seedcamp

Seedcamp Singapore

noreply@blogger.com (P. Moehring) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:09:00 +0000

Yes, that's right - we are going abroad again, this time to the east! Singapore is an exciting location, having embarked on the entrepreneurship train later, but with a vengeance. All indicators show that the activity and dedication of local entrepreneurs is ticking up, including the number of businesses started, expectation of founders, financing, and people employed.

What a better place would there be to expand our Seedcamp model - even more when having amazing local partners on board.

We are proud to announce our venture east with opening the application system for Seedcamp Singapore on the 5th of October this year. Find the place to let us know about your great business here - we are looking for great internet technology companies from all over Singapore and South East Asia.

We are already in talks with some great sponsors and mentors for this event, so please keep an eye out for further announcements about Seedcamp Singapore!

We are growing - and looking for you!

noreply@blogger.com (P. Moehring) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:25:00 +0000

At Seedcamp, we are still a very tiny team - we are only 2.5 full time employees, thankfully supported by eager interns and formidable fellows every now and then. Over the past couple of years, we have added more and more Seedcamp events to the calendar, now even reaching out beyond Europe. This increase of reach makes it challenging to keep up with a small team, so we are looking for two people to join us.

First is the general management position (a term aptly coined by Union Square Ventures) - we need you to help us organising all the nitty gritty around Seedcamp events, finding partners and sponsors, and making the events run as smoothly as they ever have. Obviously, this position also covers a wide array of tasks in the back office like overseeing the application process, PR initiatives, outreach to the community and other exciting Seedcamp projects that we want to start in the coming months. If you are experienced in public relations, event organisation and related areas and enthusiastic about the startup and tech scene in Europe, apply for this position - more info here.

The second open position is a longer term internship, as our current intern Indre is leaving for Lithuania at the end of August. We are looking for a high-powered student or graduate with an impressive academic background to help out around the office and events for about 3 to 6 months. If you are passionate about startups and are thinking about being a founder yourself: This is the best opportunity to meet people, find out about the european tech scene, and kick around ideas with smart people. Find more details here.

Both positions are based in London - feel free to reach out and apply by emailing Philipp. Please include information about your background, experience, your work with startups and tech companies, and everything else you feel is relevant for the job. The job descriptions for the general management and internship positions should tell you more about our requirements.

Howzit?! Seedcamp Johannesburg recap

noreply@blogger.com (P. Moehring) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:23:00 +0000

Last week we held our first out-of-Europe Seedcamp event in South Africa, and it was a full on success. We were already delighted by the high quality during the application process - the event itself turned out to be even more impressive.

After the usual short pitches by teams in the morning, the teams broke up into the mentoring sessions to take in all of the knowledge the mentors were ready to share. We shared some information on Seedcamp and our foray into new geographies after lunch, followed by another batch of mentoring sessions.

The overall energy and the startups' thirst for knowledge was really inspiring - it was clear that the mentors' input was highly valued by all the participants. All sessions needed to be almost violently broken up to keep up with the schedule, which is always the best indication for great discussions.

The popular vote showed Cognician and iSigned to be the darlings of the audience - two teams tackling complex problems with some elegant ideas and solutions.

We want to say a big thank you to all of the great mentors who took all of their day to help Seedcamp and the participating teams to grow and go forward. Gareth Knight, the organiser of the Tech4Africa conference helped us to find some really outstanding mentors from different backgrounds - we had visitors from all disciplines of venture capital, angel investors, successful founders and company builders, bloggers, advisors, and strong support from large local and international technology companies.

The day would not have been possible without the support of our sponsors: Google helped with the welcome drinks the night before, the Gordon Institute of Business Science was a brilliant venue with nice breakout spaces, Microsoft sponsored lunch, and Vunanitech pitched in as well.

If you have any plans of visiting South Africa soon - we can not recommend it more. The local entrepreneurship scene is growing, there is very strong mutual support, and South Africans are quite simply amazing hosts. Tech4africa, which was held on the day after Seedcamp, was a great testament to that.

Some of the teams also blogged about their experiences:

Patrick from Cognician on how to get most out of the day
Jason from 10layer wrote an open letter to say thanks (our pleasure!)

Seedcamp Johannesburg

noreply@blogger.com (P. Moehring) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:14:00 +0000

As we announced back in July, we are very excited to move beyond the European borders to find even more great startups and founders. Our first stop is Johannesburg, South Africa, and we will be holding the mini Seedcamp Johannesburg already next week.

Thanks to our local partners we have gotten a great response to our call for applications. We selected 11 teams to participate and we are looking forward to hear presentations from the following teams:

10Layer: A feature-complete, competent and customisable open source content management system for publishers and media houses.
Cobi interactive: An incubator for developing mobile software ideas.
Cognician: The original thinking guide. A software application that automates complex intellectual tasks by asking you a range of intelligent, thought-provoking questions.
Cred: A micropayments and subscriptions service that allows you to monetise text, audio or video content.
Feeperfect: Feeperfect are building, and permitting anyone to build, quality SMS services people are willing to pay for.
FloCash: The first cross border Pan African payment network offering basic financial services to the un-banked masses.
GetaGreatBoss: We enable great managers to showcase their management strength in order to attract talent and boost their own careers.
Obami: A web-based communication and collaboration platform that’s been developed for use within, and between schools.
iSigned.com: Offers secure, permanent online storage, management and sharing for legal & other important documents.
Thisarmy: Builds clean, simple & fun web apps.
Twangoo: South Africa’s premier group buying club uses the power of the web to create a platform for its members to access exclusive deals at restaurants, spas, lessons, sports facilities, events etc.

The event will take place at the impressive Gordon Institute for Business Science in Johannesburg and we have already lined up some great mentors to help the startups get to the next level. Amongst others, expect the country's top venture capital firms, successful entrepreneurs, and representatives from large and small technology companies.

Mini Seedcamp London - bigger, better, awesome!

noreply@blogger.com (P. Moehring) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 09:17:00 +0000

Mini Seedcamp London is over and it was by far the most intense Mini Seedcamp of the year. We had more teams, mentors, applications, sessions (and coffee) than ever before and spent a great day with the best startups from all over Europe.

