Why invest in startups today? There are many reasons to invest as little as $100 in the startups and small businesses you believe in, from backing future leaders in their sectors and industries to having a huge diversity of options. You can invest in female founders, minority founders, biotech, beer, local businesses, the options are endless.
That’s great because one of the most important features in investing is the concept of diversification to minimize risks and volatility, and have uncorrelated returns. Startup investing can offer all these highly desired features.
Below are seven of the best startups to invest in now on the Wefunder platform. As always due diligence is suggested, and further analysis of these startups to meet your investment criteria as private investment is too risky.
Here are some of the best startups to read up on right now:
- Qube Money
- Papa John’s Central Europe
- Rasa
- Tap Systems
- Solstar Space
- Camdog
- UpCounsel
Best Startups: Qube Money
Organizing finances on a daily basis can be either easy or frustrating, depending on how organized and disciplined you are and which apps you use. Qube Money is a cash envelope banking app, allowing for total control, safety, and planning of your daily finances.
Budgeting is not always an easy task. Qube Money makes budgeting an easy and effective process, as you divide spending money in various “cubes,” each of which is earmarked for a separate purchase, such as groceries or gasoline. The most important aspect, though, is that Qube Money decreases spending on unplanned purchases (and money stress as well).
How many times do you get carried away by online shopping? The concept of budgeting is too important and effective to forego, and daily finances, in a way, are no different than running a business. Figuring out the best way to use your cash is invaluable. Budgeting is about making good decisions and applying discipline — a plan.
Some of the highlights of Qube Money are growth in the number of downloads and a large added value from revenue per account. With more than 30,000 downloads and on average more than 50 new customers daily, there is traction already. Qube Money reports that it has a $16.48 customer acquisition cost (CAC), which brings in $92.88 annual average revenue per account (ARPA). This is the definition of a positive return on investment marketing campaign.
You can invest in Qube Money on Wefunder with a minimum amount of $100.
Papa John’s Central Europe
Papa John’s is an American pizza restaurant franchise, and one of the largest pizza delivery restaurant chains in the United States. Pizza is a very popular global food, creating powerful business opportunities. PJ Western is Papa John’s franchise with exclusive rights in Russia, Poland and Germany.
What are some of the top highlights to consider in this pizza business opportunity? To start with, three of the top seven pizza markets are in Central and Eastern Europe. They’re targeting a large market of more than 260 million people.
The company invests in “proprietary, patent-pending IT platforms” to boost online sales, allow more effective driver tracking, and focus on quality control. The expansion plans are very aggressive with more than 300 stores expected to materialize within only two years.
One of the most important factors, though, is that the pizza market in Central Europe is now an unsaturated and fast-growing market.
PJ Western has reported compound annual revenue growth of 31.2% over the last 12 years. Having already established infrastructure and a supply chain of more than 7,500 km², PJ Western is highly optimistic about its fast expansion.
You can invest in Papa John’s Central Europe on Wefunder with a minimum investment of $225.
Best Startups: Rasa
Rasa wants to disrupt the coffee industry and transform the way we energize ourselves by providing a coffee alternative based on herbs. It is all about Adaptogens, specific herbs that survive under harsh conditions globally and which meet four crucial criteria. First, they are nontoxic. Second, they are nonspecific and help your body become more resistant to a variety of environmental events that cause stress. Third, they are normalizing, or useful in offering a balanced body function, and overall healthy state. And fourth, they are important to the nervous system.
Most people drinking coffee daily to energize, especially in the mornings, are essentially addicted to caffeine. Caffeine is often a cause of anxiety and trouble sleeping.
Rasa eliminates all the side effects of caffeine, having a line of nine products such as Cacao, Spicy Rose and Wellderberry, to name a few.
The company has $10 million cumulative revenue and was GAAP profitable last year, having sold more than 10 million cups to 100,000 customers.
Rasa is a public benefit corporation committed to a sustainable supply chain, packaging that contains nontoxic components, and changing lives. The ambitious plans include the desire to increase the business 10 times over the next five years.
You can invest in Rasa on Wefunder with a minimum investment of $100.
