Last week, at the Prague event, Jennifer Schenker from Informilo hosted a panel of investors discussing the “ladder of finance”: Jean-Michel Deligny from Go4Venture, Jiri Benes (3TS Capital Partners), Suresh Patel (Verdexus) and Dr Alexander von Frankenberg from High-Tech Grunderfonds in Germany.
Suresh, based in Vienna, says he gets six business plans a day, every day. His firm has two EIS guys (Entrepreneurs-in-residence), one of whom when reviewing business plans invariably says “I could build that in five days””. He keeps a close eye on the hot-spots, like Tel Aviv, so he can compare innovative technology from different centres and help decide which to bet on...
His advice to entrepreneurs is to be very specific as to which VCs you send your business plan to, not to “shop around” …as they tend to talk. He also said not to “leave behind a PowerPoint that is vague – give the numbers”. Suresh recognises that seed investment is usually coming from business angels and HNWI’s (not VC’s) – to first-time entrepreneurs he says to get on the radar, do something disruptive and get exposure through Seedcamp, Innovate! or Demo.
His final comment was “Don’t get emotional about valuations. Deal structuring is important. Don’t get desperate, don’t get into a heated discussion, try to find a middle ground – fast”. Suresh used to head up Compaq’s venture arm – and given that he had €950m to invest, one has to admit he probably knows what he’s taking about.
Great advice from Jean-Michel too: get your pitch right. He says the ultimate test of your proposition is “Does your mother understand it?”.
Given the amount of solutions we saw in Prague based around social networking, they must be counting on the user base increasing. Francois from sobees told us that 11% of adults in the US regularly logon to social networking sites (status updates etc) and actually the gender/age range is not quite as expected. So perhaps more parents are using social networking sites now and its not just for the younger generation. My friend has teenage children and said it is a great way to see what they are up to!
On Tuesday, Jean-Michel Deligny from Go4Venture hosted a roundtable of 25 top investors from Europe with Dan’l Lewin, Cliff Reeves and others from the Microsoft team. Some very interesting insights, such as what is happening in CEE: Russia is already home to some great start-ups, e.g. Acronis with $100m+ in revenues (Sasha Galitsky, Almaz Capital).
We also had several Russian companies at the event on 13 May: Generatum Software (WAPALTA is a browser/messenger for mobile devices) were one of the 20 companies to pitch to investors and not presenting but in attendance were the guys from YouDo which enables subscribers to set up assignments (dares, challenges, etc) for other members and the proof of which can be based on text, audio, photo or video-based content.
ShoutEm from Croatia claim to have developed “Ning for Mobile” and we also saw pitches from Response from Hungary and Mercury Solutions – a Slovakian entrepreneur with a company registered in Czech. OnTheRoad is also from Czech and already has good partnerships with Vodafone and Volkswagen.
The view from several VCs is that the level of education and cost base make parts of the CEE actually more attractive than many of the smaller Southern European countries like Italy (Simon Clark, Fidelity).
Saying that, we heard from several good Western European companies on Wednesday seeking funding: like Expert System from Italy. Lots of investors buzzing around that one. Semantic web solutions are really starting to catch on. We also liked iPharro a lot (MediaSeeker can automatically identify video content regardless of its source) and Sobees from Switzerland who launched at DEMO 09, winner of Red Herring 100 Europe (2009), and are a finalist of Innovate!Europe 09 so travelling to the Valley in June.
KeyLemon, with their cool face recognition software, won the award for best student entrepreneur team.
France was well represented: Grapho-lock, Calinda and Hop-Cube flew the flag for France on stage and I believe had quite a bit of interest from VCs. SimplySim is a pioneer of real-time 3D simulation, typically for robotics. They are a member of the IDEES and BizSpark programs and have also received grant funding through EUGA.
From Germany we had ScatterWeb GmbH (in addition to iPharro) whose seed investor, Hightech-Grunderfonds were also attending and accepted an award for best presenting on their behalf.
Lucey Technology (Ireland) claim to have “Facebook for Business” allowing SME clients to access their data and pay online. Two of our Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator student start-ups presented gaming solutions: Shortfuse Games (Sweden) and Cannibal Game Studios (NL).
From the Iberian peninsula, B-Kin (Spain) and AdClip (Portugal) were also very popular with investors.
Greetings from Prague and the venue for our annual meeting of investors and start-ups seeking funding.
This morning Dan’l Lewin, Corporate Vice President, Strategic and Emerging Business, gave us an update on BizSpark adoption worldwide and in Europe:
“More than 12,000 companies worldwide are benefiting from the BizSpark program – with more than 1,300 Network Partners in 82 countries offering the program to their own networks and delivering more value to young software companies.