The participating teams were from as far as Turin, Moscow, and Warsaw, others came from Germany, Scotland and - shocking - London proper. After a short kick-off with Reshma's introduction to Seedcamp and an update on the programme, the teams set off for the first mentoring sessions with their mentors. Due to the unusually high number of participating mentors, the teams had their pockets bulging with business cards already by lunchtime.

After a first break, we had the pleasure of listening to Saul interviewing an excellent panel of former venture capitalists that decided to switch sides to become entrepreneurs (again). Avid Larizadeh, Greg Marsh, and Max Niederhofer were not shy to talk about their insights into the decisions of taking VC or Angel money, deciding on a viable business model, and pointing out that they were all actually entrepreneurs turned VCs and back - an important distinction.

After exhausting themselves in the mentoring sessions for the rest of the day, everybody was eager to hear the final selection of startups by popular vote and to finally get to the bowling alley for closing drinks.

Editd - Fashion industry data analysis and forecasting
Eyequant - Fast eye tracking results for websites 
FinanceACar - Comprehensive comparisons for car finance
 Memrise - Memory enhancement techniques applied to online learning
 PageDo - Automated landing pages

Amongst all the participating mentors and teams, we want to say another big thank you to our sponsors and supporters for the day - Orrick and m8capital made the evening event possible, IBM Global Entrepreneur pitched in for lunch, and our long standing partners, Spark PR, UKTI and Sun Startup Essentials helped support us once again to make it all possible.

Our supporters who helped spread the word for us around the EMEA included - Ballou PR, Startup Business, Maestros Del Web, Arctic Startup, Techcelerate and Startup Digest; without them we would not have had such an amazing application response for Mini Seedcamp London.

Last but not least, we are forever grateful to UCL Advances for providing the fantastic venue for Mini Seedcamp London and we can't wait to get back there for Seedcamp Week in September.

Also check out some of the other posts being written about Mini Seedcamp London (tell us about more in the comments):

"Highlighting Europe's young digital Entrepreneurs" at the Guardian
Sean Park (Seedcamp investor) on being on "the other side"
Adam Paulisick on his experience as a mentor
Matt from pagedo on his day at Seedcamp

Seedcamp Announces a Sizzling slate of Startups for Mini Seedcamp London

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:02:00 +0000

It’s been a sweltering summer so far in London and the city is set to be alight with talented startups when Mini Seedcamp London hits the town on 27th July 2010.

Once again, Seedcamp received a record number of applicants applying from all over the EMEA to win a seat at Mini Seedcamp London, and ultimately a prestigious spot at Seedcamp Week in September.

The incredible quality and ideas of the teams applying to Mini Seedcamp London this year has considerably increased, with many teams already making great progress being self-financed and bootstrapped. Making the decision on the top 20 teams for London this year proved very difficult indeed (in fact we chose 21!) and we had to turn away many teams with great businesses and ideas, but we want to encourage those teams to keep plugging away – from what we are seeing, there is no down-turn in our sector and more and more people see startups as a viable alternative to a corporate career and 9 to 5 jobs…so don’t loose the dream!

And so, it is with great excitement that we announce our top 21 teams chosen to attend Mini Seedcamp London on 27th July 2010 at the celebrated campus of UCL:

cIRX - London, UK
DBVU - London, UK
Deskarma - London, UK
EDITD – London, UK
FinanceAcar - London, UK
Float - Edinburgh, UK
GaBoom Ltd - Surrey, UK
Kliknik - Kragujevac, Serbia
Matchik - Berkshire, UK
Memrise - Oxford, UK
MindQuilt – UK/USA
Movylo Shop - Turin, Italy
PageDo – London, UK
Profitero - Dublin, Ireland
Scramblr - London, UK
Smartupz - Warsaw, Poland
Subsify - London, UK
Sweeble Ltd – Staffordshire, UK
Trebax Innovations - London, UK
Vsetech - London, UK/Moscow, Russia
WhiteMatter Labs GmbH - Osnabrueck/Berlin, Germany

The teams will have the opportunity of a lifetime to pitch their ideas and engage with over 80 distinguished and industry leading mentors such as:

Alastair Mitchell, Huddle
Alex van Somoren, nCipher/UKTI
Ben Tompkins, Eden Ventures
Brent Hoberman, MyDeco
Christian Hernandez, Facebook
Claude London, Venturing Forth
Daniel Heaf, 4iP
David Langer, Groupspaces
Edward Kershaw, The Nielsen Company
Hendrik Brandis, Earlybird Venture Capital
Ian Hogarth, Songkick
Ivan Farneti, Doughty Hanson
James Aylett, Kittens with Jetpacks
Max Niederhofer, Entrepreneur (Atlas Venture)
Meagan Marks, Wonga
Michael Smith, Mind Candy
Paul Degueuse, 360 Capital Partners
Peter Ward, WAYNE
Taylor Wescoatt, eBay

Along with these, there will be specialists and gurus in HR, PR, Product, Marketing and Business Development attending, all at the top of their game, to help kick-start your ideas into viable, world-beating businesses.

We can’t wait to meet the teams face to face and look forward to seeing them strut their stuff!

See you in London!

Seedcamp Johannesburg

noreply@blogger.com (P. Moehring) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:08:00 +0000

Africa? Yes, Africa. We are really excited to announce our first endeavour below the equator and bring you Seedcamp Johannesburg. We will host a Mini Seedcamp in Johannesburg, S.A. on August 11 and we are eager to see what the (South) African tech scene is all about. We are calling all teams and entrepreneurs to apply for this opportunity to meet not only the nation's , but also the world's greatest entrepreneurs and mentors, investors and industry folks.

We have already had some great feedback and lots of outreach from locals wanting to come, so we now want to make it official: Applications open today, go ahead and show us why and how your team will be successful in utilizing web technology to build a great business. Convince us why you are the right team to participate in Mini Seedcamp Johannesburg and why you should get the chance to meet with our great mentors and partners to learn how you can make your business even more successful.

