million “hikers” where 60% of the users are from India and the rest expand to Middle East and Europe.

Telerik (Bulgaria) 

We are finishing our journey with one company that is the personification of successfully built startup which went all the way from Eastern Europe to the Silicon Valley. Telerik’s headquarter is in Bulgaria but it has offices in number of other countries such as USA, UK, Australia, Germany, India and Denmark. Started with a focus on .NET development tools, now Telerik is a leading provider of application development tools for web, mobile and desktop. Progress Software recently announced that has bought Telerik for the impressive amount of $262.5 million. Pretty great for 12-years old company from Eastern Europe, right? As Progress competes with Oracle, IBM WebSphere and TIBCO, Telerik is becoming part of one very promising and ambitious business journey.

Expect more startup presentations next Sunday. If you wish to see specific company that you are fascinated by on our list or simply you want to introduce your own statup to the world, do not hesitate to post your suggestion in the comment section.