As cities become increasingly dependent on e-commerce and on-demand services, urban logistics is reaching a turning point. Every retailer, marketplace and delivery platform building its own fleet may no longer be the most efficient model.

A growing number of innovators believe the future of last-mile delivery lies in collaboration rather than ownership. Instead of adding more vehicles to already crowded streets, the next generation of logistics platforms aims to connect the capacity that already exists.

One of them is HiO, a Romanian startup founded by logistics entrepreneur Bogdan Termure, whose vision is to create a shared digital infrastructure for urban deliveries. Rather than competing with existing courier companies, HiO connects marketplaces, retailers and logistics providers into a single ecosystem, helping them make better use of available resources.

Why Cities Need Shared Logistics

Last-mile delivery has become one of the fastest-growing segments of urban mobility, but also one of its most fragmented.

Marketplaces, retailers and logistics companies often operate independently, investing in separate fleets that frequently overlap geographically while leaving significant capacity unused.

HiO approaches the problem differently.

“Our role is to understand where demand exists and move fleets in a way that they can cover their idle time,” explains Bogdan Termure. Instead of building another delivery network, the platform orchestrates existing logistics resources, creating a more efficient ecosystem for every participant.

From Competition to Collaboration

Termure has worked in logistics since 2011, giving him a front-row seat to the rapid evolution of the delivery industry. One of the biggest lessons, he says, is that operational excellence eventually outweighs branding.

In the early days of on-demand delivery, many platforms insisted that every courier should carry their own branded equipment. Over time, however, customers proved to value reliability, speed and affordability far more than the logo on a delivery bag.

“What matters is that the service is done well—not necessarily who delivers it,” is the conclusion the industry gradually reached, according to Termure. Delays, high costs and inconsistent service ultimately have a much greater impact on customer satisfaction than visual branding.

Why Marketplaces Are Rethinking Delivery

Another trend reshaping the sector is the growing separation between commerce and logistics.

Rather than investing heavily in delivery operations, marketplaces increasingly focus on connecting buyers and sellers while outsourcing fulfilment to specialised logistics partners.

According to Termure, this model is not only operationally simpler but often more profitable. Marketplaces can concentrate on generating transactions and platform revenue, while dedicated logistics providers handle deliveries more efficiently.

HiO positions itself as the technological layer that enables this collaboration between retailers, marketplaces and delivery fleets.

Building the Digital Infrastructure for Smarter Cities

To accelerate this vision, HiO secured funding through a European Union research programme.

The objective extends beyond improving deliveries for individual businesses. The project aims to create a digital platform capable of interconnecting all logistics actors within a city, allowing them to share resources and collaborate instead of duplicating infrastructure.

For smaller businesses, the impact could be significant. Instead of investing in vehicles, drivers and operational capacity that may remain underutilised, they gain access to logistics services on demand.

“If everyone starts building their own fleets, it becomes a nightmare,” says Termure. “Small companies often don’t have the resources to build and maintain their own logistics operations.”

Beyond Last-Mile Delivery

HiO’s vision reflects a broader shift taking place across Europe’s innovation ecosystem.

As cities search for ways to reduce congestion, improve sustainability and make better use of existing infrastructure, collaborative logistics is emerging as an increasingly attractive model. The future may not belong to the companies with the largest fleets, but to those capable of connecting them intelligently.

For HiO, the ambition is not to become another delivery company. It is to build the digital infrastructure that allows urban logistics to function as a connected ecosystem—where retailers, marketplaces and logistics providers all benefit from shared capacity, lower costs and smarter resource allocation.

The post Shared Fleets, Smarter Cities: The Future of Urban Logistics appeared first on Startups&TheCity.

The new generation of entrepreneurs no longer accepts financial chaos and is looking for solutions that give them real control over their businesses.

In Romania, for many small businesses, the biggest problem is not a lack of customers, but a lack of financial clarity. Unpaid invoices, records kept in Excel, deadlines set by ANAF (the Romanian tax authority), a constant lack of visibility into cash flow, and a veritable “zoo” of disconnected tools for accounting, issuing documents, and processing payments are common realities for local businesses. In addition, many founders lack the technical knowledge needed to connect all these services into a functioning system themselves.

Although digitalisation has advanced in many areas, financial management remains a fragmented, complex, and time-consuming process for many.

A Real Need for Simplification

More and more entrepreneurs are beginning to understand that the problem is not the volume of work, but the lack of a coherent system. Simply issuing invoices is no longer enough. They need organisation, visibility, and real-time control.