Seedcamp South Johannesburg is the first "special" Seedcamp event that we are adding to our regular Seedcamp schedule. We want to reach out to new locales and markets to meet the great entrepreneurs we are missing who are located beyond Europe - after all, we have seen that the underserved Eastern European markets develops great companies like Erply, Ubervu, and Brainient - some of the former Seedcamp winners. We are excited to take Seedcamp global and Africa is a great place to start.

So, if you are an entrepreneur from South Africa or Namibia, Botswana or Simbabwe (or anywhere else, for that matter), please go ahead and apply for Seedcamp Johannesburg. If you are a mentor with great connections to the startup, business, and internet community in Africa, please get in touch and let's see how we can get you involved at Seedcamp Johannesburg!

Watch Fred Destin's Talk on Hacking Venture Capital

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:31:00 +0000

At Mini Seedcamp Berlin Fred Destin gave his masterful talk on how to pitch your company and negotiating a venture deal - all filled with tips of the trade built up from his experience as a Partner at Atlas Venture. Here are the two parts and accompanying slides.

Hacking Venture Capital - Fred Destin - pt1 from Seedcamp on Vimeo.

Hacking Venture Capital - Part I on Prezi

Hacking Venture Capital - Fred Destin - pt2 from Seedcamp on Vimeo.

Hacking Venture Capital - Part II on Prezi

Last chance for startups to win a spot at Seedcamp Week!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:45:00 +0000

With only 6 days left to apply for Mini Seedcamp London, and THE last chance this year for teams to try and win a prestigious spot at Seedcamp Week in September, we are delighted that Mini Seedcamp London is attracting major world-class mentors and industry leaders such as:

Alastair Mitchell - CEO & Co-Founder, Huddle.net (One of the entrepreneurs behind Huddle with expertise in product and marketing)

Ben Tompkins - General Partner, Eden Ventures (20+ years of experience in investing in tech/digital companies)

Christian Hernandez - Head of Platform and Partnerships, EMEA, Facebook (Experience at Facebook, Google, and Microsoft in creating business development partnerships, most recently with the Facebook patform)

Colette Ballou – Founder, Ballou PR (Ballou have provided PR services to Facebook, Sofinnova, Red Herring, Dailymotion, and many more)

Hendrik Brandis - Managing Partner, Earlybird Venture Capital (VC with long standing investment, operational and entrepreneurial experience)

Ian Hogarth – CEO, Songkick.com (Entrepreneur with a technical background, growing successful London based music startup having graduated from YC)

Michael Smith – CEO, Mind Candy (Entrepreneur behind Firebox and now gaming startup Moshi Moshi Monsters)

These are just a flavour of the 100+ mentors the teams can expect to meet and be mentored by throughout an intensive day of pitches, a panel session and dedicated 1:1 sessions. The teams chosen for Mini Seedcamp London will gain valuable insight and get connected with top industry movers and shakers that will catapult their business to heights that normally takes years to achieve.

In our previous posts, we’ve mentioned the importance of our Mini Seedcamps, and as such, top teams from each Mini Seedcamp this year will be chosen to go through for the final stages of selection and have a chance at gaining a seat on Seedcamp Week or being one of several teams to receive investment through Seedcamp in 2010.

At Seedcamp, we are always striving to balance the different geographies and backgrounds across the EMEA and look for mentors who have started or grown their own companies and understand the unique challenges facing entrepreneurs today. We also bring investors in who can provide practical advice, not just on raising VC money, but what to do once you have it.

This is the chance of a lifetime for entrepreneurs and startups to receive enormous validation through attending Seedcamp, and putting yourself in front of distinguished company builders from the tech industry and the world’s top entrepreneurial gurus.

So, if you’re an entrepreneur or startup, want to get advice from some of the best mentors around and take a shot at winning a seat at Seedcamp Week – then apply to Mini Seedcamp London today! Please spread the word to startups and entrepreneurs in your region and help give them a chance to take part in the Seedcamp programme!

Applications close at midnight on 30th June 2010. Please go to the Mini site to apply.

Good luck!

Mini Seedcamp London applications now open and THE last chance for startups to get a seat at Seedcamp Week!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 10:00:00 +0000

This year we’ve seen some of the most diverse and talented teams from all over Europe attending the Mini Seedcamps. We are therefore very excited to announce that applications are now open for our final Mini Seedcamp in London. Mini Seedcamp London will also be the final chance to apply for Seedcamp Week 2010. So, if you are an extremely talented team going after innovative and disruptive solutions in the Internet, mobile and software sectors, we encourage you to apply for the final chance at gaining a prestigious spot as one of the top 20 teams that go through to get funding and attend Seedcamp Week in September 2010. This year Mini Seedcamp London will take place on 27th July 2010 and will be held at UCL, a long-standing sponsor of Seedcamp.

It is absolutely clear to us that entrepreneurs from all across EMEA and beyond are criss-crossing the region to get to a Seedcamp that best fits their company's needs. What an amazing difference in just 3 years! The Mini Seedcamps have accomplished exactly what we set out to do this year. They've been immediately beneficial to teams in connecting up with mentors and support and they've enabled us to get to know teams better before Seedcamp Week.

As always, 20 top quality, early stage startups will benefit from 1:1 interactive mentoring sessions and will be connected with over 60 regional and European most sought after and highly experienced entrepreneurs, product, marketing and business development experts, investors and technical gurus. With top industry players such as Richard Moross - CEO Moo, Michael Smith - CEO Mind Candy, Ian Hogarth - Co-Founder Songkick and Alastair Mitchell - CEO Huddle attending so far, we know this year's Mini Seedcamp London is set to top the rest.

To give you a sense of what to expect in the next few months, we want to highlight achievements by Seedcampers ’09. ERPLY went on to raise $2M within 5 months from Redpoint Ventures and Index Ventures, Kukunu has closed a seed round including Seedcamp as an investor, Pearl raised seed funding from Eden Ventures, Brainient is closing a seed round and has been showing impressive customer traction, and Boxed Ice is steadily growing its customer base. It’s been a very intense 6 months for the companies.