In Europe, we have seen in excess of 3,400 companies join the BizSpark program through more than 500 Network Partners so there is clearly a huge amount of innovation coming out of Europe that needs funding. We are delighted to host so many members of the European investor community in Prague aiming to fund the next generation of entrepreneurs”.
We have over 130 people at the conference and so far have seen 10 companies present to 50+ investors, many of whom are early stage and have availed of BizSpark but now need finding to grow to the next phase. Some very exciting solutions. Read more about the companies here.
Dan’l Lewin also announced new partnerships with HSBC globally and with BT Business in the UK – who become BizSpark Network Partners. HSBC Business Banking is a very exciting partner – BizSpark will be promoted widely to 2.7 million business banking customers in 31 countries enabling an estimated 40,000 companies worldwide. The partnership actively commences in UK, France, Turkey and Malta followed by other markets such as Poland and United Arab Emirates in the coming months. Read more.
It may be a bank holiday weekend in the UK, the sun is shining and my Labrador sits anxiously by the front door anticipating his next walk, but I am busy preparing for our European Investor Summit in Prague in around ten days time.
 Our event this year coincides with the first European SME Week and the CZ Presidency of the European Commission. While things in CZ have not been entirely smooth in recent weeks, they are due to return to stability when the new Government is elected on 8 May. We expect to have good support from them during the event and celebrate good representation from entrepreneurs and tech start-ups emerging from the CEE region.
We expect over 100 delegates including 60+ investors who will hear from 15 of the top BizSpark start-up companies from 10 countries; and five student entrepreneurs from the Imagine Cup competition and Junior Achievement – all seeking funding. We will also be announcing exciting new partnerships and sharing recent research produced by IDC on ‘entrepreneurship indicators’ across Europe (and MEA).
It promises to be a good gathering and hopefully we can facilitate some good connections on the day.
Joining me at the EBAN conference in Madrid were the chaps from the EU Grants Advisor (EUGA) initiative. It seemed a good idea to let Business Angel investors know about the opportunity for their portfolio companies to benefit from public funding.
Developed by Microsoft, in partnership with HP, Intel and the European Software Association. EUGA was started in 2004 and is continuously expanding – available in most EU 27 countries and now in Croatia and Turkey.
The EU Grants Advisor helps SMEs and entrepreneurs navigate the bevy of grants and financial support on offer from the EU and national public pots. Funding is available for small businesses to increase investments in research and innovation, and boost their ICT skills.
So far the initiative has secured funding of close to $350M, with 81% grant application success rate. More than 150,000 European SMEs have benefitted from EUGA and around 130,000 people have been trained in ICT skills across Europe.
For more information about the EUGA initiative visit the EUGA portal and there’s lots more good advice on our startupzone resources page.
Greetings from Madrid and the 9th annual EBAN Congress where the mood is upbeat and bullish.
EBAN represents 13 Federations of 250 angel groups in Europe, who lobby national authorities and coordinate best practice. In their membership now are 100+ members (up from 15 in 1999 when they formed) from across EU 27 countries and Turkey. In fact the next congress in 2010 will be in Istanbul. Their reach and activity comprises 20,000 angels and 40,000 entrepreneurs.
They report a steady growth of angel groups and recently they opened their membership to early stage VC funds (good synergy for sector specific knowledge, co-investment, and access to dealflow).
Europe has closed the gap with the US in the last ten years: 245 networks in the US (with 250,000 angels with avg investment per round €210,500), compared to 297 networks in Europe (with 75,000 angels and avg investment per round €165,000).
While data in European angel investment is not readily available, EBAN research suggests total investment is around €2-5bn in Europe… compared to €20bn in the US.
I am here with my colleagues representing EU Grants Advisor as we try to inform more angels of the opportunity to apply for (and receive) EU grants for their portfolio companies.
Now its time to hear about sector-specific investments, so I shall report back later on that. Are entrepreneurs born or made? Find out in the just-released report, “Creating the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs”, from the World Economic Forum with contributions from Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, AMD and Goldman Sachs, as well as Stanford, Cambridge and others. Phew. A long time between blogs, apologies. What's been happening? On 11 June in Brussels we held our European Investor Summit, attended by 170+ VC and Angel investors and top tech start-ups from over 20 countries. Some pics here. Keynotes from Dan'l Lewin (sharing thoughts on how we in Europe can learn from the attitude and investment behaviour in Silicon Valley) and Jan Muehlfeit (who talked passionately about how Microsoft is investing in more and more programs to encourage Entrepreneurship) were well received........as was the launch of our IP Ventures company Zignals. Zignals, a young start-up, announced launch of an early stage online service set to democratize online trading.The innovative online service will give retail investors access to online trading tools using the Microsoft Solver Foundation technology. Zignals will use Microsoft technology to develop investment tools of the calibre normally only associated with major financial institutions. Zignals was created through the collaboration of the Microsoft IP Ventures team, Enterprise Ireland, successful entrepreneurs, Pat Brazel and Scott Tattersall, Manresa Partners, and angel investors. Twenty start-ups from UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, and Russia pitched to a packed room of investors and these - along with the 45+ exhibiting companies - over the two days managed to make valuable connections and partnerships. We'll be keeping an eye on our Accelerator companies to see which start-ups innovating on our platform secure funding...  Helping the next generation of budding entrepreneurs is really important. So this year we held a special session designed to put the student teams that were part of our Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator initiative in front of a Dragon’s Den panel of investors.