The solution is designed specifically for small businesses and freelancers who want to issue invoices that comply with legal requirements without having to buy expensive accounting software, pay monthly subscription fees, or deal with a complicated setup.

Pureconto is opening its early access programme, and interested entrepreneurs can already join the waiting list on the platform’s website.

Pureconto: A New Player in the Romanian Market

In this context, Pureconto is announcing its entry into the Romanian market through a partnership with Pop-Up Media.

The platform is designed to eliminate chaos and bring essential functions together in one place: issuing and tracking invoices, organising income, and gaining a clear picture of their financial situation, without requiring advanced technical knowledge.

At the heart of the solution are tools developed for the practical needs of freelancers, service providers, and microbusinesses. The invoicing service enables users to generate accurate invoices quickly without the monthly cost of cumbersome software, while integrated payment links allow clients to pay invoices directly, reducing the time between issuing an invoice and receiving payment.

Everything works as a unified system: the invoice and the payment option are included in the same document, while entrepreneurs can track what they have issued and what they have collected in one place.

The platform was built with the understanding that businesses are no longer limited to a single country:

“A freelancer in Bucharest works just as often with a client in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as with one in Cluj. The platform needs to work just as simply in both situations: the same invoice, the same payment collection process, regardless of where the client is based.” — Klemen K., Pureconto

The solution aims to eliminate unnecessary complexity, replace the multitude of scattered applications, and give users straightforward control over their businesses.

A Fintech with Big Ambitions

Pureconto is not just another invoicing app, but a fintech platform with global ambitions. In July, Alex Kshutashvili joined the team, bringing experience from launching more than 22 fintech projects worldwide. He joined as a strategic investor, contributing his expertise to ensure a successful launch and the project’s rapid growth.

Why Romania: Plans for Q3 and Q4 2026

The local market is maturing rapidly. The growing number of freelancers and microbusinesses creates favourable conditions for adopting digital solutions that simplify operational processes.

As part of the partnership with Pop-Up Media, the main objective for Q3 and Q4 2026 is to work closely with its first users (early adopters). Their feedback will help refine the platform into the most robust and convenient solution for the Romanian market. In addition, the company has expressed its intention to invest in the local ecosystem and hire talent in Romania.

“In a new market, visibility creates opportunity, but local relevance drives adoption. For Pureconto, we are building a differentiated position around one clear advantage: bringing invoicing and payment collection together in a single experience for local and international entrepreneurs.” — Loredana Lavric, Founder & CMO, Pop-Up Media

A Step Towards Greater Control

Pureconto’s entry into Romania marks a clear direction: a shift from technical chaos and fragmented processes to simple, clear, and accessible systems. For entrepreneurs who want greater financial clarity without unnecessary software costs, solutions like this are becoming a necessity.

The post Pureconto Enters the Romanian Market in Partnership with Pop-Up Media appeared first on Startups&TheCity.

For most navigation apps, the shortest or fastest route is the default choice. Romanian startup Defensive Pedal is taking a different approach: helping cyclists reach their destination using the safest route instead.

Among the startups showcased in the Techsylvania Startup Alley, Defensive Pedal has developed a navigation app that analyzes road infrastructure, traffic conditions, weather, and dozens of other variables to recommend routes that minimize cycling risk rather than travel time.

“We’re essentially building Google Maps for safe cycling,” said Victor Rotariu, founder of Defensive Pedal, during an interview with Startups&TheCity.

A risk algorithm built on European cycling data

At the core of Defensive Pedal is a proprietary risk-scoring algorithm developed using European cycling accident data and extensive rider feedback.

According to Rotariu, the first versions of the model were validated with input from over 2,400 cyclists, while the current algorithm evaluates approximately 80 different factors that influence cycling safety.

Most of these variables relate to infrastructure, including:

• road type;
• roundabouts;
• tunnels;
• parks;
• road curvature;
• traffic models;
• weather conditions.

Rather than relying solely on mapping data, the platform combines multiple public datasets with its own analytical model to generate a safety score for every road segment.

According to the team, routes generated by Defensive Pedal are currently 2.1 times safer than the default cycling routes in Romania. The claim is based on an internal validation in which the startup compared 10,149 routes generated by the Defensive Pedal algorithm with Google Maps routes between the same randomly selected origin and destination pairs across Romania. The safety assessment used the company’s proprietary risk model, which incorporates cyclist risk factors identified in official European research on the causes of cycling accidents. 