London is fast becoming the city hub of choice for many entrepreneurs across EMEA. Most recently Plink was acquired by Google, Huddle raised over $10M in funding, TechHub and White Bear Yard along with the Silicon Roundabout are becoming places to set up office and work together with other startups in the ecosystem. Index Seed shows faith in the tech companies formed here, and the Wired map just puts this all into perspective with how much is going on.

These are certainly exciting times and we look forward to seeing your exciting ideas and teams at Mini Seedcamp London!

Please check out our resource pages that are full of advice and videos, blog posts, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook to see what we’re looking for, what teams get out of it and what you can do to improve your chances at winning a spot on one of the most prestigious and rewarding web tech programs that is helping to drive and shape the European startup scene today.

As we are expecting both the amount and quality of applications to Mini Seedcamp London to be extremely high, please make sure to put that extra bit of effort into your applications/pitch. Again, this is the last chance to get into the final Seedcamp Week in September!

Applications are now open and close at midnight on 30th June 2010. For full details, updates and how to apply go to the mini site.

Seedcamp & TechHub bring you Tech Founder Speed-Dating - 12th July 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:41:00 +0000

Got a great business idea? Developing a fantastic new product? Have awesome technical skills but no project to apply them to? Really need a partner in crime to help you take over the world?

Finding the right person to co-found your business can be challenging - you know they're out there, but where? Well they might just be at TechHub on July 12th!

The fabulous people at TechHub, together with Seedcamp, are bringing you our Tech Founder Speed Dating! We'll select a great group of talented people and create the right environment for you to meet all of them in one go in the hope you'll find your perfect business partner.

So register your interest in taking part now and we'll do the rest.

We'll be trying to ensure a good mix of people at the same level (already started, starting soon etc) and we only have limited places, so we'll get back to you to confirm you for the event on the 12th. Rest assured that if there's a huge level of interest, we'll run more sessions in the coming months.

You have a fabulous business inside you, so get dating!

Winners and Action from Mini Seedcamp Berlin

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:58:00 +0000

Yesterday's Mini Seedcamp Berlin was a massive success with the 20 teams meeting with a multitalented group of mentors at the Technical University Berlin. Fred Destin also gave his excellent talk on Hacking Venture Capital. Five of these teams will get to come to London to take part in the Seedcamp Finals, but who won the popular vote?

The finalists at Mini Seedcamp Berlin came not just from Germany but also France, Romania, Poland, UK, Denmark and Mexico. The mentors were similarly diverse with folk travelling from the UK, France, the Nordics, Austria, and Romania. This all goes to show Berlin's lure to startup companies all over Europe. Some of the contributing factors/indicators of this are the plentiful office space in supercool setups like the Betahaus (who kindly hosted our cocktails), a growing community of startups in the Mitte district like Soundcloud and Aka Aki, and a plentiful supply of parties/events.

So without futher ado, after a frantic day of mentoring the top five most popular teams voted by participants were:
Ovia - Video platform to improve online recruitment

Padicode - Tools to automatically target your site to the different audiences who visit

Scalarium - Allows users to keep control of their cloud storage like Amazon EC2

Uberblic - Help developers identify and use big data sets

Wordy - Provide a tool for quick copy checking by professional editors

Fred Destin - Partner at Atlas Venture gave his excellent talk on Hacking Venture Capital, which in a fast paced hour summarised how to pitch and what to look out for in a venture deal. Here are the slides, video to follow shortly.

Thanks to our hosts at the Technical University Berlin for all their support, the Betahaus for hosting our cocktails and presentation training, and sponsors Deutsche Telekom, Schwartz PR, High-Tech Grunderfonds, Sun for Startups, UKTI and supporter Startup Business.

Announcing our top 20 teams for Mini Seedcamp Berlin

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:03:00 +0000

It's our third year hosting a Mini Seedcamp Berlin and the stage looks set to be full of bright teams, oozing with talent and disruptive ideas. With a record number of teams applying this year, we had a diverse mix of startups applying from outside the DACH region including France, Slovenia, Portugal, Turkey and Mexico. Once again, we had a record number of applications for Mini Seedcamp Berlin this year and we were once again impressed by the quality of the teams and their ideas.

With that in mind, we are delighted to announce the top 20 teams attending Mini Seedcamp Berlin on 16th June 2010 at the Technische Universitaet Berlin:

42goals
Commentarist
Dailyplaces
DataFilter
energiepilot
Komparable
Larovo
Maptales
mashlab
Maxipack
Nuuji
OVIA - Inovaz
PadiCode
reqorder
Scalarium (Peritor GmbH)
ShopSpread
Space Bonding
Teamly
Uberblic Labs
Wordy.com

The teams will have the opportunity of a lifetime to pitch their ideas and engage with over 50 distinguished and industry leading mentors from the likes of:

Dr. Christian Nagel, Earlybird Venture Capital
Clemens von Bergmann, High-Tech Gründerfonds
Dr. Hendrik Brandis, Earlybird Venture Capital
Lars Langusch, Holtzbrinck Ventures
Oliver Beste, FoundersLink
Pawel Chudzinski, Team Europe Ventures
Robert Moffat, Balderton Capital

To name but a few! Along with these, there will be specialists in HR, PR, Product, Marketing and Business Development attending, all at the top of their game and ready to impart their wisdom on the lucky teams.

We look forward to meeting the teams face to face and being wowed by what they have to offer.

Good Luck!

Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen - Winners and Action

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair) — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:26:00 +0000

The Nordics have a reputation for innovative thinking and design, and the teams and venue for Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen didn't disappoint. We saw companies working on everything from games, to tools for streaming large files and services to help bands manage their gigs. All of this was hosted at the stunning IT University of Copenhagen which provided an inspirational backdrop.

