Serbian STARTUP and Portfolio Company of Bulgarian Fund Eleven Ventures Strawberry energy collected € 455,000 in a crowdfunding campaign and aims to expand its network of smart benches. “We are developing a new intelligent city infrastructure for better service of people living in big cities and our goal with the campaign is to extend our network. However, the main objective of the crowdfunding campaign was to raise awareness of our products, ”said Milos Milisavljevic, the founder and CEO of the company in Trering Topics. At the end of his campaign in early September, Strawberry Energy won 425 investors in 28 countries for 4.34% to an assessment of 9 million pounds Sterling on the Crowdcube platform.
“Being at the forefront of the technological transformation of the cities of Europe into a strawberry energy, the strawberry has become one of the stars of our portfolio, and we are very optimistic about its prospects for becoming at least a return on 10x investment,” said Daniel Tomov, partner of eleven companies, told Trering Topics.
Smart cities need smart benches
Strawberry Energy was founded in 2011 by Milos Milisavljevic, who was at the time a student in engineering at the University of Belgrade. The company’s initial product was a solar bench called The Strawberry Tree, which captures solar rays and transforms them into usable energy so that anyone can charge its phones and mobile devices and use wireless for free. The strawberry tree was the first public solar energy charger and has been used more than 10,000 times in the first 40 days, the company said.
To better adapt in public spaces, however, strawberry energy had to develop a smaller, more efficient and more marketable product, therefore the team offered the smart bench. This second product is again a to solar energy The bench, but much more compact, has sensors that collect data from their environment and could possibly operate in a network of intelligent city infrastructure objects. “Even if we always produce the strawberry tree, our main objective is on the intelligent bench because it is much more evolving and offers more monetization opportunities,” explained Milisavljevic. The 13 -year -old team, based between Belgrade and London, is also working on new products from the range of Smart City infrastructure.
The Serbian company is already present in 17 countries, including the United States and the Middle East, but the European market is the main objective of Milisavljevic. So far, strawberry energy has installed around 100 products in benches in Serbia in 31 cities. According to the plan, 200 of their products will be distributed in various markets by mid-2019. The growth of a network of smart benches in London is the first important step for the Serbian company, which has already signed a contract with the local government and has installed 20 parts in the city.
Free energy, expensive data
The strawberry tree is intelligent and there is also money growing there. Before the crowdfunding campaign, the company had already collected 1 million euros BulgarianSerbian and British investors and he will soon start to increase another round to continue expansion.
Even if the startup is not yet profitable, it generates income from sales. Surprisingly, the main source of income is not the benches themselves. “We offer benches as a space for advertisers – both the brand on the physical bench, but also the distribution of digital content via the Wi -Fi Citizens Free Citizens. The next step is to start monetizing the data we collect on air quality, traffic and pedestrians in public spaces, “said Milisavljevic. Two -thirds of Strawberry Energy customers are private sector companies such as Orange, Ford and Canary Wharf. For public sector customers, the rules are different – local governments do not pay for benches networks and data.
Strawberry Energy works on the infrastructure market in the smart city which becomes growth to reach 1.2 billion by 2022. Of course, products such as smart benches represent a very small part of this market and the Serbian startup is not the only and the only player. There are several younger companies on the market such as The Croatian include with their Steora bench or the American SOOFA. “The main difference lies in the energy capacity of benches and costs. We have seven years of R&D, so our competitive advantage is, among other things, the power capacity of our products, ”explained Milisavljevic.
The first institutional investors of Strawberry Energy, eleven also seem to see a very brilliant future in front of the company. “The recent successful round of the company on Crowdcube is a positive signal that is the right way to become one of the stars of the Startup CEE scene in the years to come,” said Daniel Tomov, told trendy subjects.