Tap Systems
The AR and VR industries are multi-billion markets but there is one major problem with it that Tap Systems is solving. Trying to tap inputs while wearing AR or VR equipment is a tedious task. Tap Systems offers an input solution for Augmented and Virtual Reality technologies, making the process of entering text and navigating menus now fast, and accurate.
With this device, the days of making errors and being frustrated using wearable AR and VR devices could be now over.
Tap Systems is now offering a wrist-wearable tap, Tap Strap 2, which is essentially an all-in-one controller to type, mouse & control any environment, from phones and tablets to smart TVs.
Tap Systems has patented this technology and has achieved over $2 million in sales to date, with thousands of customers. But any technology in a market that has a low cap may not be able to thrive. Luckily this is not the scenario for Tap Systems, as it estimates that the AR/VR market may grow to almost $300 billion by 2024. Notably, the management is experienced with a history of IPOs and successful exits.
You can invest in Tap Systems on Wefunder with a minimum amount of $100.
Best Startups: Solstar Space
WiFi is found everywhere, making internet access an easy, convenient, and free experience. But what is the one place that you may think that WiFi may not be available? If you answered “outer space,” then you are on the right track.
Solstar Space is all about bringing commercial WiFi to space. I admit the idea of a company “that is building a Space Wide Web that helps humanity become a multi-planetary species” may seem like science fiction at first. ButSolstar has a vision.
Having internet in space is not an easy task. Even NASA is retiring its satellites to purchase commercial satellite communications services. Herein lies an opportunity, as Solstar Space has positioned itself to provide these services.
Solstar has already shown that its technology works by tweeting from space with its first commercial WiFi spot in space. Solstar has a Space Act Agreement with NASA to test the development of the internet in space further.
The vision to create a “‘Space Wide Web’ to connect everything in space, to everyone on Earth” that Solstar has is ambitious and challenging.
You can invest in Solstar Space on Wefunder with a minimum amount of $100.
Camdog
Camdog offers a solution to one of the most severe problems owners of stores are facing — the danger of losses due to theft. Camdog offers AI-based video surveillance.
What if there was a way for companies to detect and prevent thefts and vandalism?
Camdog provides an efficient monitoring solution for small and medium businesses. It is cheap, easily installed on existing CCTV camera systems and uses AI working on cloud-based video monitoring to help companies increase their security. That can lower their costs related to equipment and security staff.
Based on major features such as efficiency, effectiveness and ease of use, Camdog’s technology can send alerts about possible threats to business owners on any device they may choose. Stores, cafes, restaurants are all potential clients that may benefit from using Camdog’s technology.
The company estimates that the total addressable market could reach $77.3 billion by 2023. There is also a serviceable addressable market estimated at $30 billion. Camdog wants to target a share of about 5%, showing a large market opportunity.
You can invest in Camdog on Wefunder with a minimum investment of $100.
Best Startups: UpCounsel
Legal services are often very costly. UpCounsel is changing this fact by offering a legal services marketplace that is focused on being easy, affordable, fast, and transparent.
It is an online marketplace that connects clients with attorneys at a fraction of the cost compared to other legal firms and their services. The motto “Bringing legal to the people” is not just catchy but effective. UpCounsel estimates it has saved its clients more than $12 million in fees that would have been paid to other legal firms.
Some of the legal areas UpCounsel covers are agreements, patents, trademarks, labor and employment, securities and finance.
The traction is present, with a $3.7 million revenue run rate in its first year and achieving profitability. More than a million users have already used UpCounsel’s legal services, in a fast-growing market, the legal tech market is expected to surpass $25 billion in 2025.
Legal-as-a-service is a new business model that UpCounsel focuses on, based on a mix of flexible pricing models to achieve profitability; generate recurring revenue; and placing clients at the center of everything, as every company should always do.
You can invest in UpCounsel on Wefunder with a minimum amount of $250.
On the date of publication, Stavros Georgiadis, CFA did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
Stavros Georgiadis is a CFA charter holder, an Equity Research Analyst, and an Economist. He focuses on U.S. stocks and has his own stock market blog at thestockmarketontheinternet.com/. He has written in the past various articles for other publications and can be reached on Twitter and on LinkedIn.