A popular vote at the end of the day resulted in six favorite teams, who were (in alphabetical order):

Hypezoo - a search engine for upcoming products

Kkloud - a file sharing service which allows you to download the file whist uploading

Mailforgood - fund raising for charities using email adverts

NuGames - Location based game based on the board game Risk

Queue-it - A virtual queue system to help sites cope during peak periods

Topicmarks - Software to automatically summarise large documents

Michael Jackson, from Mangrove Partners gave an excellent talk at the Mini Seedcamp on "Building a big business a long way from Silicon Valley". He covered the major points from raising funding, building your network, and proving your business. It's well worth watching and the video is embedded below.

Thanks to all of Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen's supporters and sponsors: The UKTI GEP, Oracle for startups, 5th at ITU, Northcap Partners, Rainmaking/Startup bootcamp, Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority, Venture Cup, Arctic Startup and Cloudberry. Next stop, Berlin!

The lucky top 20 teams coming to Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:05:00 +0000

Once again Seedcamp is attracting some exciting fresh new tech talent from the Nordics region that we are happy to see attending Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen on 27th May 2010. With teams applying from as far a field as the USA, Mexico and Singapore and the chosen teams an eclectic mix from across the EMEA and beyond including Estonia, Lithuania, Vancouver, Austria and Krakow, this year's teams looks set to be more intriguing and diverse than ever!

Ans so, without further ado, here are our top 20 teams chose to attend Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen:

claim my.biz -Copenhagen, Denmark
Crunchfish AB - Sweden
Emply - Tallinn, Estonia
Eurodocs AB - Stockholm, Sweden
faveeo.com - Geneva, Switzerland
GigsWiz - Helsinki, Finland
Hypezoo -Stockholm, Sweden
ImpressPages - Vilnius, Lithuania
InfluAds - Copenhagen, Denmark
kkloud - Denmark
Lexmarket - Vienna, Austria
Mailforgood - Paris, France
NuGames - Copenhagen, Denmark
ProcessCase - New York, USA
Queue-it - Copenhagen, Denmark
Shobble - Helsinki, Finland
TeachMeGood - Vilnius, Lithuania
Toostis - Vilnius, Lithuania
Topicmarks - Vancouver, Zurich, Krakow
TuneRights - Stockholm, Sweden

Not only is Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen attracting top teams, but also top-notch mentors, all at the top of their game and ready to impart their wisdom on the chosen ones, including:

Anil Hansjee, Google
Alex Farcet, Rainmaking
Alex Van Someren, nCipher
Andre Winzer, Consult21
Christian Lanng, Tradeshift
Gregers Kronborg, NorthZone Ventures
Harry Briggs, Balderton Capital
Henrik Werdelin, Index Ventures
Jacob Bratting Pedersen, NorthCap Partners
Jeff Coe, Linden Ventures
Jimmy Fussing Nielsen, Sunstone Capital
Joakim Jardenberg, Mindpark AB
Måns Adler, Bambuer
Martin Källström, Twingly
Mik Strøyberg Harsløf, Berlingske Media
Natasha Friis Saxberg, Webcom
Niels Vejrup Carlsen, Seed Capital
Nikolaj Nyholm, Sunstone Capital
Rob Kniaz, VC (ex-Google, ex-Fidelity Ventures)
Søren Nielsen, NorthCap Partners
Sorosh Tavakoli, Videoplaza
Thomas Weilby Knudsen, NorthCap Partners
Tommy Ahlers, Vodafone

Along with this impressive list, there will be 40 other top local and European industry movers and shakers including VC’s, Investors and product specialists in HR, PR, Product, Marketing and Business Development.

We look forward to meeting the teams face to face in Copenhagen!

Last few days to apply for Mini Seedcamp Berlin!

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Fri, 21 May 2010 09:58:00 +0000

With under a week left to apply for Mini Seedcamp Berlin, we are calling on all talented, strong web-tech, mobile and software teams with world-changing ideas in the region and beyond to apply.

Berlin has always proven to be a very popular city hub and this year looks to be even better with mentors attending such as:

Alex van Someren, nCipher
Christopher Grew, Orrick
Christian Kapteyn, FoundersLink
Daniel Heaf, 4IP
Felix Fidelsberger, Stupeflix
Guillaume Lautour, AGF Private Equity
Lars Langusch, Holtzbrinck Ventures
Roberto Bonanzinga, Balderton Capital

To name but a few!

At Seedcamp, we are always striving to balance the different geographies and backgrounds across the EMEA and beyond, and look for mentors who have started or grown their own companies and understand the unique challenges facing entrepreneurs today. We also bring investors in who can provide practical advice, not just on raising VC money, but what to do once you have
If you’re an entrepreneur out there with a great idea, want to get advice from some of the best mentors around, and get a real jumpstart for your startup, apply now for Mini Seedcamp Berlin! Applications close at midnight on 25th May 2010.

Good Luck!

Winners and Action from Mini Seedcamp Tel Aviv

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair) — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:50:00 +0000

As Seedcamp continues it's program of Mini Seedcamps all over EMEA, we are continually impressed by the strength and diversity of the startups who present. Israel was no exception with companies working on applications to help users eat healthily, process data in the cloud, and play augmented reality paintball! However we weren't surprised as Israel's passion for startups was clear during our visit, which coincided with a huge festival of technology, including Techonomy, and Kinnernet.

The popular vote highlighted the top 5 teams who impressed other teams and mentors during the day.

These were:

Fooducate - an app to help you find more details about the nutritional information of foods.
INEZE - a product search engine.
SilverCompass - Outdoor ARG gaming on smartphones
Sparkeo - Helps universities deliver and monetise their videos
Tucoola - Educational flash games for children

The panel discussion was an action packed discussion moderated by Saul Klein and featuring; Orey Gilliam - Executive Chairman, Bulloonz; Jeremy Berrebi - Founder, Kima; Gig Kaplan - Cofounder, Wix, Anil Hansjee - Head of M&A, Google EMEA, and Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf - YL Ventures. Topics ranged from the strengths/weaknesses of building a company from Israel, to practical advice on how to use PR firms.

