Qoorio: a marketplace for knowledge and experience

In August 2018, over dinner and wine in the home of Justas Janauskas and Gabija Grušaite, I learned about the idea that would become Qoorio. Justas and Gabija had reflected on how the world could be a better place and how people had retreated from face-to-face conversations into their smartphones for advice. Their exploratory conversations with potential users elicited a very enthusiastic response. A year later, Change Ventures had led the pre-seed round for what was originally named HumansApp, now rebranded as Qoorio, and the business had completed a successful pilot launch in Vilnius, Lithuania.
In 2008, Justas co-founded a pre-loved clothing marketplace that later became known as Vinted (Kleiderkreisel in Germany). As CEO, he led the company through the early years of experimentation and growth, including a challenging period when the company’s growth stalled and they hired a new CEO to pivot the business model. His relationship with Change Ventures began when he joined as venture partner for Fund I, where his angel investment activity regularly surfaced new startups for us to evaluate. During this process we got talking about his new venture.
Justas had stepped back from a day-to-day operational role at Vinted in late 2017 to serve on the board, at which point he had more time to reflect on new opportunities. Together with Gabija, they discussed what they saw as one of the big challenges of our time — the tendency of technology to lower face-to-face interaction between human beings and the parallel growth in the global problem of loneliness. They theorised that technology could perhaps also address these challenges but that the right solution was not available at the time. I saw the same issues and was intrigued by their idea of a marketplace that would connect people with one another for a face-to-face interaction. Further, it was my strong belief that this would extend beyond face-to-face interactions and also grow into an online model.

Fast forward to October 2018. Justas had assembled a team and injected the initial capital to start building the business. As befits a founder who has raised over $100M in venture capital from top tier investors like Accel Partners, he had a solid pitch deck prepared with very ambitious goals. Justas knew exactly what he was looking for in an investor. “For a pre-seed round, we were looking much more than just the money. We wanted a level-headed partner who would help us to navigate the murky waters that come naturally with an early-stage company. Andris is great, his advice is always on point, he is able to see the big vision that the founders have. He is also able to give direct feedback, sometimes things that one does not necessarily want to hear, in a constructive way. That helps us to grow the company,” commented Justas.
We were very fortunate that Qoorio selected Change Ventures to lead the pre-seed round that would finance the initial product build-out and the pilot launch in Vilnius. Joining us in the €540k pre-seed round are Change Ventures venture partner Vytautas Kubilius (Country Manager, Baltics, Google), a group of angel investors including Mantas Mikuckas and Thomas Plantenga, as well as Lithuania-based accelerator fund 70Ventures.
The Vilnius launch saw headline PR success, tens of thousands of registered users and solid growth in transactions completed on the platform, including many repeat customers. We are excited to participate in the bright future of Qoorio and look forward to the next stage of growth — launch in a major European capital soon.
Andris K. Berzins, Managing Partner

About Change Ventures:
Change Ventures is the first pre-seed/seed venture capital fund with boots on the ground in all three Baltic states. We back ambitious founders based in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania as well as Baltic diaspora entrepreneurs building their businesses elsewhere in the world. Our initial investments range from €100k to €750k, with follow-on capital available for later rounds. Our founder-friendly no-nonsense investment process is designed to help founders with big, bold ambitions get fast investment decisions. Once we are on board, we help with getting to product-market fit, raising additional funds and growing the business, leveraging an unparalleled network of follow-on investors and partners.
Find us at www.changeventures.com or email us at info@changeventures.com.
