Posts tagged:

saul klein

Calling All Nordic And Baltic Angel Investors

by Ville Vesterinen, December 22, 2009 — 6 Comments

angelThere’s been a lot of talk lately about angel investing or the lack of thereof, and I think the time is finally ripe for it to raise its head here in the Nordics and Baltics.

I just recently talked to Petteri Koponen of Lifeline Ventures, who came back from the first SeedSummit that took place in London and was put together by the good people at Seedcamp. It’s a new initiative that twice a year brings together a critical mass of Europe’s most active seed investors to try and establish a stronger, more cohesive network to support entrepreneurs across the continent.

We welcome the initiative. If its needed generally in Europe, the Nordics and Baltics are literally screaming for such an initiative.

The other angel investor coming from our neck of the woods who was present was who else than the other Jaiku co-founder, Jyri Engeström. Other angels present included  Jeff Clavier, Martin Varsavsky, Brent Hoberman, Lukasz Gadowski, Stefan Glaenzer, Dave McClure, Andy Philips, William Reeve, Robin Klein and Sherry Coutu. A hefty list.

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Nokia To Acquire Finnish Startup Dopplr

by Antti Vilpponen, September 24, 2009 — 1 Comment

dopplr logoThere are rumours circulating the web that Nokia is to acquire Dopplr. Rumours started when TechCrunch posted a post on this. Nokia apparently moved in for the scoop when Dopplr was looking for a round of financing. The supposed price Nokia paid is between 10 and 15 million euros.

Despite having its headquarters in London, the company is very much based in Finland. Inoa, one of the free registries to Finnish companies, state that the board members are Marko Ahtisaari, Matt Biddulph, Tyler Brule, Saul Klein and the board is directed by Lisa Sounio.
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RunToShop Closes Financing Round

by Antti Vilpponen, December 18, 2008 — 1 Comment

Taneli Tikka, the CEO of RunToShop, has just announced on his blog that they have closed a financing round with RunToShop. The investment round was lead by VeraVenture, the Finnish gov’t investment fund. Taneli writes that this is their largest round yet and together with VeraVenture, there were 8 business angels additionally in the investment round.

There is no disclosure on the sum invested, but since RunToShop is able to go through all of next year easily and be backed for the internationalisation of the company – it can be can be considered to be a relatively high one. Together with the announcement, Taneli tells that RunToShop is now hiring concept designers and developers to help them take the idea further.

Despite the economic downturn, this is a very welcome investment round to spark up the entrepreneurial scene here in the Nordics. Perfect proof of the fact that, just as Joi and Saul told earlier, even in difficult times venture capitalists and investors do business.

Saul Klein On Business Models And Downturn

by Antti Vilpponen, December 12, 2008 — Leave a Comment

Saul Klein, the founder of Seedcamp and a partner in Index Ventures, had a little chat with Ville in Le Web about the current economic downturn and what that means for startups. There’s a lot that we agree with, for example the focus on the business model – if investors aren’t paying you, the customers have to be. Cash is king in times of despair and you need it from someone.

Like always, comments are more than welcome.

Dopplr Secures Financing From a Star Line-Up

by Antti Vilpponen, September 16, 2008 — 3 Comments

Dopplr, the Helsinki and London based startup, has secured second round financing from a very admirable group of investors including Esther Dyson, Tyler Brûlé, Thomas Glocer, Yat Siu, Aditya dev Sood, Lars Hinrichs, Joshua Schachter, Brian Behlendorf, Ami Hasan, Daniel Sachs, Joshua Cooper Ramo, Kim Weckström, and Azeem Azhar. Saul Klein, who invested in this round, also invested in the previous round together with Martin Varsavsky, Reid Hoffman and Joichi Ito.

“Dopplr is leading the way in intention sharing services online. It is valuable to know where your trusted friends and colleagues will be, and where you could meet them next,” said Lisa Sounio, CEO of Dopplr. “Partner brands on Dopplr will also give you relevant information and offers tailored to you. For example, when you tell Dopplr your plans to go to Hong Kong, you might get the latest intelligence from Monocle and offers from boutique hotels picked by Mr and Mrs Smith.”

Despite seeing a lot of attention from both the press and investors, there are some questions that people look answers for. One cannot miss the (despite somewhat questionable) data from Compete.com. According to Compete.com, Dopplr reached just over 50k UVs in August. If you’re making money from commissions on hotel bookings and such, you need a lot more traffic to make the business model work and therefore focusing on such a small group of people travelling so much might be difficult. Furthermore, Mike Butcher at Techcrunch UK makes a solid point about the dilution of ownership with so many investors. It could be that once you get enough popular investors on board, the odds of you failing are smaller as these investors are looking forwards to making a return (hence they echo the name as much as possible).

Having these questions answered would be interesting, but nevertheless you have to give it to the Dopplr team for getting financed in such a tight market – we haven’t heard that many similar stories lately.