Necessity breeds invention. On Restimo’s journey and transformations, and on the EIT Venture Programme
The Krakow Technology Park, together with EIT Digital, has launched recruitment for the second edition of the EIT Digital Venture Program. Tomasz Marcińczyk, CEO & Founder of Restimo, spoke about how you can develop your business idea with the program. Last year, the company received EUR 25 thousand for the development of a restaurant payment application – RestPay.
– How did you find out about the Venture Program and EIT Digital?
– We found out about the Venture Program from Facebook; I got a recommendation from a friend who participated in the previous edition. When we were talking about it, the recruitment for the program was underway. We decided to apply right away. Our friends spoke very highly of the program, both in terms of workshops and substance, but also in terms of funding. We were given a contact to Sonia Bazan, had a few conversations, and so from a phone call to sending the application, it went quickly and we got into the program.
– What was the most valuable thing for you during the EIT Digital Venture Program?
– The workshops themselves were valuable, but it wasn’t a breakthrough for us because we had already participated in another acceleration program before. The breakthrough was certainly the financial support, which we couldn’t find on the Polish market. We received EUR 25 thousand for the development of the company, and this was crucial because thanks to such support, you can talk to investors differently. Thanks to this, we jumped to a different level of development.
We are a startup that, first of all, has already been validated by experts experienced in the global market. Secondly, we are able to show that we used the financial support in a reasonable way, we delivered the product, and this translated into concrete results – signed contracts with clients and a working product. We also had a starting point for valuation, which is usually the most problematic aspect at the beginning of a startup’s development. All these aspects contributed to talks with investors and securing a number of business partners.
– So you can recommend this program?
– Definitely yes! I haven’t seen a better program for startups in Poland. The substantive and financial support is crucial for a startup at an early stage of development, and it’s hard to find a program in Poland that would offer something like that.
– RestPay is a solution for the catering industry that allows for easier payment in restaurants. So how did you find yourselves in the current situation?
– I won’t say that the pandemic is helping us, because we made the product for “normal” times, meaning times of paying on-site. Therefore, it was necessary to take a flexible approach to the subject and create a second product, which is an ideal solution precisely for the times of the pandemic. Unfortunately, at the moment I cannot say more, but we will certainly show what we have been working on soon.
– What are your plans for the future?
– We are acquiring a key business partner and in the perspective of the coming months we want to close an investment round, much larger than we planned at the very beginning. We jumped to a completely different level of business, secured very large partnerships that are counted in tens of thousands of restaurants and, most importantly, the product is ready.
We also have a sizeable team. During the pandemic, we launched our own software house – Winalife, which has grown and is ready for the development of our projects. The team has specialists from various fields, ranging from marketing and sales to programming.
– What should we wish you?
– Good and honest people in the team, as well as among business partners and investors.
More about the RestPay solution can be found here: https://restpay.pl/
Learn more about EIT Digital: https://www.eitdigital.eu/
If you are looking for support and the opportunity to develop your own idea, apply to the EIT Venture Program today!
Details and the application form can be found here: https://www.eitdigital.eu/venture-program/