SCALEit Accelerator Program Will Take 10 Danish Startups To The Valley
SCALEit is a new startup accelerator program aimed towards entrepreneurs in Denmark. The program is looking for 10 of the most promising Danish tech startups to take to Silicon Valley for an all-inclusive 12-week crusade that will help the companies set up a US presence, create strategies for the US market, become investor ready and ultimately compete on a global level.
During the three-month program, SCALEit will provide the selected startups with everything from knowhow and guidance to mentors, office facilities, transportation, events, workshops and investor meetings. Unlike most accelerators, SCALEit will not ask for equity from the participating companies but taking part in the program does cost 100,000 DKK per startup.
Mobile Computing Revolution
Mobile computing is said to be the third step in the evolution away from smartphones, according to a recent report by Morgan Keegan. We got our hands on this as part of our partnership with Nexit Ventures, who know this stuff by hard and have realised the potential there is in the market place. Mobile computing is thought to be the next step after the mobile investment theme, which succeeded the smartphone investment theme. Why is this significant then for investors and entrepreneurs alike?
Applifier Making The Move To The Valley
Applifier is making the move to the valley, as soon as Jussi Laakkonen, the CEO can get his visa from the US embassy. He has basically packed his bags and his waiting for that one document to arrive before boarding the plane. Applifier isn't completely shifting focus to the valley, although they're putting a lot of effort into it. Jussi Laakkonen will be the first to go for now and he'll be focusing on business development and building the US side of sales and relationships for Applifier. They've also hired a person to help out with business development on the valley side.
Thinglink Raises 1M USD From Inventure And Lifeline Ventures
Thinglink, a Finnish product tagging startup based in Helsinki/Palo Alto (see our previous coverage), has just announced it has raised USD 1 million in funding from Nordic Inventure and Lifeline Ventures. The funding will be used to develop in-image product advertising network for brands, retailers and other product advertisers. The firm's reference customers include the Scandinavian media house Aller, the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE (Wenzel’s Antique Road Show), and interior design brand Artek.
Clean Nordic Power Seeding A Brand In Silicon Valley
Nordic and Estonian cleantech companies showed off their latest innovations in smart grid, biofuels, renewable energy, green building and water management in Silicon Valley last week at Nordic Green II. The event, hosted by research institute SRI International in Menlo Park, attracted over 250 participants but only a fraction were startups.
Eagle Wind Power from Lahti was the only Finnish startup present. Eagle offers an innovative wind turbine technology for households, farms and small companies. Board member Timo Rapakko revealed that the company is negotiating a five million euro funding round in Finland, part of which will go into completing a manufacturing facility. Denmark and Germany are initial target markets.
Downsides Of Running A Business In The Silicon Valley? (Video)
During our trip to the Silicon Valley we aimed to meet people who have experience from the Northern Europe on one hand, and from the Silicon Valley on the other to get the bottom of the differences between the two places. This is the final post of the series. See also the previous posts on the differences between VC firms, how to enter the US market and our chat with Mårten Mickos.
I talked with two seasoned entrepreneurs, Risto and Markus, who live in Silicon Valley, but are originally from Finland. It was invaluable to hear what Silicon Valley is alike from someone who is not a superstar entrepreneur, but is just like us, a passionate and proud entrepreneur working gradually towards building a successful business. We talked about how is it to run a business in the Silicon Valley and the downsides of the location (yes, there are some). The guys also told us what is the number one best thing about the location. See video below.
Location, Location, Location! Or Timing and Execution?
Remember Zipiko? The service with a "quick and effortless way to see what your friends are doing and a way to invite them to your chosen venue whether it’s it a local cafe or your own place for drinks, lunch or whatever you fancy."
Unfortunately the company that developed Zipiko, namely Zipipop, put the product development on ice already last June and moved on to service the growing Finnish enterprise customer base that is completely and utterly lost with social media wave that has hit the organizations. To scale their operations Zipipop, lead by its energetic CEO Helene Auramo, has teamed up with the former Managing Director of Accenture's Finnish and Nordic offices.
Richard von Kaufmann of Zipipop states in the company blog the following:
Where To Build Your Startup: Differences Between VC Firms (Video)
During our trip to the Silicon Valley we aimed to meet people who have experience from the Northern Europe on one hand, and from the Silicon Valley on the other to get the bottom of the differences between the two places .
Especially we wanted to know what their advice would be for the aspiring young startups that try to figure out whether it's worth to relocate to the Silicon Valley from Nordic or Baltic countries, or whether the whole Silicon Valley hype is just hot air and Northern Europe is just as good a location to build a startup as any.
Here Mia Lewin, a Finn, a former VC and an entrepreneur, talks about the differences between VC firms between Europe and the Silicon Valley, how to figure out where to locate and how Mia herself plans to build her startup and raise funding. See the video below.
Ideal Conditions To Build A High Growth Startup Like Heyzap: Y Combinator & San Francisco?
There's been a lot of talk lately about all kinds of accelerators and Y Combinator like set-ups in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Most recently Aalto Entrepreneurship Society announced that they are in the process of building their own 'Y Combinator', although this would be directed only to Aalto University, which really makes it a university incubator.
Just as much there has been discussion on whether Seedcamp model or Y Combinator like model is the better one (Y Combinator leading the pack at the moment), the respective differences and most importantly whether you need to be a Paul Graham to make it work. And even the workings of Y Combinator model has been under strong scrutiny by those who don't believe before they see the first major exit.
