Bolt, Click & Grow, Bikeep, UpSteam, and FeelingStream have been the most successful attractors of investments of the largest Estonian competition of business ideas in the last 12 months. The thirteenth season of Ajujaht will begin this autumn to which the people of Estonia can send their business ideas until 27 October.

One of the largest investments of the last 12 months was earned by Click & Grow which has attracted over 9 million euros of investments in total within the last year. Other successful attractors of additional funds include UpStream, marketer of a mobile carwash service which won the third place in the competition in 2018 and has attracted 500,000 euros of additional funds with the help of the Funderbeam investment platform, and FeelingStream which participated in the competition in 2016 and has attracted 400,000 euros.

According to Tanel Rebane, Director of Trade Development Agency at Enterprise Estonia, Ajujaht is not merely an idea competition, but a place which generates companies which will have an impact on the entire Estonian economy. This is demonstrated by the investment maturity which is achieved rapidly thanks to Ajujaht, says Rebane.

“We conduct a feedback survey among the participants in Ajujaht every year in order to learn what has helped them most in building their companies, in their opinion. The participants value most the development or accelerator programme of Ajujaht which offers to top 30 top-level training, mentoring, and access to our extensive network of contacts. This creates a favourable soil for starting a company which results in a significant impact to the entire ecosystem of Estonian economy and entrepreneurship, said Rebane.

At the beginning of the year, FoodDocs, developer of a digital food safety platform, gained a 300,000-euro injection of funds from Estonian investors and Bikeep which took part in Ajujaht in 2013 managed to attract 1.1 million euros for expanding their operations with the assistance of the Funderbeam investment platform.

Bolt which finished second in the Ajujaht competition in 2014 has also attracted an unconfirmed amount of investments further increases the volume of the investments attracted by the companies which have grown out of the competition. The organisers claim that the teams which have taken part in Ajujaht have gained additional funding in the amount of more than 300 million euros in total throughout the years.

In the new season, Ajujaht will be handing out 75,000 euros of prize money for bringing to life the business ideas of the people residing in Estonia. The accelerator is accepting applications through the website of the competition until 27 October.

Ajujaht is the biggest competition of business ideas in Estonia which offers top-level mentoring, trainings, and funding. The competition has generated Bolt, Bikeep, Click & Grow, GoWorkaBit, FoodDocs, UpSteam, Groveneer, and many other companies.

Ajujaht was launched by Enterprise Estonia. The largest competition of business ideas in Estonia is partnered by SEB, Elisa is a major supporter of the competition.