Telos-based hackathon management platform TAIKAI raises $2.36 million (€2 million) in an institutional funding round led by Germany based FinLab EOS VC Fund.
Existing investor Bright Pixel and new investor Portugal Ventures also participated in the funding round.
FinLab EOS VC Fund
FinLab EOS VC Fund is managed by Germany based asset management company C3 Management GmbH. FinLab EOS VC Fund is partly funded by Block.one and offers developers and entrepreneurs the funding they need to create community-driven businesses leveraging EOSIO. The EOS VC Fund focuses on early and growth stage technology companies and typically takes a minority equity stake.
TAIKAI Is Powered By Telos
The Telos network provides TAIKAI, a blockchain-based voting mechanism, that enables competition evaluation to be fully transparent and audible by any stakeholder. Also, as part of the partnership, TAIKAI joined the Telos Boost Accelerator program, thereby getting assistance in technical implementation, marketing, and business development from the Telos Foundation.
Douglas Horn, Chief Architect of Telos, said:
“We congratulate TAIKAI for raising €2m in funding for their innovative project and cannot wait to see where they grow from here. We are glad that the governance capabilities of Telos can support so many projects like TAIKAI.”
TAIKAI Plans To Grow Team And Expand Europe and Brazil
TAIKAI intends to use the funds to fuel its international expansion in Europe and Brazil and the development of hiring solutions for companies and startups.
Mario Alves, co-founder and CEO of TAIKAI, sees this round as an opportunity to create a strong ecosystem of innovation.
“TAIKAI has been receiving support from the community since its inception and has already helped more than 100 global companies solve their innovation challenges. Now it is time to go further and have a wider impact on businesses, addressing two of their most urgent needs – innovation and recruitment. That is why we will launch in September an acceleration program for startups.”
Mario Alves
The Portugal-based startup caught the C3 Management attention due to the use of their technology, but also to their potential of disrupting the hiring processes across the world.
Founded in 2018, TAIKAI started as an open innovation platform, helping Portuguese companies reach new solutions and products through challenges to a community of developers, designers, and others.
The pandemic brought them new opportunities since the lockdowns and remote work boosted the online format. Challenges can now address the needs of any company around the world and the solution can be developed by any innovator around the world too. Therefore, TAIKAI has grown and turned into a global open innovation platform with a community of more than 50,000 innovators. It also became a highly relevant, attractive pool of talent, which led to the company’s next step: disrupt hiring processes. The funding round will support the international expansion and the development of hiring features.
In order to do that, TAIKAI will grow its development, marketing and sales team to 24 people until the end of 2021.