Building The Infamous Bridge
As long as I can remember there's been talk about building a bridge between Silicon Valley and one of the many want-to-be-a-startup-hubs. Several locations have taken turns building this golden bridge, which has come to be the holy grail of every emerging technology hub regardless of the nationality. There's many who have tried their luck including China, Israel, Bangalore and earlier on even Helsinki to just name a few. It has been studied to death and visited by the ministers, mayors, professors and venture capitalist, all trying to figure out how their respective institution, city or country could become like the Valley or at least enjoy the benefit from a distance.
Video Interview With Artturi Tarjanne of Nexit Ventures (Part I)
Venture Capital is in flux. Some say it's frozen over and funds are pulling back, and some say it's the best time to invest and find the next Googles and Facebooks. Everyone, including us , has an opinion on the topic.
Earlier this week I talked to Artturi Tarjanne of Nexit Ventures and asked what Nexit is doing in the current down market. Tarjanne has been one of the most active actors in the Finnish venture capital market and pivotal in building the emerging US-style venture capital market in Finland. We talked about how Tarjanne ended up to be a venture capitalist, what lead to Limbo to merge with Brightkite and why Nexit Ventures operates in two very different locations: here in the Nordics as well as in the Silicon Valley. We also discussed Nexit's investment strategy and how they see the current handset market. Check out the video below.
BootstrapLabs To Take Prezi To The Promised Land
"Prezi is one of the most exciting companies I have worked with during my 13 years as a serial Entrepreneur, and I see great opportunities for Prezi in the US and Silicon Valley, and I think that Microsoft and Google should watch Prezi closely, because Prezi is disrupting the way we present information."
- Nicolai Wadstrom, CEO and founder of BootstrapLabs (The complete press release here).
Prezi, the recently launched online zooming presentation tool, has entered into an agreement with BootsrapLabs to help them establish a US presence. Nicolai Wadstrom could hardly hide his excitement when I met with him last week. I couldn't agree with him more, as I've written about Prezi earlier.
What is BootstrapLabs?
BootstrapLabs, as the name states, is a company to bootstrap and serve as an out-post for non-us companies wanting to establish in the US and Silicon Valley, i.e. your company's home away from home, including offices and expertise.
Swedish Startups in the Valley
Saplo's founder and CEO Mattias Tyrberg tipped us that Saplo, the Swedish semantic text processing technology firm, and a winner of Seedcamp, is going to participate in two VC events in California (previous coverage of Saplo). While in the area, Mattias and Fredrik Hörte from Saplo will also visit a few big firms like Google and Facebook, and look for other potential partners, customers, and investors.
The first event is Mini Seedcamp, which aims to give the startups a chance to meet face-to-face with the local startup and investor scene, and discuss anything from their product to investments. Seedcamp hopes to give the Valley folks better understanding of European startups, and show the participating European startups the US entrepreneurship culture in action, and help them connect with advisors and mentors.
Another event is organized by Invest in Sweden Agency North America (ISA). ISA has gathered a delegation of 20 Swedish early stage wireless, IT, electronics, and internet startups seeking risk capital, and takes them in front of some of the biggest VC firms in the US. The event takes place tomorrow November 11th in Menlo Park, CA. ISA is reporting to the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and markets Sweden, its industry clusters, funds and individual businesses to North American companies and investors.
The European Landscape For Startups
Occasionally we intentionally divert from our primary focus on reviewing and reporting on internet and mobile software startups and growth entrepreneurship in and from the Nordic and Baltic countries to examine the European, the Baltic and the Nordic landscape for the entrepreneurs. Here's another take on the issue.
Dirk Van Quaquebeke, the founder of Tailor Nation (Facebook app here), talked to me about his experiences on running a startup while working at the same time in Deutsche Bank, where to set up your startup and whether London is the startup hub you should go to as an entrepreneur.
When I asked what would he do if given the chance to do a startup anywhere, Dirk said 1) do an MBA in IIM in India (given one is a business guy). 2) While at it build a team around you since you get access to the great talent pool while in India. 3) Given there's three founders, one stays offshore production center at India 4) pay people well & even incentivize some through equity 5) build a sales force through the founders located onshore like London (given its a product that needs a sales force).
Dirk emphasized that London is mainly a PR center where its rather expensive to live (something I can assure!), thus living in somewhere else like Copenhagen or Berlin might be equally good or even better option. He also pointed out that you can do development across the time zones, but if you can avoid it do so because you will be much more efficient.
I will disagree with Dirk especially on the MBA bit -if you do an MBA you will most likely rationalize yourself out of all the big ideas and dreams you had, and even if you can stick to your dreams the socialization effect among the MBA students will lure you to the nice (yet bored out of your mind) life at McKinsey. Naturally, there are exceptions for example if you have already started a couple of startups and you like to know a bit more about say finance. In the latter case, an MBA might be a good option to meet other like minded people in a place like Stanford and maybe even learn a bit. But as a rule of thump, avoid MBA schools!
What comes to the location, I believe one should build strong ties to the Silicon Valley (something Jyri Engeström, the Jaiku co-fouder, also reiterated) as it can significantly cut the time to market which might make a big difference from the time the window opens to the point where a competitor has already a critical mass and beyond your reach. That said, I still believe one should stick to the community s/he knows be it Copenhagen, London or Helsinki, since culture and support mechanisms like your family and friends make a big difference and if that is not a big enough reason you might loose not only time but also your money while trying to relocate and adjust.