AI continuously improves route recommendations

Although the core risk model is deterministic, Defensive Pedal adds an AI layer that continuously refines its recommendations.

As cyclists use the app, they can report unsafe locations, while anonymous usage data helps the system understand whether riders follow the suggested routes or choose alternatives. This feedback loop enables the algorithm to identify potentially dangerous areas that may not be evident from public data alone.

“The AI helps us continuously improve the quality of the safety ratings,” Rotariu explained.

Already live in Romania

The Android version of Defensive Pedal has been available for about two weeks and currently covers the entire Romanian road network. The iOS version also launched last week.

The startup has intentionally kept marketing efforts limited during the initial rollout, focusing instead on validating the product and collecting user feedback.

Even so, the platform has already attracted a few hundred active users from word of mouth alone, while approximately 900 cyclists have signed up for early access and are expected to join.

Helping cities improve cycling infrastructure

The technology is designed not only for individual cyclists but also for urban planners.

Defensive Pedal is collaborating with the World Bank on cycling consultancy projects, using its risk algorithm to identify dangerous streets and intersections at a highly detailed level.

Rather than simply highlighting that one city is safer than another, the platform can pinpoint exactly where infrastructure improvements would have the greatest impact on cyclist safety.

Rotariu said the company can already calculate safety scores for individual cities and plans to publish a city ranking covering most Romanian and European cities in the near future.

Expanding across Europe

While Romania serves as the startup’s launch market, the ambition is significantly broader.

The team plans to expand across the European Union within this year. Since much of the required infrastructure and traffic data is publicly available, adapting the platform to new countries is technically straightforward, although each market requires local validation, cyclist feedback, and adjustments to national traffic regulations.

A mixed business model

Defensive Pedal plans to monetize the platform through several complementary revenue streams.

The navigation app will remain free for basic users, while premium features are planned under a subscription model. Beyond consumer subscriptions, the company also sees commercial value in aggregated cycling intelligence.

Anonymous mobility insights can help outdoor brands, bicycle retailers, and local authorities better understand where cyclists travel and how infrastructure influences riding behavior, while municipalities can use the data to prioritize investments that improve cycling safety.

As cycling continues to gain momentum across European cities, Defensive Pedal is betting that safer navigation—and better data—can become essential infrastructure for both riders and the organizations building more bike-friendly urban environments.

The post Defensive Pedal wants to make cycling safer with AI-powered navigation, starting from Romania appeared first on Startups&TheCity.

The eYou platform, a Romania-based social media startup currently in pre-launch, aims to become a European alternative to traditional networks, focusing on algorithm transparency, user control over feeds, and AI-powered fact-checking. The project has raised €300,000 in pre-seed funding from Fil Rouge Capital and has already attracted over 10,000 sign-ups on its first day.

Founded by Jasseem Allybokus and Grégoire Vigroux, two French entrepreneurs based in Romania, eYou positions itself as a “trust-by-design” platform in contrast to global players like Facebook and X.

At the core of the product is a real-time fact-checking feature integrated directly into the user experience. With a single click, users can access AI-generated assessments of posts, based on credible and neutral sources, enabling them to verify claims without interrupting the flow of conversation.

The platform also introduces a transparent recommendation system, allowing users to view and adjust the profile built about them. This gives users direct control over the signals shaping their feed and the option to diversify content exposure beyond algorithm-driven echo chambers.

Built in Europe and aligned with strict data protection standards, eYou enters a market increasingly concerned with misinformation, platform accountability, and the dominance of non-European tech giants.

The public launch is scheduled for May 2026. Until then, users can join the waitlist and secure early access at: eyou.social.

The post eYou raises €300,000 to build a European social media alternative, surpasses 10,000 sign-ups on day one appeared first on Startups&TheCity.

Founded this fall in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Boon is a pioneering peer-to-peer marketplace that goes beyond conventional secondhand selling by integrating social impact into every transaction. 

Created by entrepreneur Stefan Szakal, Boon enables employees within companies to buy and sell secondhand goods, with all proceeds directed to a charity of the seller’s choosing. This unique approach combines commerce, charity, and sustainability, aiming to foster community trust and drive positive social change within corporate environments.

