Category: Startup Millionaires

13-year-old Alina Morse is not your typical acne-face-filled teenager. She is a self-made millionaire who created a healthy lollipops brand that has seen her rise to become one of Amazon’s top sellers this year.

When I was 13 years old, like most adolescents, I could barely tell my armpit from my elbow and struggled to function as a human being. Alina truly breaks the mold.

Life Doesn’t Suck for Teenage Self-Made Millionaire

Alina was already thinking like an entrepreneur when she was just 7 years old. At the time, her father took her to the bank where the teller offered her a lollipop. She pondered on the sweet sticky stick for a while and had a brainwave and asked dad:

“Why can’t we make a healthy lollipop that’s good for me so I can have candy and it won’t be bad for me?”

Definitely not the normal thinking of a child!

That visit to the bank changed her life forever. She went on to create one of the most popular lollipop brands in America called Zollipops. This brand of lollipops are sugar-free and are actually good for your teeth as opposed to obliterating them like standard lollipops.

Taking Top Spot on Amazon

In the week leading up to Halloween, Zollipops became the number-1 seller on Amazon for both standard lollipops and sugar-free lollipops. Sales of Zollipop outsold major brands such as Blow Pop, Tootsie, and Dum Dums over the lead-up to the ghoulish festive period.

When talking about the success of Zollipops over the past few weeks, the teenage entrepreneur Alina said:

“It was very exciting because obviously, online shopping is so popular. Obviously, Amazon is the leading online retailer. It was really exciting to produce something we use in our everyday lives.”

The method for finding the right ingredients for Zollipops was straightforward as you would expect from a child. She went online to find out what would be good for people’s teeth that also tasted good. Simple is always the best way. Less is more. She even went as far as talking to a local dentist to get some valuable advice.

They found the right ingredients and took them to a factory where they ran some trials and concocted the recipe as it is today. You can buy Zollipops in a variety of flavors that include grape, strawberry, orange, natural peppermint, raspberry, cherry, and pineapple.

Alina’s Zollipops can be found not only Amazon but also in Walmart and Kroger. It is believed that before the year is finished, Alina Morse will clear $6 million in sales. This is a self-made millionaire that is sassy, smart and sweet, without the sugar.

The futuristic Norwegian AI startup, Memory, has just raised a further $5 million in its bid to give humans “digital superpowers” to solve the ongoing workplace problem of employee time tracking.

You didn’t really believe that AI tech was going to turn you into the second coming of Wolverine, did you? However, if you’re an employer who is wanting to keep a track on the time abuses of your employees, you could turn into ‘super-boss’. I just made that one up.

New Funding for AI Startup Time Tracking Tools

Memory is the name of the Norwegian AI startup that has now raised a full total of $6 million in funding. The fundraising was largely led by the venture investment platforms Investinor, Concentric, and SNÖ Ventures.

The company was initially founded by Norwegian entrepreneur Mathias Mikkelsen in 2013. The goal of the firm is to create AI-enabled tools that can track time abuses of employees in the workplace. Stalin would have loved this tool!

The company’s key product, Timely, is being called a “fully automatic time tracking tool.” When linked to AI, the tool can become an intricate part of how business owners keep tracks on their staff.

The product is currently being used by over 4,000 customers in 160 countries, seeking to get back any time lost time by recording everything the employee works on. The tool automatically creates time-sheets for the employee.

The new influx of funds will allow Memory to double their 30-strong team as it plans to build further tools that will organize employees’ time more effectively to improve the overall productivity of the company. The funds will also be used to refine the already-existing Timely AI model.

The story of the company’s owner is also very interesting. Mikkelsen turned down an opportunity to take his technology to Facebook, and also was forced to sell his apartment just to get his idea moving. The CEO and owner of Memory stated that:

“As the one finite resource we all share, it’s imperative to definitively solve all the problems that steal time away from us. If Memory can build tools which effectively hand people back a 25th hour each day, we’ll have gone a huge way towards achieving that.”

If you are one of those “there are not enough hours in the day” kind of people, Memory’s Timely tool will make your life complete again!

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Despite stock markets around the world taking a plummet, it was a good week for startups, with plenty of funding acquired. From data storage and machine learning to vegan powder meals (sounds delicious) check out the top 13 VC deals of the week.

13. Foundry College

This online college course founded by former Harvard dean Stephen Kosslyn bagged $6 million in VC funding this week, putting in in 13th place on the funding list. Designed to bridge the skills gap and teach students the knowledge they’ll need to compete in today’s technology economy, the first classes will start in January 2019.

12. Goodlord

UK property tech startup Googlord raised $9.2 million in Series B funding headed up by Finch Capital. The software platform supposedly makes renting easier for both landlords and tenants, using technology to tackle current inefficiencies in the system.

11. Kitchen United

It seems that VCs still have an appetite for culinary startups with Kitchen United, the “new hub of culinary imagination and excellence,” scooping up a cool $10 million in Series A funding. The virtual kitchen company using technology to uncover the best locations to set up physical kitchen centers, allowing between 10-20 entrepreneurial caterers, mobile food vendors, and restaurants to set up stores.

