Mykoob gets U.S. foothold

RIGA - Agreement has been reached on the introduction of the Latvian school social network product Mykoob to 900 private schools in the United States, said Mykoob board member Girts Laudaks, reports Nozare.lv. A new Mykoob product has been created specifically for the United States’ market, where student’s parents are able to choose and pre-order meals for their children from school cafeteria menus, adds Mykoob in a press release.

Parents are given an extra option to make sure that their children eat healthy food, along with ensuring that they don’t spend their pocket money on snacks - in effect, taking the spending decision away from the child.
The new product will be introduced at 900 U.S. schools at the end of August.
The decision on introduction of the Mykoob system in U.S. schools was made surprisingly quickly after Mykoob placed second during the Startup Week 2011 competition in Vienna and won the chance to visit Silicon Valley in the United States.

“This is a very good beginning for Mykoob expansion outside of Latvia, and it has been achieved in an incredibly short period of time, since February, when our team visited the United States. We were astonished at how fast decisions were made in the United States, even though several hundred schools were involved,” said Laudaks.
Mykoob was the first high-tech project from Latvia to place this high at the Startup Week 2011 competition. For the company, this meant the opportunity to visit the United States and establish new contacts there.
This fall will be the third year that Mykoob cooperates with a total of 514 schools in Latvia, with a total of 296,300 users, says the company.

The company’s name stands for the combination of two words, ‘my’ and ‘book’, whereas the inverted ‘book’ stands for feedback among students, parents and schools. The project was created by Laudaks and Martins Kalnins. Kalnins owns a 43.5 percent stake in Mykoob, whereas Laudaks has a 26.5 percent interest.
The company posted 14,428 lats (20,570 euros) in turnover and 4,192 lats in losses last year.