A Marketplace Built on Trust

Boon was designed to operate exclusively within companies, allowing only colleagues to engage in transactions. This trust-based model addresses common challenges in peer-to-peer marketplaces, such as issues with reliability and security, while strengthening workplace community bonds. Inspired by Szakal’s experience attempting to donate an old computer to an animal shelter, Boon evolved from a charity-focused concept to a marketplace built on workplace trust, where companies act as intermediaries to guarantee secure and transparent exchanges.

Unique Use Cases and Versatility

Boon’s applications go beyond simple product exchanges. Sellers can offer unique experiences—like cooking classes or tech tutorials—using the proceeds to support local charities. In one instance, a company’s CEO auctioned a barbecue invite, with all funds going directly to charity. This flexibility in offerings showcases Boon’s potential to cultivate both shared experiences and charitable impact, helping to strengthen workplace connections and inspire collaborative generosity.

Social Impact at Its Core

With Boon, every transaction reinforces a commitment to social responsibility. Szakal emphasizes that the platform empowers users to select from a list of verified local charities, ensuring that donations are meaningful and impactful. By allowing employees to support causes close to their hearts, Boon fosters a sense of purpose and engagement that resonates with the younger workforce. Furthermore, Boon’s built-in AI tool measures the environmental benefits of each purchase, making the environmental impact of secondhand buying visible and accessible for users.

Aligning with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Human Resources (HR)

Boon is a powerful ally for corporate CSR and HR initiatives, helping companies easily digitize and expand their charity efforts. The platform allows employees the freedom to support causes that matter to them, and Boon’s charity verification process assures companies that they’re contributing to reputable organizations. This alignment with CSR policies also enhances employee engagement and satisfaction, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z, who are more likely to value companies with strong social responsibility practices.

Boon’s Business Model and Future Plans

Unlike typical marketplace models, Boon’s business model aligns directly with its social impact mission. The platform operates without charging companies or users, focusing instead on the success of the charities it supports. By acting as a “fundraising department” for these organizations, Boon creates value without imposing fees or transaction costs on companies or individuals.

Currently in its early stages, Boon launched to the public in September with initial adopters like Rebel Dot, a forward-thinking company that shares Boon’s commitment to social impact. Looking ahead, Stefan Szakal has ambitious plans to expand to Bucharest by November, with the possibility of entering an international market by the end of the year. This growth plan illustrates Boon’s scalable potential, driven by a focus on impactful, community-centered commerce.

The post Boon startup: Revolutionizing Peer-to-Peer Marketplace for Social Good appeared first on Startups&TheCity.

Veridion (formerly known as Soleadify) announces a $6 million late seed round to expand to US and further develop their proprietary AIs that are specifically trained to understand the global business landscape, enabling their clients, including tier 1 consultancies and market intelligence firms, to access reliable data on 80 million businesses worldwide, saving thousands of hours of manual research and achieving record accuracy and refresh rates.

The deep tech startups raised the seed round from LAUNCHub Ventures, OTB Ventures, Underline Ventures, and existing investors Day One Capital and GapMinder Venture Partners.

Veridion leverages the power of AI to revolutionize big data and to comprehend billions of webpages every week in order to build and maintain a highly accurate, global scale, near real-time, single-source-of-truth database of company data made available through a Complex Search API and a Matching & Enriching API.

They are one of the first companies to deploy AI at this scale for data acquisition, setting them apart from the traditional firmographic data players that buy data from government registries as well as simple web-scraping alternative data providers.

Firmographic data is information that can be used to categorize organizations by a host of information such as business activity, products or services offered, location, employees, industry, technology offered etc. Enterprises are missing reliable, up-to-date information about market participants and a lack of those crucial insights leads to sub-optimal decisions and challenges when navigating through dynamically changing environments.

Veridion is positioned to be a firmographic intelligence leader, boasting a database of over 60 data points on over 80 million businesses with record accuracy rates and the highest refresh rate on the market.

Veridion saw solid growth figures in 2022, with over 3x increase in recurring revenue and an impressive zero churn in clients. Their biggest clients include, among others, tier 1 consultancies with specialized procurement and insurance teams, one of the largest global insurtech platforms, procurement platforms, and top tier market intelligence companies. There are multiple reasons for this, key among which is their highly granular data, the control their APIs offer on confidence scores and their internal matching engine which allows them to pinpoint businesses at unprecedented rates.

The name change is intended to highlight the company’s unique standing in the market, their commitment to being a single source of truth and reflect the company’s ambitious plans for future growth.

