Dear partners, investors, entrepreneurs and other friends,
With another month of remote work and limited social life under our belts, there is hope that the measures taken have helped to control the spread of COVID-19 in some regions. Thanks to everyone’s contributions and sacrifices made on both personal and business level, various countries are slowly starting to walk the path back to the “new normal”.
It is too early to say what the “new normal” will really be like in the short term and what are the positive and negative longer-term impacts of this pandemic. Approaching the difficult times with a forward-looking attitude and seeking to find future opportunities, will help all of us to come out of this storm stronger.
Many of our portfolio companies have made additional contributions to their communities during these challenging times and many of them also came up with new creative solutions to their customers. In this newsletter issue, you can take a look at what some of them have been up to. There is also lots of new content to keep you up to speed. We have published two new podcast episodes, one related to the pandemic’s impact on the VC industry and one on the digital media industry. There are also two new blog posts, one by 3TS’ Partner Sever Totia on his 3 Key Learnings on Crisis Management and one from Catalyst Romania’s Partner Marius Ghenea encouraging entrepreneurs to re-think things from scratch now rather than starting from scratch later.
Please, dive in and enjoy this newsletter. And finally, we naturally hope that you, your families and colleagues continue to stay safe and healthy.
Jasmina Henniova, Communications & Investment Manager and the whole 3TS Capital Partners team
Sever Totia is 3TS’ US based Partner, with over 20 years of experience in the investment industry. He wrote a blog post featuring his 3 Key Learnings about Crisis Management. In his article, he advises entrepreneurs what to do and not to do in this unprecedented situation, including actionable tips to save runway, defend their revenue base and prepare for the better times coming.
3TS and 0100 Conferences Podcast – Episode 3 and 4
During the first week of April we have published two new episodes of the 0100 Conferences 3TS Podcasts. Episode 3 is with Marcin Szeląg, Partner at Innovation Nest, on What can entrepreneurs and VCs do to make sure they survive the crisis? Episode 4 is with Bas Nawijn, Senior Vice President Sales – GM EMEA at 3TS’ portfolio company Piano, about The impact of coronavirus on sales and digital media world. Listen in or read Episode 3 and Episode 4 key messages and let us know how you liked it!
PerfectGym Launching a New Feature – PerfectGym TV
PerfectGym has launched a new solution called PerfectGym TV. This allows fitness clubs to stream live or pre-recorded content directly through the app, and it comes especially handy during the quarantine times when customers can’t visit the clubs. However, this is also valuable feature during normal times, as building a brand outside one’s facilities is becoming increasingly important in today’s digitally connected world. Read more about it here.
Piano Analyzing the Position of Digital Media in the Current Situation
In times when everyone is hungry for news, Piano has published several articles related to the digital media’s position in the current situation. They wrote about various approaches to handle paywalls during the COVID-19 crisis and analyzed trends on demand and subscriptions across hundreds of major news publishers in Europe and the US. Moreover, Piano has been very successful in new business even during these extraordinary weeks and one of these new clients is Italian, which clearly is a big spark of hope for a better near-term future.
Omniconvert’s eCommerce Growth Summit Was a Success
Catalyst Romania’s portfolio company Omniconvert was holding an online eCommerce Growth Summit at the end of March. The event was very well received with a total of 10,000 attendees and some of the panel discussions with +4,000 concurrent participants. If you couldn’t attend or would like to come back to some of the content, you can find all the recorded videos here.
Social Responsibility Initiatives of Catalyst Romania’s Portfolio Companies
The portfolio companies of Catalyst Romania have been contributing to the community in various ways during these challenging times. SmartBill has donated €35,000 to the Sibiu Hospital (in the hometown of the founders and most of the employees) and also launched an online petition which has been signed by more than 50,000 people and many of the proposed measures have been approved by the government by now.
123FormBuilder has been enabling all Romanian government organizations to use free of charge their form building solutions for patients, quarantined or isolated people. They also offered the statement form which is needed by anyone leaving their home for private or professional reasons and it has gone fast viral all across Romania.
Simartis has been assisting existing clients to deliver a social impact OTA campaign, displaying the #stayathome hashtag on mobile phones instead of the network provider name and thus promoting social distancing.
Meanwhile, Catalyst Romania’s Partner and a well-known Romanian serial entrepreneur Marius Ghenea has been very visible in the local media and has been one of the initiators of the “Manifesto for the Rescue of the Romanian Economy“. He has also published several articles. You can find one of his articles featuring some management tips during crisis under this link.
