The Estonian company Babash is bringing further variety to events organisation in Latvia

Tehnopol is part of the joint Northbound Scaleups (NBSCALE) project, which helps companies expand into new markets. The Estonian event organiser Babash went to Latvia as part of NBSCALE and met possible partners it can expand its business with.

Founder of the company Andrei Stepin said that the meetings went well. “We met a lot of event organisers and nightclub owners, and we have already started working with them and are organising our first events in Latvia”, he said. They also met sales representatives in Latvia who deal with the Latvian market every day and can explain the Babash platform. “It has always been very important for us to have personalised solutions, and so this trip was really useful for us in breaking into the Latvian market”, said Stepin.

Latvia was always the first market that Babash would expand into, as it is similar to the Estonian market in size, geographical location and legal background. Stepin said that the company is working with one of the most famous DJs in Latvia, who has introduced them to all the right people and made their job that much easier. An important advantage of Latvia is that they can travel there quickly if needed, say if something urgent crops up or if they need to meet someone.

Stepin said that there are fewer competitors in the Latvian market than there are in Estonia. “There are about 15 such platforms for organising events in Estonia, but in Latvia there are fewer than ten. That makes our work easier, though it still takes time to build trust and a reputation”.

Babash differs from its competitors because of the solution it uses, as it has always tried to have close personal communication with the event hosts it works with so that clients can make contact with confidence 24/7 if they have a question. The same solution will be used in Latvia.

The Babash platform is designed so that it can be used anywhere, so it has not needed to be adapted very much for the Latvian market. The biggest change was adding the Latvian language option to make the platform user-friendly for the hosts of events and for the end clients who will buy tickets or book tables through it.

The year 2023 has been a very successful one for Babash as it has set a new record of some sort almost every month, whether that record is for turnover, visitors or event hosts. “We plan to continue in the same vein, and not only in Estonia but now also in Latvia”, said Stepin.

Northbound Scaleups (NBSCALE) is a joint project run by Tehnopol, the Turku Science Park in Finland and Movexum in Sweden to help companies expand into new markets. Northbound Scaleups project is funded by the EU Central Baltic Program.