Florin Tufan, founder and CEO, Veridion: “We believe that the next generation of business decision engines, regardless of industry or vertical will require a completely new format of data. Predictive models will rely on AI more than human intuition and will be capable of processing exponentially more data as their core resource. For this, the data needs to be fresh, granular, easy to work with, and integrate-able across a wide array of processes. This has been our focus from the beginning and with this round, we’ll be able to double down on our approach.”

The firmographic data market in which Veridion operates is also known as the business information market and was valued at $211 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow towards $291 billion by 2027, with new technologies like AI representing a game-changer for big data. According to Gartner’s Data Quality Market Survey, the average financial impact of bad data on organizations in 2022 was estimated to be around  $12.9 million per year.

Recent developments in ML capabilities unlocked the doors for Veridion to be positioned quite differently from other market participants. Players such as Delphai, Planck Data, and Grata have collectively raised over $110M in the past 7 years of operations and development. While companies like these cover local markets and company records in the 10 – 20 million range, Veridion boasted over 70 million company records within their first two years of activity.

Delphai covers primarily private markets for M&A, prospecting and supplier sourcing, segments where Veridion brings in-depth data on hundreds of millions of products and services and business activities in all commonly used taxonomies worldwide such as NAICS, NACE, SIC, etc on companies from all around the world. Planck Data is focused on commercial underwriting but only covers the US market as opposed to Veridion’s global coverage and Grata, which is focused primarily on deal sourcing also lacks the in-depth perspective that Veridion brings on specific company descriptions, risk signals and other rapidly expanding data points that Veridion extracts on the companies they oversee.

The biggest name in firmographic data is Dun & Bradstreet, with over 200 years experience in the field. Dun & Bradstreet and Veridion may serve slightly different market segments, but their differences are pronounced when it comes to data products and capabilities. Veridion offers a distinct advantage in its coverage of the SMB landscape, with regularly refreshed data and in-depth product-level information and retail locations. The NLP-based approach employed by Veridion also enables the extraction of unique data attributes for specific industries, such as specific underwriting and supplier risks, enabling the company to better meet the needs of its clients through custom data solutions.

After validating their data with large enterprise clients in commercial insurance underwriting, supplier discovery, and private market analysis, Veridion is releasing self-service APIs to enable faster data integration for potential clients and open up to new markets in data-centric SaaS or other early-stage solutions.

Veridion plans to continue building its US footprint by opening a New York office in 2023 to more closely support their growing base of clients in the region.

The post Bucharest-based Veridion secures $6 million to further develop their AIs tracking 80M businesses appeared first on Startups&TheCity.

Y Combinator-backed startup Nestor, a People Intelligence Platform that is transforming the way organizations develop and retain talent by creating a common language for skills at work, announced today that it has raised a $2 million seed round for further expansion. The round is led by Eleven Ventures, joined by Underline Ventures, and prominent angel investors from the San Francisco Bay Area. Lead investor, Eleven Ventures has been an early backer and key part of scaling into the global markets of companies such as Payhawk and Gtmhub in verticals like fintech and the future of work.

Over the past years, the transition to hybrid work environments coupled with ongoing phenomena such as the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting, have forced organizations to rethink their workforce development strategies. The rigid structure of jobs inside the organizations and pushing training for employees from top down, assuming the organization knows best what are the skills people need, clearly do not work in this new dynamic. Furthermore, this has a negative impact on employees, leaving the individual with the feeling that they have no say over the work that they do. Tomorrow’s workforce development is agile, business-focused, and democratized to give people far more ownership, opportunity, and equity.

Nestor’s People Intelligence Platform brings together employee engagement, performance management, and development planning with a skills-based approach and uses predictive analytics and nudging automation to help organizations develop and retain talent. The solution links skills to the most important talent operations by creating a unified skills-based profile to enable employees to forge new career paths or lateral moves based on both their interests and the organizational needs. With Nestor, each employee is empowered to take ownership of their own development, access new growth opportunities, get involved in cross-functional initiatives, and learn new future-fit skills that will help them succeed.

Nestor is now trusted by HR and people leaders in the most forward-thinking mid-to-large enterprises, including Fortune 500 companies, across Europe, North America, and Latin America. Nestor’s platform achieves a 98% adoption rate in organizations, as employees see a clear output in their individual career growth, develop new skills, discover opportunities, take new roles, and are retained for longer. Recently, UiPath’s Chief Culture Officer Andreea Baciu became an advisor.

