Lower salaries in Belarus in comparison with the US has led to the opening in Minsk of dev-center of the online service to call for a taxi Juno – a new startup of the Viber founders – Israelis Igor Magazinika and Talmon Marco, The New Yorker writes in a large review article.
“In Israel it is much more difficult to create such a large technical team in such a short period of time due to the highest competition for staff,” said in an interview technical director of Juno Igor Magazinik.
He also acknowledged that the startup that promised to be a competitor of the successful Uber, could hire five engineers in Belarus for the price of one in America.
CEO of Juno Talmon Marco in an interview dev.by explained the reason for opening an office in Minsk Juno: “There is one thing I clearly understand while working in Belarus: development center here is a good idea. We are not obliged to build a new company here and have not made promises in the spirit of Schwarzenegger: I'll be back. But here we have found top-class developers — both professionally and humanly.”
For more than a year the staff of the Minsk Juno Lab development office has reached 80 people.
The startup, positioning itself as a «socially responsible and ethically correct» service, entices the best Uber drivers and other similar services, promising a lower commission on road trips and providing them with half of the company.
In May 2016, Juno started its operation by invitation, and in August Juno became available to everyone in New York in beta. Today in the database of the service there are more than 16 thousand drivers.
Right now the start-up holds negotiations on attracting investments in the amount of $ 50 million, which will allow Juno to go far beyond New York. Among the investors of the previous $ 30 million round, according to reports as quoted by informed sources Reuters, was Rakuten Japan Corporation, which bought the first draft of Marco and Magazinik Viber for $ 900 million.
Source: dev.by