What we do
Institutional investors
Equity products
AI Co-Investment Facility
Cleantech Co-Investment Facility
Impact investing at the EIF
Climate & Infrastructure Funds
Technology Transfer
European Angels Fund (EAF) - Co-investments with Business Angels
Venture capital
The Social Impact Accelerator (SIA)
Lower mid-market
Mezzanine Facility for Growth
VentureEU
EFSI Equity instrument
Single EU Equity Financial Instrument
COSME - Equity Facility for Growth
InnovFin Equity
Private equity secondary market transactions
EIF-NPI Equity Platform
ESCALAR Programme
Debt products
New ESIF ERDF Guarantee Fund initiative in Greece
EFSI Private Credit Programme
AGRI Guarantee Facility
AGRI Italy Platform Uncapped Guarantee Instrument
Credit enhancement
Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee Facility (CCS GF)
ENSI - Securitisation Initiative
Erasmus+ Master Loan Guarantee Facility
Skills & Education Guarantee Pilot
EREM debt products
Single EU Debt Financial Instrument
Documentary Finance Facility – Bulgaria
The SME Initiative
The SME Initiative Bulgaria
The SME Initiative Finland
The SME Initiative Italy
The SME Initiative Malta
The SME Initiative Romania
The SME Initiative Spain
Inclusive finance
EaSI Financial Instruments
EaSI Capacity Building Investments Window
EaSI Guarantee Instrument
EaSI Funded Instrument
European Progress Microfinance Facility
Entrepreneurs supported through Progress Microfinance
European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI)
How does EIF contribute to EFSI
How to apply for EFSI financing
Regional Development - Country and sector-specific initiatives
Normandie Garantie Agri
FAIRE - La Réunion
Auvergne Rhône-Alpes FEADER
Recovery Equity Fund of Funds of Bulgaria
Fons d’Inversió en Tecnologia Avançada (FITA) Catalonia
Dutch Future Fund (DFF)
Dutch Alternative Credit Instrument (DACI)
PORTUGAL BLUE: a new initiative for blue economy investments
JEREMIE Greece Reflows – Business Angels’ Co-Investment Equity Instrument
German Corona Matching Facility (CMF)
Portugal Growth programme
Central and Eastern European Technology Transfer (CEETT)
Croatian Growth Investment Programme (CROGIP) II
Croatian Growth Investment Programme (CROGIP)
Croatian Venture Capital Initiative 2 (CVCi 2)
AGRI Italy Platform Uncapped Guarantee Instrument
DISPOSITIF INSTRUMENTS FINANCIERS BOURGOGNE FRANCHE-COMTÉ
ALTER’NA – ESIF EARFD Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Baltic Innovation Fund 1 (BIF 1)
Baltic Innovation Fund 2 (BIF 2)
Central Europe Fund of Funds (CEFoF)
Croatian Venture Capital Initiative (CVCi FoF)
Competitiveness Fund-of-Funds for SMEs in Romania
The Cyprus Entrepreneurship Fund (CYPEF)
Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area Initiative East Guarantee Facility (DCFTA)
EU4Business Capped Guarantee
Dutch Growth Co-Investment Programme
Dutch Venture Initiative (DVI-II)
ESIF Fund-of-Funds Greece
EAFRD FoF Portugal
EAFRD FoF Romania
The ERP-EIF Facility
ERP-EIF Co-Investment Growth Facility
The LfA-EIF Facilities
The German Future Fund (GFF) - EIF Growth Facility
INAF – French National Agricultural Initiative
ESIF Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Malta
Regional Fund-of-Funds Romania
ESIF Fund-of-Funds Czech Republic
The Silesia EIF Fund of Funds
La Financière Région Réunion
The EIB Group Risk Enhancement Mandate (EREM)
EstFund
Call for Expression of Interest for FOSTER II
Greater Anatolia Guarantee Facility (GAGF)
G43 - Anatolian Venture Capital Fund Project
InvestBG Equity Instrument
JEREMIE
Romania Recovery Equity Fund of Funds
JEREMIE Romania Reflows – Equity Instrument
Luxembourg Future Fund 1 (LFF)
Luxembourg Future Fund 2
Mezzanine 'Fund of Fund' for Germany (MDD)
NEOTEC resources
Polish Growth Fund of Funds (PGFF)
Portugal Venture Capital Initiative (PVCi)
Scottish-European Growth Co-Investment Programme
Slovene Equity Growth Investment Programme (SEGIP)
Swedish Venture Initiative (SVI)
Turkish Growth and Innovation Fund (TGIF)
Western Balkans Enterprise Development & Innovation Facility (WB EDIF)
EAFRD FoF Greece
Irish Innovation Seed Fund (IISF)
RRF Czech Republic Fund of Funds

Questo: mobile city exploration

image

“Typically, in exploring a city, everyone is following each other to the same crowded, expensive places. In the end, we’re not explorers but followers,” says Alex Govoreanu, co-founder and CEO of Questo. “So we started to think about why people travel, and how they travel. Future generations like Millennials and Generation-Z – what do they have in common? Games. They have gamification mechanics in all the products they use. So we tried to bring the two together.”

Questo, founded in 2017, is a travel platform in the form of a mobile app, for city exploration games, enabling tourists and locals to explore cities on their own by solving challenges in their immediate surroundings in order to discover new places and local stories.

“In Questo, you play the role of a character, you have a mission to execute. There’s a starting point, you receive challenge, a route, you solve it, and you get the next one. By the end, you feel like you’re the character. You are Sherlock Holmes in London,” Alex explains.

What’s particularly interesting is that the quests are not created by Questo. The platform is open, so people can onboard and create their own quests, and share revenue. “We work with independent creators, authors, writers, tour operastors.” The benefits for the user? Flexibility - unlike following a tour guide at a given time, and affordability. “Our quests are available at the touch of a button, any time of day or night, any season. For the Haunted Rome quest, 80% of users start playing after 10pm.”

And while places are connected through fiction, there are facts intertwined. The plot is fictional but the place is real and so are the facts around it. “All our facts have to be interesting and cool. We don’t go for quantity, but short and sharp facts. The kind of facts that you will share with your friends: riddles, puzzles, all connected to the specific space.”

In 2020, Questo received an equity investment from venture capital firm Earlygame Ventures, backed by the EIF, that helped the company with product development. “Every quest is a living animal,” explains Alex. “At the beginning it’s like a baby. We get feedback on a weekly basis, improve it, refine it and after 100 users, it’s a different quest. Same after 1000.” The business is constantly evolving. “There has never been a better time for what we do, with travel picking up, smartphones in everyone’s pockets, internet accessibility…, Now it’s a matter of execution.” And execute they have, surpassing 100,000 completed quests by December 2020, and aspirations to grow from 100 to 200 cities soon.

Company: Questo (Bucharest, Romania)

Type of business: ICT, tourism & entertainment

Financial intermediary: Earlygame Ventures

EIF financing: ESIF Competitiveness Romania

For further information about EIF intermediaries in Romania, please refer to:
http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/ro

Note: Following the recent withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, we are updating the relevant EIF.org pages.

 
 

Copyright ©

 European Investment Fund   – The European Investment Fund is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.