This funding round will enable Nestor to grow its sales and customer success teams and accelerate its expansion on the newly entered US and Latin America markets with a focus on mid-to-large enterprises. The company will further invest in its product innovation and plans to launch its smart career pathing module so that employees can easily explore what are the alternative paths they can take in their careers and what skills they should focus on acquiring in the next period. 

“Every employee is unique. We envision a world where every employee receives the right opportunity at the right time to continually learn and improve the skills that will help them succeed. We help organizations make an impact on each employee’s development and enable HR people leaders to build agile people strategies that move beyond the traditional job approach by placing skills at the front and center of their talent operations.”, says Bogdan Apostol, CEO & Co-founder of Nestor.

”We’re excited to work with Bogdan and Raluca. We’ve been knowing them for a long time and they’ve always been passionate about organizational development. We couldn’t be more happier that we were there to help them identify the best partners to scale globally with.”, says Bogdan Iordache, General Partner at Underline.

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Former UiPath General Counsel Vasile Tiple launches Goodlegal, a legal infrastructure platform aimed at providing organizations with an out-of-the-box legal operations framework to achieve legal compliance by leveraging the latest technology advancements and industry-standard content.  

Goodlegal received a pre-seed investment of €1.2 million from early UiPath investors Earlybird Digital East Fund, which led the round, Credo Ventures together with Daniel Dines, and including the latest CEE VC fund, Underline Ventures.

“We are starting our journey to reinvent legal and help our customers to focus on their business, develop great products and become self-sufficient with Goodlegal infrastructure. Our mission is to make legal easy, accessible, and actionable.”, says Vasile Tiple.

Goodlegal is a one-stop-shop for legal compliance which aims to democratize legal by providing individuals and organizations with a legal infrastructure platform to drive frictionless engagement with the stakeholders. It offers various functionalities, ranging from drag-and-drop document builder to out-of-the-box documents, editor and text analysis, e-signature, automation functionalities, and integrations, through which every organization can achieve a sound legal compliance and operations framework in no time. 

Currently, there isn’t a platform available to provide a prebuilt legal infrastructure needed for the daily operations of a company. The entire legal tech market was built around very specific features without considering the bigger picture of what a company might need to be legally compliant. Even the end-user legal market evolved in two different directions: tools built for external lawyers on one side and tools built for in-house lawyers on the other side. Goodlegal is addressing both these legal market inconsistencies by addressing the needs of both law firms and in-house lawyers.

”We aim for Goodlegal to become the industry-accepted <legal operating system>, a standard blueprint for how to put your legal infrastructure in place. Our immediate goal is to be the go-to legal platform for all startups and help them freely achieve the next stage in their company evolution, while medium and long-term goals include large enterprises for which we are developing various integrations, creating a Goodlegal ecosystem for any company irrespective of its size or industry.”, adds Vasile Tiple.  

Vasile Tiple was UiPath’s General Counsel and the architect of the global legal and compliance team. He was at the forefront of designing and implementing the company’s legal operations, support, and automation vision. In his last role at UiPath as Head of Legal & Compliance Automation, Vasile created the go-to-market of the internal Legal Automation Program he implemented in 2016 in UiPath Legal to use RPA for legal work. Vasile has a Ph.D. in International Law from the University of Bucharest, is an author of various academic papers on law, administration, and AI, and previously worked at various organizations, including Adobe.

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Telios Care, a pioneer in telemedicine in Romania, and Cluj Business Campus announced the opening of the first hybrid clinic in Romania, which combines the services of a normal clinic with telemedicine and homecare visits. The clinic will be opened in an office campus dedicated to both the employees who work and live in the campus and employees residing in Cluj-Napoca and the surrounding areas.

The new medical unit will become the place where patients will have access to full medical care services covering all 23 specialties offered by Telios Care, making Telios the only experienced telemedicine company in Eastern Europe now giving people a ‘real choice’.

The investment in this new project is projected to be between 500.000 and 700.000 euros and covers both the purchase of medical equipment and the overall makeover of the space.

„We are pleased to tell the CBC community that starting this year they will have access to high-quality medical services, delivered in a friendly and innovative way. Philip Choban is a visionary and the Telios Care team has proven to be a benchmark in telemedicine in Romania. We believe that the future of medicine, like the future of work, will have a hybrid component and we are honored that they chose Cluj-Napoca and Cluj Business Campus to bring it to life”, says Vlad Buzoianu, CEO of Cluj Business Campus.

