Collaboration type: Long-term
Timeframe: November 2021 – January 2023
Vertical: AI / Geospatial data / Road infrastructure
Startup HQ: Tallinn, Estonia 🇪🇪
About EyeVi Technologies
EyeVi Technologies is an Estonian deep tech company using AI to modernise how roads are surveyed and maintained. Founded in 2020 by Gaspar Anton, a GIS veteran who spent more than a decade at Reach-U and was involved in mapping the Baltics for Google Street View, EyeVi turns mobile mapping data into actionable maintenance insights delivered as SaaS. Its platform is sensor-agnostic, prices by the kilometre analysed, and ships with a low-cost hardware kit for customers who need one.
At the time we started working together, EyeVi already had customers in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Poland and the UK, and had developed its predictive analytics with Tallinn University of Technology. The next chapter was the United States, where the road maintenance backlog runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act had just unlocked new federal funding.
Objectives
EyeVi came to us with a closed seed round and no public profile to speak of. The first objective was to announce the round in a way that reached three audiences at once: international tech and startup press, the road and traffic technology trade titles its customers read, and the Estonian and Polish ecosystems where its investors sit.
The seed round was a $2 million (€1.8 million) raise led by ff Venture Capital, with participation from RKKVC, Decacorn Capital, Iron Wolf Capital, Superangel, Spring Capital, Kaamos Group and a group of Estonian angels including AuveTech founder Väino Kaldoja and former prime minister Taavi Rõivas.
The second objective, once the round was out, was to give the company a voice in the US market it was about to enter. That meant building Gaspar Anton’s profile as a credible commentator on infrastructure and AI, and making sure EyeVi’s US milestones were noticed by American trade and regional media.
Results
The February 2022 funding announcement generated 25 placements across international technology press, industry trade titles and startup and business media in Estonia, Poland, Ukraine and beyond. The thought leadership phase that followed delivered an interview feature in TechHQ, a bylined opinion piece on Nasdaq, a Startup of the Day feature in AIN.Capital, and US trade and regional coverage of the Austin headquarters opening.
Highlights from the funding announcement:
- VentureBeat: a dedicated feature on EyeVi’s approach to road maintenance through digital twins
- AI Business: EyeVi features among the week’s notable AI startup news
- Traffic Technology International and Highways Today: the trade titles EyeVi’s customers read
- AIThority: AI industry coverage of the round
- Postimees, Geenius: the home market
- Spider’s Web, My Company Polska and MSN Poland: Polish coverage following the lead investor, framed around what the technology could mean for Polish roads
- ArcticStartup and AIN.ua: Nordic and CEE startup press
Highlights from the thought leadership programme:
- Nasdaq: a bylined opinion piece by Gaspar Anton arguing that American infrastructure spending needs a new data layer to be effective
- TechHQ: an interview feature on digital twins, cities and road repair, secured within the first month of the programme
- AIN.Capital: Startup of the Day profile
- LiDAR Magazine, The American Surveyor and Silicon Hills News: US trade and Austin regional coverage of the new headquarters, launched at Capital Factory alongside an Estonian presidential trade delegation to Texas
Why it worked
Small seed rounds in unglamorous sectors rarely earn international coverage on the number alone. What carried EyeVi was the size of the problem it addresses and a story that connected road maintenance to two themes journalists were actively writing about in 2022: digital twins and the infrastructure funding wave in the US. Once the round was out, the same themes gave us a natural platform for opinion work, which is how a small Estonian company ended up with a byline on Nasdaq within a few months of arriving in Texas.
The other lesson is about investor geography. Following the cap table into Poland and Estonia produced a layer of coverage that a purely international pitch would have missed, and it did so with very little additional effort.
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