10. Shipwell

Online business freight shipping portal Shipwell was also in luck this week, raising $10 million in Series A funding in a VC deal led by VC firm Fifth Wall. Working with carriers of all sizes to provide them with faster shipping and improved efficiency, this logistics startup has raised more than $12.1 million to date.

9. Kahoot

While tech selloffs were happening right and left, things looked brighter for the edtech space. Kahoot focuses on educating through gamification and, backed by Microsoft Ventures, picked up an additional $15 million in funding this week. So far, the game based learning platform has raised a whopping $60 million.

8. Perceptive Automata

Autonomous vehicle startup Perceptive Automata raised $16 million in funding this week from carmakers Toyota, Hyundai, and Jazz venture Partners. In what will hopefully be more successful than Uber’s self-driving car, Perceptive is focusing on teaching cars to learn “human-like intuition.” Nothing creepy about that at all.

7. RedShelf

Another win for the education sector, RedShelf achieved a massive $25 million in Series C funding. As with all other areas, the future of education is set to be digital as this edtech startup is dedicated to distributing necessary course materials for higher ed online.

6. Huel

Huel may not top the list in terms of financing earned, but it certainly does in terms of originality, making powdered meal replacements for vegans and people pressed for time who want a healthy choice on the go. Picking up $26 million from Highland Europe, the UK company aims to provide environmentally sustainable and healthy meals. Well, powdered versions of them anyway.

5. Divvy

Divvy scored $30 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. In a bid to help young people pay less rent but earn more at the same time, Divvy allows people to purchase portions of homes and pay the company the rest in rent and meaning that you own a part of your rental too.

4. Demisto

Cybersecurity and machine learning startup Demisto came in fourth place in VC startup deals this week getting $43 million in a Series C round, headed up by Greylock Partners. ClearSky Security and Accel Partners also pitched in funds, bringing Demisto’s total funds raised to date to a stunning $69 million.

3. Egnyte

The Egnyte team was smiling from ear to ear this week after picking up $75 million in funding from Goldman Sachs. This startup enterprise cloud provider already boasts an enviable client list including Nasdaq, Buzzfeed, and Red Bull, and competing with tech unicorn Dropbox. To date, Egnyte has pulled in a massive $132.5.

2. SmileDirectClub

The company behind America’s pearly white smile produces DIY teeth straightening kits delivered to customers’ doors. Their latest round of funding this week including Spark Capital and Kleiner Perkins saw an extra $380 million of funding raising the company’s value to $3.2 billion. Seems like people will pay anything they can for the perfect smile–especially if it means shaving thousands of dollars of dentists’ costs.

1. Snowflake

Topping up the VC startup funding this week is data warehousing company Snowflake, with a giant $450 million in funding, headed up by VC heavyweights Sequoia Capital. Among its exclusive client list are Office Depot and Netflix. Snowflake has now raised over $900 million and is valued at $3.5 billion.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Entrepreneurial talents are not reserved only for adults as a teenage entrepreneur from the UK is receiving critical acclaim for becoming one of the top young businesspersons in the United Kingdom.

Rose Dyson is a 15-year old from Barnsley, Yorkshire, who is gaining traction in the news for creating a business with just a £25 investment back in 2015, which turned over £50,000 in 2017. It’s never too early to become a money maker, and with a vision, hard work and guile, Ms. Dyson has earned her place as one of the top young business people in the United Kingdom.

Lip Balm Smooths the Cracks for Teenage Entrepreneur

Ms. Dyson was so tired of paying “extortionate” rates for lip balms that she decided to launch her own Pura Cosmetics products that include lip balm products created with affordability and ethics in mind.

Rose has now been awarded for her ingenuity by being placed on a top-5 teenage entrepreneur in the UK list run by the fintech company, Transferwise. The company made the list to find the 20 most promising CEOs in the UK with ages ranging from 16-19. One of the main judges for the competition, Robin Klein, who is the co-founder of Transferwise and the current General Partner, waxed lyrical in regards to Dyson’s achievements and potential by saying that

“Rose lives her business and has developed an original range of products – originality in the beauty business is really important.”

Ms. Dyson made the list in the face of stiff opposition from the best teenage entrepreneur competition in the UK and received an opportunity to pitch to TrasferWise’s first ever employee, Taavet Hinrikus, with the chance to scoop up to £10,000 that can be used in a “no strings attached” investment. Ms. Dyson impressed Mr. Hinrikus and will now use the money to grow her business even further.

Ms. Dyson launched Pura Cosmetics after seeing a gap in the market due to the exceptionally high prices she was constantly paying for lip balm products.

“I thought the price was really extortionate. I started manufacturing from my kitchen.”

She sold 25 lip balms with her first attempt and plowed that money back into growing her cosmetic products even more, and she is now being lauded as one of the best teenage entrepreneur proteges in the UK.

Imafe from Markettradenews.