This clinic will also be an additional medical unit for those who have access to Telios Care’s medical services with or without health insurance. Both categories will be able to access the medical services at discounted rates and, of course, receive the same personalized care they now receive using telemedicine. Secondly, the general population also has direct access to the clinic and information on how they can benefit from medical services.

„Telios Care was founded with the sole purpose of making health and wellness services as accessible and affordable as possible through new and emergent technologies, being at the same time a patient-oriented business. Now we can move on to the next level and give people the opportunity to choose how they want to receive healthcare. Telemedicine brings the opportunity to reach people in rural communities and the Telios Care team makes this thing happen every day through its international expertise, professionalism and dedication. In fact, our experience in the field of telemedicine is our main asset.” says Philip Choban, CEO & Founder of Telios Care.

Through this partnership, Cluj Business Campus offers its community high-quality medical services and extends the range of services designed to strengthen the philosophy of „1-minute city” and „work-life blending”, which is an essential concept in the Romanian real estate and office building market. It also consolidates the idea that Cluj Business Campus has been outlining since its inception, the opening of the first hybrid clinic in Romania in an office campus. In addition, it reveals the next step in the Telios Care business, Telios Home Visit, the homecare medical service branch that will start this year in Cluj and in a small number of cities, including Bucharest, during the pilot phase. After this period, the service will be available nationwide.

Through its founding members, Telios Care, a pioneer in telemedicine in Romania, brings over 25 years of experience in the United States of America in the field of distance medical care services.

In 2017, together with the other founding members, Lucian Coșoi, Matt Henry (in the USA) and Dr. Adrian Danciu, Philip Choban laid the foundations of the first dedicated telemedicine service in Romania. In its 5 years of existence, it has offered telemedicine services for the employees of more than 200 companies in Romania, covering over 110,000 employees and 23 medical specialties.

The Telios Care team shares the same vision – access to quality medical services, available anytime, anywhere. An easier doctor’s appointment, a better doctor’s appointment. In support of this vision, it is transforming the way beneficiaries and companies use their time and resources. 

Cluj Business Campus (CBC) in Cluj-Napoca is a real estate project that brings the concept of a „1-minute city” to the Romanian office market. Offices, apartments, bistros, a rooftop bar, a gym, a fitness room, a park, a kindergarten, an international school, and a podcasting studio are housed in the 30,000 square meters. Today, the campus has adopted the blending work-life philosophy and is building an environment in which wellbeing and sustainability are the main pillars of everyday life.

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Telios Care brings to Romania more than 25 years of experience in telehealth services in the USA. The company offers… Read More

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]]> https://startupsnthecity.com/bookr-appoints-daniel-andor-as-ux-guru-of-their-product-we-want-to-revolutionize-the-way-customers-interact-with-services/ Mon, 23 Aug 2021 11:22:09 +0000 https://startupsnthecity.com/?p=2390 Starting August this year, Daniel Andor joins Cluj-based BOOKR team as a UX specialist and board member. With over 10 years of experience, Daniel has worked with a wide range of companies, from early-stage startups to enterprise companies. As BOOKR’s UX & Product advisor, Daniel will work closely with the rest of the team, helping […]

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Starting August this year, Daniel Andor joins Cluj-based BOOKR team as a UX specialist and board member. With over 10 years of experience, Daniel has worked with a wide range of companies, from early-stage startups to enterprise companies. As BOOKR’s UX & Product advisor, Daniel will work closely with the rest of the team, helping them improve what they already have in place, build BOOKR’s new initiatives, improve product development processes, and advocate the importance of early validation and customer feedback.

Daniel Andor is helping tech companies test and validate their ideas quickly, focusing on creating software solutions that meet the needs of both business and users. He has recently worked with several incubators, where he helped startup founders understand the value of UX in developing their product, focusing on the rapid validation of their ideas and communication with the target audience.

Established in 2021 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, BOOKR is the first online booking service offering a 3D virtual tour of the location. The app also provides a customer relationship management (CRM) system and sales statistics. BOOKR streamlines sales through VR by significantly increasing the number of business appointments.

“We know for a fact that people ignore design that ignores people. An important part of the UX design process is to know your target audience: What are their goals? What are their challenges? What motivates them, and how do they move? The entire product should be designed for these people. We started working with Daniel in late March as part of the Innovation Labs program. Since then, he has been constantly helping us understand the User Journey and what the main reasons are for using our product. Together with Daniel, we want to revolutionize the way customers interact with the services the companies on our platform are offering. His experience will definitely help BOOKR to tap into new areas that users wish for.”, says Flavius ​​Fulea, co-founder and CEO of BOOKR.

