Engeström Closes $775k Seed Round For Pingpin
The Jaiku co-founder and former Google employee, Jyri Engeström has closed a $775k seed round for his new venture Pingpin. The company is registered in the US and at the same offices as BetaWorks. TechCrunch wrote an extensive story going about the details around the company, which still don't disclose too much information about what they might or might not be up to. BetaWorks and True Ventures as well as Jon Callaghan are listed as the financial backers in the SEC filing.
BetaWorks is a media company with number of investments in companies affiliated with real-time web, contextual web and the social web. Knowing Engeström's interests and experience, a very clear choice of an investor. Jon Callaghan is the managing partner and founder of True Ventures. Along with Jon and Jyri, a third person is listed in the SEC filing, Teemu Ikonen. Ikonen is a Finn who has extensive knowledge of the mobile space through companies such as First Hop.
At the company website, pingpin.com, you're able to see nothing but a landing page with a query for leaving your e-mail address. Once you leave your e-mail address you're able to play a little balloon game.
The confirmation message reads "You’ll be notified at xxx when Pingpin becomes available on the App Store." Sneaking a little bit of information there, but not much. Clearly they're building something for the Apple product environment. Engeström has built a wide understanding of mobile based social and location based technologies, not only with Jaiku but also with other products he worked with in Google after selling Jaiku to them in 2007.
There is however, one clear sign that us Finns should take notice of. It's the fact that Engeström's company is founded in the US. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's something we should stop think about for a minute. If successful entrepreneurs begin in growing amounts to start their businesses overseas - our culture of serial entrepreneurs will corrode.
For disclosure, I'm also an advocate of the saying, "be patriotic at your own time", meaning business shouldn't have anything to do with where you're from - capitalise where you're capable of doing it best. It's up to us (Finns, Nordic & Baltic governments) to create the incentives for such an environment that no matter where you do business, you'd want to register your company in one of the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Another nugget of information from @jyri's tweet: "Raised a round from @trueventures & @betaworks for new way to bring people together in realtime on mobile"
I think we have to accept that a portion of Finnish entrepreneurs in certain spaces will go to the US. It's simply easier to build teams there. That said, we don't need everyone to stay or everyone to spend all their time working here for the net effect to be very positive. As far as I'm aware, Thinglink is, if not incorporated in Finland, still based here partly. And Petteri Koponen is also active here with Lifeline Ventures and investing.
So the whole Jaiku thing still benefits Finland greatly even with Jyri in the Valley much of the time. That's likely to be a trend but I think it's okay.
I've founded one company in the U.S. and learned that it's very easy and cheap to do. You don't have to necessarily live there, as getting a proper visa can be a real headache. There are many online services you can do this even remotely, then you need a local accountant and a bank account. That's about it.
I'm not going into deeper analysis, but any entrepreneur starting a "born global" business, should think about a moment in which country to incorporate your company. If you are after the U.S. venture capital, you should start there - but then you can forget about Finnish public funding sources (which is not necessarily a bad thing in case you have other options). Being only virtually there works only for a limited time, of course.
I don't see much of Finnish startup entrepreneurs using the opportunities within the EU either. If your business needs to be localized by each country, Finland is one of the worst options for consumer business.
Why not start with for example Germany? Sure, you need to do some homework and language localization, but the market is big enough to have niches which bring you enough money from very early stage. What I've learned from doing business in Germany, they appreciate Finnish know-how a lot and everybody in the online media and tech business speak sufficient English.
Exciting. Congrats Jyri!