Domestic participant of TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 2014, Luka: how are you?

IO, which participated in the Disrupt Europe event organized by the renowned TechCrunch portal in London a year ago, has changed its name to continue developing its recommendation service for catering establishments, implemented through communicating with a virtual assistant directly through a proprietary mobile application.

At that time, the domestic project did not win the Startup Battlefield competition , but this did not upset the team with which great changes took place this year - apparently, all are positive. So, the company received a new name - Luka, moved the entire team from Moscow to a new office in San Francisco, and at the very beginning of the year, along with other start-ups, took part in the event Winter 2015 lass from Y Combinator, talking about its service.

The CEO and co-founder of the company, Evgenia Kuyda (the presenters usually suffer a lot with the pronunciation of her last name) told TechCrunch about the experience gained in the framework of the Disrupt Europe 2014 conference, calling it “extremely positive.” As Eugene recalls, she put a lot of effort into preparing for her performance at the London event, which later helped her during the presentation of the project at one of the stages (Demo Day) during the Y Combinator Winter Class.
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By the way, thanks to the participation of the partnership with Y Combinator, the company managed to receive investments totaling 120 thousand dollars. Participation in Disrupt Europe 2014 attracted the attention of several European investors to the project, but they decided to postpone the funding issue after Luka went under the wing of the Y Combinator.

Back in February of this year, the company Evgenia Kuyda officially launched an application for iOS, which can give useful recommendations regarding visiting certain restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area (Bay Area). The application covers more than 2000 gastronomic institutions. With regard to the current number of active audiences, Eugene did not give specific numbers, mentioning only the "tens of thousands of users."

According to the co-founder of Luka, the company's application can now interact with the person better than the well-known Siri service from Apple. It is planned that in the near future, the service will also become "an ideal place to talk with friends and find places to eat and have a great time in San Francisco."

This year, the Startup Battlefield competition will traditionally take place as part of Disrupt London 2015, which will again be held in the UK capital from December 7-8.