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.
