The VC Business Is Going Through A Big Change In Europe
In this post, we talk about how the venture capital industry is going through a change, perhaps one of the biggest it has had, since its founding days. By change we mean how the potential of business is diminishing to ever more smaller investors, such as angel investors. We talked about this choice from an entrepreneurs' point of view in more detail in a post back in December. Some investors in Northern Europe have gone as far as stopping new investments altogether.
MediSapiens Bets On Big Data To Cure Cancer
"Harvard spinoff promises genome sequencing for $30"
This was the headline from FierceBiotech Research, a biotech journal. It's also a game changing development for the industry as a whole and part of a bigger trend of personalized cancer medicine. The first time scientists sequenced a human genome it cost $ 3 billion. Then it went to $ 6 million (2006), then $ 60,000 (2008), in June 2009 Illumina pushed it to $ 20,000, Nov 6 2009 Complete Genomics promised $ 4,400. The prediction for the coming year? $ 1,000 in 2-3 years and further down to $ 100 in 5-10 years.
Eqvitec Gives Voddler A 2.5 Million Euro Boost
Eqvitec Technology Fund III has invested a hefty 26 million Swedish Kronors (about 2.55 million euro) into Voddler, a Swedish startup looking to disrupt the way we watch movies at home. Hadar Cars, a partner of Eqvitec will join the Voddler board with the investment. This is great news for the whole ecosystem as consumer internet had been a little less active in terms of investments in the recent quarters. Also, another sign of this investment for the ecosystem is its size, if there is potential - investors are willing to invest and with Voddler's 26 million Kronor investment it has been proven.
Picodeon Sells Coldlab Deposition Technology Also For Cleantech
Despite of our arctic geographical location in Finland, we have a technology link for a global solar energy market. The advanced coating technology companies like BraggOne, Beneq and Picodeon offer solutions also for thin film PV and cell industry. It is worth pointing out that based on nanotechnology, all of these companies have wide-range of applications also for other industries than cleantech.
Picoden Coldlab laser deposition technology is a disruptive coating and thin film deposition technology. It can deposit virtually any type of layer onto any material. The company sells a solution which is a combination of licenses (IPR), hardware tailored for the application as well as engineering and coating services.
IdeaForum 2008 Pitch Competition Open - Good Prizes
IdeaForum is a pitching competition being organised by Venture Cup Finland on the 29th of October in Helsinki. The idea is simple of course, you have two minutes to pitch your idea to a group of investors (the jury) and you cannot use any additional materials, except for a piece of paper (or perhaps you have the product available at hand).
If you wish to participate, you should send in your details by the 27th of October to this address including participant's name, phone number and the idea that is going to be presented. Participants will be contacted by phone. The grand prize for two minutes' of work is 1000€.
The jury is made up of five people, Moaffak Ahmed (Veturi Growth Partners), Teemu Seppälä (Helsinki University of Technology/Innovation centre), Petri Laine (Vera Venture), Juho Kinnunen (Eqvitec) and Antti Vilpponen (ArcticStartup). More information on the event here (the english part is at the bottom).