The question "What one book would you recommend to startups?" prompted a great reading list for up and coming entrepreneurs which we now plan to share and expand on at future Seedcamp events. The books were:

Startup Nation (Yoav)
What Would Google Do (Anil - from Google!)
37 Signals (second book) (Jeremy)
Behind the Cloud (Orey)
Four Steps to the Epiphany (Saul)
[bonus post event] Execution (Orey)

Plus all these book recommendations are on our new Shelfari page.

A big thanks to our venue The Afeka College of Engineering in particular Mel, Sharon and Roniet, our host Yaron Orenstein, ESOP for sponsoring lunch, and our long term sponsors UKTI and Sun/Oracle.

Only One Week left to Apply for Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:17:00 +0000

With just a week left to apply for Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen being held on the 27th May 2010. Last year we saw a wealth of talent from the Nordic region and we are calling on all strong teams with innovative ideas within the web-tech, mobile and software community to apply. We are also delighted that Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen is attracting some of the top-notch local and European industry mentors. Here is a glimpse of mentors attending, along with many more:

Alex Farcet, Rainmaking
Alex Van Someren, nCipher
Andre Winzer, Consult21
Harry Briggs, Balderton Capital
Henrik Werdelin, Index Ventures
Jacob Bratting Pedersen, NorthCap Partners
Jeff Coe, Linden Ventures
Joakim Jardenberg, Mindpark AB
Mik Strøyberg Harsløf, Berlingske Media
Natasha Friis Saxberg, Webcom
Niels Vejrup Carlsen, Seed Capital
Nikolaj Nyholm, Sunstone Capital
Søren Nielsen, NorthCap Partners
Thomas Weilby Knudsen, NorthCap Partners

At Seedcamp, we are always striving to balance the different geographies and backgrounds across the EMEA and look for mentors who have started or grown their own companies and understand the unique challenges facing entrepreneurs today. We also bring investors in who can provide practical advice, not just on raising VC money, but what to do once you have it.

This is the chance of a lifetime to bring the 1st time entrepreneur together with experienced and distinguished company builders from the tech industry and the world’s top entrepreneurial movers and shakers. As we are mainly choosing teams to attend Seedcamp Week this year through our Mini Seedcamps, we are encouraging all talented startups with innovative and world-changing ideas, who feel ready for the challenge, to apply to Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen.

If you’re an entrepreneur out there with a great idea, want to get advice from some of the best mentors around, and get a real jumpstart for your startup, apply now for Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen. Applications close at midnight on 13th May 2010.

Good Luck!

Seedcamp looks for bright minds to attend Mini Seedcamp Berlin

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Wed, 05 May 2010 08:32:00 +0000

Seedcamp is very excited about coming to Berlin for it’s third year in a row as the DACH region has proven very fertile ground where startups are concerned. The past years have seen teams like Platago become Seedcamp winners and many more that make it through to the Seedcamp Week finals each year.

With that in mind we’re happy to announce open applications for Mini Seedcamp Berlin being held on 16th June 2010 at the Technische Universität Berlin. This year we’re also lucky to have Deutsche Telekom help sponsor the programme, where the next generation of startups in the DACH region and across the EMEA will have a chance to show what they’ve got to the top-brass of the local and European entrepreneurial scene.

Mini Seedcamp Berlin will connect 20 top quality, early stage web tech startups with over 50 regional and European esteemed, sought after and highly experienced entrepreneurs, investors and developers. Through an interactive panel discussion and informal 1:1 sessions, teams benefit from engaging with and listening to a variety of distinguished mentors and industry leaders from PR, HR, product development, business development, marketing to name but a few.

Mini Seedcamps provide the best way to have a chance at winning a spot as one of our top teams that receive investment in 2010 and to leverage the value the programme brings. As such we encourage startups to apply to from across the EMEA and beyond who are feel they are ready and up for the challenge.

Past winners have been blogging about the importance of attending a Mini Seedcamp and also what to expect from a Mentor Session, which gives a good insight into how the day is run and what to expect.

As always, we are looking for strong, quality startups that have the talent, drive and capacity to fully embrace the opportunities that participating in a Mini Seedcamp brings. Which is receiving quality advice from top industry leaders and start building those key relationships to help drive your business. Relationships that normally take years to build, you’ll have access to in one day. Mini Seedcamps are not a conference, but an entrepreneurial ecosystem of support and a program designed to strengthen and catapult your ideas into a viable business.

Check out our resources page that is full of advice and videos, blog posts, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook to see what we’re looking for, what teams get out of it and what you can do to improve your chances in winning a spot on one of the most prestigious and rewarding web tech programs that is helping to drive and shape the European startup scene today.

You will gain invaluable insight and a solid foundation to help kick-start a viable business in Europe today. Not to mention being inspired by fellow entrepreneurs and a chance to broaden your scope within the European startup ecosystem.

Applications are now open and close at midnight on 25th May 2010. For full details, updates and how to apply go to the mini site.

Seedcamp attracts great talent to TelAviv - Announcing our Top 20 Teams for Mini Seedcamp TelAviv

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:05:00 +0000

Hosting our second Mini Seedcamp in TelAviv this year has proved very popular with startups, not just in Israel but right across the EMEA and beyond, with teams applying from as far afield as Singapore, New York and the Ukraine. Once again, the quality and diversity of the teams applying was impressive from a broad mix of sectors including gaming, health, cloud computing, security, education and social networking.

