Bratislava, August 12, 2020 – The Czech startup Apify can track and fully automatically evaluate anything that appears on the internet.
For example, it compares price developments on e-commerce platforms and alerts users to fake discounts, gathers data for the search of abused children, or helps better monitor contradictory statements made by politicians. In recent years, web scraping technology, combined with process automation through robots (RPA), has been a trend that startups and corporations utilise for building new digital products and monitoring competitors. To meet the demand of large companies from foreign markets, Apify has been developing its network of “solution providers” since this year. These providers assist interested parties with integrations and seek out new clients. The largest partner now becomes the Czech-Slovak BOOTIQ, which has over 350 developers in 12 branches.
“RPA utilises robots to automate processes that would otherwise require humans to spend long hours or even days. It is one of the most sought-after technologies in the world today. Apify’s ability to combine web scraping with RPA is truly a key technology of the current era, and we are very pleased to collaborate with this promising Czech startup,” says Marcel Červený, CEO of the BOOTIQ group.
Apify aims to rocket growth thanks to its partnership model.
The partnership model was introduced by the startup Apify in January as a response to the increasing demand for integrations of its platform. For collaboration, a company must have the necessary know-how, technological background, and a trained team of specialists. Then, it can provide customers from both the startup and corporate worlds with comprehensive service. From a financial perspective, it earns a complete income for its services and a commission for introducing the platform. Partners thus play a crucial role in Apify’s growth, which expects them to bring in most new clients.
“We expect proactivity from our partners; they should participate in implementations, marketing, sales, and contract procurement. Put, we seek those who contribute to development and discover new opportunities. In return, we provide our platform, technological background, and projects we cannot handle ourselves. The result is a profitable relationship that we enjoy further developing. With BOOTIQ, we see they want to go the same way and explore opportunities both in the Czech Republic and abroad,” says Daniel Štarha, Head of Business Development & Partnerships at Apify.
In addition to purely commercial use of the technology, often associated with strict confidentiality, Czech startups utilise it for suitable public activities, not only in the Czech Republic. Apify’s technology helps the Hlídač státu (State Watchdog) initiative download new contracts and decisions or build a database of posts from top Czech politicians on social networks. It also supports the Hlídač shopů (Shop Watchdog) project, which monitors whether e-shops artificially inflate discounts. In the USA, it counts among its clients the nonprofit organisation Thorn, which extracts data from erotic online listings and searches for missing children – thanks to the technology of the Czech startup, this organisation has already located fifteen thousand missing individuals.
Companies in Numbers
Apify offers its services on a monthly subscription basis. The startup’s revenues grew by more than 110 per cent year-on-year. It has customers in over a hundred countries worldwide, with over half of them from the USA. Altogether, more than 50,000 users subscribe to Apify’s services.
Over 350 IT professionals are employed in twelve BOOTIQ branches in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Last year, the company exceeded a turnover of 400 million Czech crowns, which is 15 million euros. This technology group’s significant achievement was the recent acquisition of the oldest Slovak IT company, EEA.
“Our collaboration began during the coronavirus pandemic when we helped launch a solution in Slovakia to transmit real-time information about the spread of the disease. We also contributed to acquiring a client in the USA. Partnering with technological leaders is our way of accessing the most innovative solutions on the market and helping to develop them,” concludes Červený.
The goal of the Czech startup Apify is to open up the web to greater automation, enabling the creation of new internet services and tools. Companies can find experts in web scraping on their platform, while developers and data analysts have access to tools for automating their work. The technology company has been growing by more than 100 per cent annually over the past three years, with a team of 30 people and serving five hundred clients – from nonprofit projects like the Czech Hlídač státu and Hlídač Shopů, or the American Thorn, to global corporations such as Microsoft, Eaton, or E.ON.
