COBALT advised Estonian founders of Teleport on set-up and seed financing

This week started by another reason to pay tribute to Estonian entrepreneurs. The founders of Delaware-registered Teleport, Inc., namely Sten Tamkivi, an experienced internet software entrepreneur and ex-executive of Skype, Silver Keskküla, an ex-engineer of Skype and Microsoft, and Balaji Srinivasan, General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz, announced closing a $2.5M seed round financing.

The round was led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) which has also invested in Airbnb, Foursquare, Pinterest and other notable businesses. The lead was followed by Silicon Valley-based angel fund SV Angel, London-based accelerator Seedcamp, and a list of individual angels from Silicon Valley and Europe (including well-known Estonian investors Jaan Tallinn, Rain Rannu, and Indrek Kasela).

Teleport is a search engine for “digital nomads” as they call their users. It enables to assess the suitability of different urban areas for relocation purposes, both in terms of availability of required environment/services and their cost. We live in a mobile society with increased possibility to work remotely. While revenues (jobs) are becoming detached from location, costs (on housing, transportation, education, childcare, healthcare, taxes etc.) remain heavily dependent on physical location. Teleport aims to maximize users’ gains from moving around and drastically change how human migration takes place globally.

As true believers in the freedom to choose where to live and work, Teleport is hiring globally and has already spread out to four countries on two continents. They have opened the main R&D office in Tallinn, Estonia, and a Silicon Valley outpost at Stanford University’s renowned StartX co-working space.

Partners Kristel Raidla-Talur and Egon Talur advised the founders of Estonian origin on various matters related to seed round financing, tax structuring and setting up the R&D office in Estonia. We are excited about the product of Teleport and keep thumbs up for the new venture of great Estonian entrepreneurs.

Please see blog post of Teleport, article at TechCrunch and news at Äripäevfor more information.