With that in mind, we are delighted to announce the top 20 teams attending Mini Seedcamp TelAviv on 6th May 2010 at Afeka College:

Any.Do - Tel Aviv, Israel
CUIN - Tel Aviv, Israel
Customer Win - Haifa, Israel
Fooducate - Israel / USA
Gpustream - Israel
Happy /Not Happy - Tel Aviv, Israel/London, UK
INEZE - Mazor, Israel
IT Analyzer - Nez-Ziona, Israel
Itweetlive - Savyon, Israel
Kehalim Ltd. - Ra'anana, Israel
New Global Markets - Kfar Ya'avetz, Israel
OneToYou - Shoham, Israel
PortfolioFrontier - Haifa, Israel
Qliqa - Petach-Tikva, Israel
Secure Erasure - Herzliyya, Israel
SilverCompass - Haifa, Israel
Smart-Up - Naayaria, Israel
Sparkeo - Tel Aviv, Israel
Tomedes - Holon, Israel
Tucoola - Ra'anana, Israel

The teams will have the opportunity of a lifetime to strut their stuff and engage with distinguished mentors such as:

Adam Fisher, Bessemer
Alon Carmeli, Babylon
Anil Hansjee, Google
Avichay Nissenbaum, Yedda/AOL
Avishai Abrahami, Wix
Eyal Magen, Gigya
Gideon Mantel, Commtouch
Gilad Japhet, MyHeritage
Giora Kaplan, Wix
Guy Bendov, Sidekick
Itai Zilbershtein, Avaya
Jeremie Berrebi, Kima Ventures
Orey Gilliam, Bulloonz
Ronen Nir, Carmel
Roni Hefetez, Walden International
Sani Sanilevich, Yatir
Saul Klein, Seedcamp
Tim Jackson, QXL
Yaniv Golan, Yedda/AOL
Yaron Carni, Tel Aviv Angels
Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf, YL Ventures
Yossi Vardi
Ziv Koren, Amdocs

Along with this impressive list, there will be 40 other top local and European industry movers and shakers including VC’s, Investors and product specialists in HR, PR, Product, Marketing and Business Development.

We look forward to meeting the teams face to face and being wowed by what they have to offer.

See you in sunny TelAviv!

Seedcamp Chooses LATERAL as Technology Partner

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:33:00 +0000

Seedcamp is a startup with a unique challenge - how do we find and support the best startups from all over EMEA? Part of the secret lies in our technology and website which helps us deal with the hundreds of applications and queries we get every year. As a growing startup we need to give increasing thought and attention to these developing systems which are core to our activities.

We are therefore delighted to announce that Seedcamp has chosen LATERAL (Technology with Passion) as our technology partner. LATERAL is a small agency based in London and Romania capable of amazing work, the likes of which we have seen in their work for Seedcamp and other clients. Lateral is also behind a few exciting start-ups such as Explorra.com and Jobberbase.com which shows that they get the challenges and opportunities startups face.

We're very excited about working with Lateral and are looking forward to more exciting developments in the next few months.

IBM teams up with Seedcamp to make a Smarter Planet

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:49:00 +0000

Introducing “SmartCamp”

Seedcamp’s model of accelerating web startups’ growth focuses on mentoring by experienced entrepreneurs and investors, and seed investment. It has proven successful over the past three years with the 21 Seedcamp companies building some great businesses, such as ERPLY, MyBuilder and Plink. So why not apply this model to building clean energy technologies and smarter cities? This is what IBM’s SmartCamp seeks to achieve. Given the analogous approach Seedcamp is helping IBM’s initiative by using the knowhow and systems we have developed that helped to make Seedcamp so successful.

Here is some more information from SmartCamp on what they are aiming to do and how to apply.

Smartcamp is focused on start-ups who are active in areas like energy, water management, transportation, healthcare, etc. Anywhere software and technology can be used to make our systems more intelligent. A good example is a city. Think about how technology can reduce energy waste, improve traffic flows reduce water leaks, or improve public safety in your city. These are just some examples however these solutions based on software, sensors and cloud computing can apply to many areas. We have found the most exciting start-ups in diverse areas like forestry (Treemetrics) and waste management (Green Diamond) last year.

SmartCamp is being rolled out in 7 cities in 2010. Each event is similar to a mini seedcamp with some minor changes. In each location, five companies will be selected to spend one day networking with 25 world-class entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts. Selected companies will be invited to the global finals week to be held in Nov.

What’s in it for you?

SmartCamp aims to accelerate the expansion and internationalization of promising companies and has successfully
achieved this in the past.

We do this a number of ways. Firstly, selected companies receive 12 week mentoring were we identify all the appropriate resources IBM has in terms of technology, marketing and go-to-market. Secondly, via our Venture Capital team we work with leading investors. As an example, last year 80% of selected companies received funding or investment offers from our partners.

In addition, these events will be covered by leading press which will offer the companies great visibility and exposure. We are also working with many of the companies as both go-to-market partners and reference customers.

In Europe we are partnering with a number of leading groups including Seedcamp, Kauffman Fellows, Innovate100, Enterprise Ireland, and STING to name but a few.

What types of start-ups are we looking for?

SmartCamp is interested in early stage technology companies who are helping to build a Smarter Planet – this includes:

• Networking and Mobility
• Enterprise Software Applications
• Internet & SAAS
• Cloud and IT infrastructure
• Healthcare & IT related
• Analytics and Modelling
• Energy efficiency and Smart buildings
• Carbon and Water management
• Transportation systems
• Smart Cities including – transportation, education, and public safety
• Risk management

Presenting companies will be at the seed or start-up stage. In all cases the process is open to companies with revenues
less than $1m in the last 12 months.

Next Steps – Apply today

Smartcamp is now open – the deadline for the first applications is 10th May where the event will be held on the 20th May in Stockholm. Register here.

Additional locations include:

Stockholm 20th May
Boston 3rd June
Tel Aviv 24th June
London: 21st July
Silicon Valley: 8th Sept
Paris: 16th Sept
Dublin: 15th Nov

Note: deadline is typically 10-14 days before the event

More info and examples read here.

Entrepreneurs Petition against AIFM Directive - Act by Sunday 25 April!

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:03:00 +0000

Repost from Fred Destin's blog, please help campaign against this this directive which would damage VC investments in startups.

--------------------

Euro Entrepreneurs, time to lobby ! By this Sunday night, April 25, we need to get a significant number of European entrepreneurs to help the European Venture Capital Association in lobbying the EU and signing a petition against this damaging Directive.

