An Estonian Startup With €25 Million Turnover

http://www.arcticstartup.com/2013/09/26/the-estonian-startup-with-e25-million-turnover-you-havent-heard-of

by jkaljundi • 13 years ago

37 20 13 years ago

antr• 13 years ago

Although I'm a believer in bootstrapped startups, I just hope that if AdCash raises capital they make it from European funds, and not foreign ones. Europe needs to considerably develop is own venture funds and funding resources, and that won't happen if capital comes from abroad.

dcc14• 13 years ago

What Europe needs is less bureaucracy and taxes, Here in Ireland i have to handover 23% (likely to be more in upcoming budget) in VAT on all EU sales!

Not only thats almost a quarter of your price gone in sales tax but, there is a quite abit of added work in remaining tax compliant

Of course if you are Google etc of this island you can just launder your money onto Bahamas or somewhere else warmer and barely pay any taxes

pcrh2• 13 years ago

Well... Google and Apple pay their taxes in Ireland, rather then where the money is made.

tftfmacedo• 13 years ago

As I'm sure you know, VAT is paid by the customer and you're simply collecting it, it's never your money to begin with. And if you are selling to businesses, they can rebate all or part of it.

lucaspiller• 13 years ago

What is it you are selling? We are an accommodation booking site and only have to pay VAT (we have it in writing from the tax office) on Irish sales, not EU wide.

xmr• 13 years ago

Jersey (Channel Islands) is working on becoming a focus point for technology investment and startups. While technically it's not part of the EU, it is part of Europe. There's very low taxes and gigabit fibre is being rolled out too.

jcrei• 13 years ago

Ah yes, the #not_quite_estonian_mafia or as some commenter put it on the site #foreignermafia (as opposed to the #estonianmafia label that goes around every time an Estonian start up is mentioned). In all honesty I'm very happy to see foreigners achieve good results with their start ups in Tallinn. I would love nothing more than to see Tallinn become this international hub for start ups.

jkaljundi• 13 years ago

We love foreigner-started startups as part of #estonianmafia. That's the joy of the broad term, it can include both Estonians abroad, foreigners in Estonia as well as anyone with any relation to Estonia. You're definitely part of it as well :)

jacquesm• 13 years ago

There are quite a few companies like this (and much better ones) that power infrastructure for whole industries. I'm always very much impressed by these submarine operations.

Try this one: http://www.iponweb.com/

imho it is much more impressive than AdCash.

jhonovich2• 13 years ago

The €25 Million turnover number is misleading. Later, the article notes, "AdCash gives about 70% - 90% of revenue to their publishers, so with a turnover of €25 million, you can do the math on their theoretical profitability."

Let's say they keep 20% (the middle of that range). That's €5 Million. Of course, that's not profitability. That's essentially their revenue before the expense of having 40 employees, etc.

Still impressive but more realistic with that aspect clarified.

blibble2• 13 years ago

don't confuse revenue/turnover with gross margin.

gross margin is turnover minus cost of goods sold.

jhonovich2• 13 years ago

Sure, so this is a company with a paltry 20% gross margins.

An Estonian Startup With €25 Million Turnover

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