In the interview below, we asked Daniel Andor about his experience, his thoughts about UX & startups and his role in BOOKR.

Daniel, please tell us a bit about yourself, what do you do?

Daniel Andor: I’m the Founder and Lead Product Designer at Durran, a digital product design studio. I help startups validate their ideas in just a few days, solve complex business challenges, and design outstanding digital products faster by running Design Sprint workshops.

One of my beliefs is that startups of the future should focus on people and the reality they live in. This is why I love working on projects that solve real meaningful problems for their customers.

Besides these, I’m involved in various local incubators to help startup founders understand the value of UX for their products. Also, wanting to help and give back, I started to coach junior designers and gathered a local community where designers can learn and grow together.

You have over 10 years of experience in UX/Product Design. Can you please detail your experience?

Daniel Andor: I’ve started my career at a local tech company where I had the chance to work with some great people who helped me grow as a Product Designer — special thanks to Vasilica Bob & Raul Popa.

Working on in-house products like Flipsnack or Bannersnack (now Creatopy) gave me an excellent opportunity to oversee the whole ecosystem of how digital products are made — from idea conception to launch. Also, I had the chance to interact with all the stakeholders and develop a comprehensive grasp of both business and user goals.

The next milestone in my career was freelancing. During this time, I managed to work with clients from all around the world on products ranging from early-stage startups to enterprise businesses in domains such as Technology, Healthcare, Publishing, Education, and Professional Services.

In 2020, when the Covid pandemic hit, I took some time off to analyse and rethink what I wanted to do next. This is how Durran came to life, from a deep desire to work on projects I truly enjoy — projects that have a beneficial impact on their customers’ lives, like TypingDNA, Edus, or Medijobs. Within this context, I was able to be involved in some local incubators as well, by doing presentations, Q&As, or providing feedback to startup founders.

Why is UX important for a startup like BOOKR, and for a startup in general?

Daniel Andor: I am a true believer that UX should be a big focus for every startup. If you genuinely want to solve your customers’ problems, you must know who they are and understand their context, needs, and challenges. Just building products and waiting for things to happen is not a viable strategy — and most of the time, nothing will happen.

Nowadays, there are already tons of products out there that are doing similar things — your competitors basically — and if you want to stand a chance in the market, you have to deliver the best experience possible for your customers.

Obviously, all this investment in UX reflects in your business metrics as well.

Iterating on your product, incorporating your customers’ feedback, and validating new ideas fast should be at the core of each startup. And this is what UX helps you do.

If we talk about BOOKR in particular, they already have this attitude and openness towards their customers and their needs; they understand the value that UX can bring to the table — and it is probably why it came natural that we should be working together.

Why have you joined BOOKR and what will be your role there?

Daniel Andor: Flavius and I have been in close contact since we first met while they were part of Innovation Labs. What stroked me even back then was Flavius’ attitude and determination to improve BOOKR constantly. We had quite some calls to see their progress and ideas in the meantime, giving both of us a taste of how it would be if we collaborated.

The fact that they are already gathering feedback from their customers and use it to fuel new initiatives for their platform was also a crucial aspect for me.

Besides all this, I know that they have some exciting updates soon, where I think I can come with good insights.

My role will be more of a UX & Product advisor. I’ll work closely with Flavius and BOOKR’s designer (Martin), helping them improve what they already have in place, build BOOKR’s new initiatives, improve product development processes, and advocate the importance of early validation and customer feedback. All of this, mixed with product strategy, to make sure that we build the right things, that are both useful and valuable for the customers and the business as well.

Where do you see BOOKR evolve in the future?

Daniel Andor: I would say that BOOKR is in quite a good position for a product that’s been on the market for just 6 months, but I’m glad to see that Flavius and his team want to grow and improve further. From one of our latest calls, I know they are preparing some exciting new updates, and they also have great plans for BOOKR’s future. They have high potential and, combined with their attitude and way of doing things, have a real chance to build a solid product.

Knowing Flavius and his team, I’m sure we’ll keep hearing about BOOKR, so keep an eye open and follow their journey. I’m happy to be part of it.

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BOOKR

• Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Established in 2021 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, BOOKR is the first online booking service offering a 3D virtual tour of the… Read More

The post BOOKR appoints Daniel Andor as UX guru of their product: “We want to revolutionize the way customers interact with services.” appeared first on Startups&TheCity.

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