This was a very lively Meet the Money session moderated by the lovely June Sarpong, where five student teams from France, Sweden, Greece and Croatia pitched their ideas. And there are some really good ones! You can see interviews with the panel members here. In addition to our Investor Summit on 11 June, we also held the 4th Annual SME Day on 12 June. Have a look at the SME Day video here. More info on the website. Microsoft reinforced its commitment to fostering innovation and supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs with our newly announced partnership European Business Angels Network (EBAN) and TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). EBAN represents angel and early stage investment market in Europe and together with Microsoft will collaborate in the coming years to build capacity for innovative start-up companies. Under a global agreement, Microsoft and TiE will work closely in Europe: partnering to foster entrepreneurship and innovation globally by educating, mentoring and networking in UK and Nordics. Exciting times ahead.... I'm already looking forward to the next one. We hope to replicate this in the Middle East and Asia in the coming year too. What else is going on? You can read about my trip to South Africa and a few other events this side of the pond in May and I promise to report back from Europe and around the World more regularly during the Summer! For the moment I am back in Brussels - via Dublin and Barcelona - to speak at an event at the European Parliament with Junior Achievement - Young Enterprise tomorrow.  Entrepreneurship is alive and well in Europe. I've spent the last few days in Brussels attending the Benelux Venture Forum.
There is certainly no shortage of great technology start-ups and venture capital in the region from what I witnessed. Investors were various and numerous - I was on a panel with Cees-Jan Koomen from Point-One and Herman De Latte who set up Big Bang Ventures and previously Solid Ventures both of whom have invested seed capital in several of the high-growth companies. Patrick Polak from Newion moderated a lively session. I also spent time with Jenny Tooth who represents GLE in London, who in turn are involved in EASY (supported by PRO INNO) and part of EBAN. Jean-Bernard Schmidt from Sofinnova and Rene Savelsburg opened the morning session discussing where they reckon the hottest investment opportunities are. William Stevens from the organisers Europe Unlimited presented the latest Ernst & Young statistics - European investment is flat at just over €1bn last quarter, the #1 investment sector is Biotech and Software is #2 (then IT services/Internet at #3 and Mediatech #5). In terms of geo's, the UK represented 25% of the €1.2bn invested following by FR and GER. Then Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden and Spain. Venture One stats show there were 353 deals in Q2/2002 as compared to 217 deals in Q4/07. Paul Webber from Europe Unlimited released the Benelux Venture top 50 companies list. Companies who pitched innovative propositions in the ICT track included David Schrieberg from Cinelan who have a platform for short films targeting online publishers; and online e-lending company Boober. Scense from Rotterdam, backed by Solid Ventures, and Mirror42 also in the Netherlands, have solutions to make enterprise investment in IT more effective. Koen from Scense - an impossibly well-educated and successful serial entrepreneur and all-round nice guy - won the award for a great presentation.  Marina Tognetti showed a new online language platform and was also selected for an award.
Myngle will go forward for the European finals in December. In the mobile / social networking space we saw Teydo with Location Based Services which is useful for tracking (in the US apparently the most popular application of this technology is 'spouse tracking'), for 'buddy finding' and for other 'peace of mind' applications e.g. child safety. In the future it will have a lot more uptake by operators as the mobile platform evolves beyond navigation. iNewit also presented as did the very entertaining ex-VP of Real Networks, Marco Menato, CEO of 24access solutions. Cellixx launched their B2B travel application last year and already have Jumeirah and Hertz as customers. Wheras cameramanager allows you to keep an eye on things while traveling. On the subject of asset tracking, Ambient Systems are doing some interesting stuff in the field of active RFID (or Real Time Location Systems as it is also known). Apparently investment in this technology was accelerated after the the Pentagon realised they had a use for active tracking of stuff after the US Army lost the equipment en route to Kuwait during the second Gulf War. Fascinating day............ | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /Blogs/globalstartups/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 255 | | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /Blogs/globalstartups/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 255 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /Blogs/globalstartups/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 256 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /Blogs/globalstartups/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 256 |
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Featured Startup
The BizSpark startup of the day is Avetrium, based in Canada. You will find below an interview with Tim Smith, COO of Avetrium. All the best to them and congrats for being the startup of the day!
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