Vote against an extensive Directive that will damage European Venture:

The directive sets out a number of measures ill-suited to venture capital and the financing of innovation. This is because it is designed to be a catch-all regulatory blanket that encompasses everyone from hedge funds to venture firms. The impact on both VC firms and startups is potentially significant:

Discriminatory disclosure requirements and administrative burden affecting startups backed by venture capital
Cost of compliance estimated at €30,000 per year for your companies
Absurd capital requirements imposed on venture firms
Requirement to use outside depositaries (i.e. custodians) and independent valuation agents, adding cost and complexity

There is a detailed review of these measures on EVCA.eu under "AIFM Directive". Link. In a striking survey, the EVCA finds that 2/3 of investors questioned would reduce allocations to venture as a result of proposed regulation. Link.

By emailing EVCA you will become a co-signatory to a letter published below, prepared by a fellow entrepreneur, Tom Van Aken of Avantium:

We represent a slice of the 25,000-plus population of European businesses that currently benefit from private equity and venture capital support. We are therefore increasingly alarmed by proposals within the EU’s draft Alternative Investment Fund Management Directive that would prejudice private equity and venture capital-backed companies such as ours, and ultimately restrict access to finance for Europe’s growth companies.

Act now:

Send a mail to replies@evca.eu stating name, company name and HQ location and titled "Entrepreneur Petition against AIFM Directive"

Thanks!

AIFM - SME Petition Letter 200410

Seedcamp calls on all startup talent to apply for Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen

noreply@blogger.com (Stephanie) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:53:00 +0000

Copenhagen has long been known as one of the most environmentally friendly cities on the planet, providing great quality of life to its citizens. It is also known as a regional centre of business and media and we are hoping to tap into the wealth of talent across Denmark and the rest of the Nordics when we visit this pretty city hub on 27th May 2010 for our first ever Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen, which is kindly being hosted by NorthCap Partners and supported by Rainmaking. The programme will be held at the uber cool premises of 5th Unit.

Last year saw us in Helsingborg, which was a great success and brought us face to face with quality teams across the region and beyond. We’re urging teams from Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Finland, Iceland and Norway that are confident and ready to apply to Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen. Of course, our open door policy means that any team from anywhere can also apply.

Mini Seedcamp Copenhagen will connect 20 top quality, early stage web tech startups with over 50 regional and European esteemed, sought after and highly experienced entrepreneurs, investors and developers. Through an interactive panel discussion and informal 1:1 sessions, teams benefit from engaging with and listening to a variety of distinguished mentors and industry leaders from PR, HR, product development, business development, marketing to name but a few.

Mini Seedcamps provide the best way to have a chance at winning a spot as one of our top teams that receive investment in 2010 and to leverage the value the programme brings. As such we encourage startups to apply to any of the Mini Seedcamps that best match the timing and progress of your business.

Past winners have been blogging about the importance of attending a Mini Seedcamp and also what to expect from a Mentor Session, which gives a good insight into how the day is run and what to expect.

As always, we are looking for strong, quality startups that have the talent, drive and capacity to fully embrace the opportunities that participating in a Mini Seedcamp brings. Which is receiving quality advice from top industry leaders and start building those key relationships to help drive your business. Relationships that normally take years to build, you’ll have access to in one day. Mini Seedcamps are not a conference, but an entrepreneurial ecosystem of support and a program designed to strengthen and catapult your ideas into a viable business.

Check out our resources page that is full of advice and videos, blog posts, and follow us on Twitter , the hashtag for the event is #seedcampCPH, and Facebook to see what we’re looking for, what teams get out of it and what you can do to improve your chances in winning a spot on one of the most prestigious and rewarding web tech programs that is helping to drive and shape the European startup scene today.

You will gain invaluable insight and a solid foundation to help kick-start a viable business in Europe today. Not to mention being inspired by fellow entrepreneurs and a chance to broaden your scope within the European startup ecosystem.

Applications are now open and close at midnight on 13th May 2010. For full details, updates and how to apply go to the mini site.

Mini Seedcamp Paris - The Winners!

noreply@blogger.com (Alasdair) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 13:49:00 +0000

Mini Seedcamp Paris was a melting pot of startup activity with the 20 finalists meeting with some of the best entrepreneurs, investors, and experts from all over the region. Mentors commented that the quality of startups was particularly high so we are excited to announce the top five teams (in alphabetical order) as decided by popular vote of Mini Seedcamp Paris participants are...

English Attack! (Paris, France)
- an innovative English learning online tool targeted to 15-35 year olds that uses rich media, gaming, and social networking concepts to teach English

Hypios (Paris, France)
- an innovative way to solve complex problems for corporates by going beyond the business unit or company. Uses intelligent crowdsourcing to solve R&D problems

Openways (France)
- revolutionizes the use of keys to opening doors. Instead of traditional keys (which can get lost) or key cards, people can now open doors with keys from their mobile phones. Think mobile board passes for airlines now as mobile keys for opening doors

Tigerlily (Paris, France)
- helps brands manage Facebook pages to start with. A freemium model is offered with monthly and annual subscriptions. 3K people use their FB CMS currently

Tryane (Paris, France)
- tools to measure how well your organisation is collaborating - includes the ability to assess stress levels of employees. Based on a software as a service model for organisations of around 2-15k employees costing 1-2 EUR per employee.

The panel discussion focused on early stage investment and entreprenuership in Europe and was moderated by Mark Esiri of Venrex, an early stage fund based in the UK that invest in Internet and often in the e-commerce space. The discussion covered a wide range of issues such as what investors look for in an entrepreneur, the types of opportunities they go after, and what startups should look for in an investor.

Also on the panel:

Xavier Lorphelin of Serena Capital - a new seed fund in France. He has in the past worked for Flextronics and co-founded a company called JSource. These days he also teaches on entrepreneurship in France.

Jonathan Benassaya co-founder of Deezer, France's #1 music streaming service.

Marc Brandsma - co founder of Netvibes and now also angel investing.

Stefan Tirtey of Doughty Hanson Ventures, who are active in early stage throughout Europe and Stefan is based in Germany.

Congratulations to all the teams who took part and thanks to all the mentors and our sponsors, Microsoft France, Cap Digital, Elias Partners, Sun Startup Essentials, and UKTI GEP.