GeeknRolla 2011, March 30, London – Here's our line-up

GeeknRolla [tickets here] is the annual conference to bring together Europe’s technology startups to network with investors and talk about how they create and build themselves. The watchwords are: Launch startups; give investors dealflow.

As with last year there is a special emphasis on launching startups and connecting them with investors, who will comprise our judging panels. There will also be a “DemoRolla” area of demo tables for startups to showcase their products. The venue will be Park Plaza Victoria, 239 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 1EQ. The now legendary GeeknRolla Afterparty, which will take place at the amazing, world-famous London nightclub, Pacha, will also help the networking. Ticket holders for the main day-long conference will automatically get in to the after-party, so fear not! We will release a limited amount of After-Party-only tickets shortly. Details of how to get these will be available in due course, so stay tuned to the GeeknRolla Twitter feed and the event web site. For sponsorship opportunities please email events director Aléna Dundas ( alena [@] beta.techcrunch.com ) for further details. You can follow any specific updates on the GeeknRolla twitter feed.

I’d strongly advise you get a ticket. Last year we more than sold out. To attend the event, tickets will be only £149. Thus is a stunning price for a conference of this nature. See who we had to speak last year and check out all the video.

Huge thanks to our lead sponsors a href=”http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com”>Microsoft BizSpark, Moonfruit, TechHub and our streaming media partner Bambuser.

PROGRAMME:

• 09.00
WELCOME
Mike Butcher, TechCrunch Europe

• 09.05
KEYNOTE
Dave McClure, 500 Startups
“Startup Pirates”

• 09.30
CONVERSATION
Martin Varsavsky (founder of Fon) via video skype
“On Europe”

• 09.45
“SPEED SPEECH”
Michelle You, Co-founder Songkick
“Product management for start-ups. 10 things I wish I’d known at the beginning”

• 10.00
STARTUP COMPETITION LAUNCH PITCHES
Judges:
Lea Bajc, Northzone Ventures
Michael Jackson, Mangrove Capital
Alex McCracken, Silicon Valley Bank
Bindi Karia, Microsoft BizSpark

• 10.25
SPEED PANEL
“Sorting the Shysters from the Meisters”
(Or – Making the motley crew of mentors and Non-Execs work better for European startups)
Lucy P. Marcus, CEO, Marcus Venture
Reshma Sohoni, CEO, Seedcamp
Jon Bradford, Springboard
Ben Tompkins, Eden Ventures
Moderated by:
Milo Yiannopoulos, Daily Telegraph

• 10.55
SPEED SPEECH
Wendy Tan White, Co-founder, Moonfruit
“Money Makes You Lazy!”

• 11.10
COFFEE BREAK

• 11.30
STARTUP COMPETITION LAUNCH PITCHES
Judges:
Avid Larizadeh, Boticca
Spencer Lazar, Accel Partners
Tom Hulme IDEO/HackFwd
Thai Tran, Lightbox

• 11.55
FIRESIDE CONVERSATION
Josh Williams, Gowalla
Moderated by Jemima Kiss, The Guardian

• 12.20
SPEED SPEECH
Azeem Azhar, Peer Index
“The future of social reputation”

• 12.35
SPEED PANEL
“The Demon Seed – Where is early stage and follow-on funding heading in Europe?”
Jeremie Berrebi, KIMA Ventures
Edward Shenderovich, Kite Ventures
Stefan Glaenzer, White Bear Yard
Paul Jozefak, Neuhaus Partners
Moderated by: TBC

• 13.05
LUNCH

• 14.15
GEEKNROLLA GRAD SCHOOL
We hear the latest news from the last year’s hottest startups.

Panel providing commentary:
Alex Hoye, Angel
Eileen Burbidge, White Bear Yard
Juan Lopez Valcarcel, Pearson Digital
Nic Brisbourne, DFJ Esprit

• 14.35
KEYNOTE
Morten Lund, TradeShift / EverBread
“The Entrepreneur”

• 15.00
SPEED SPEECH
Benjamin Joffe, CEO, +8* – Founding Partner, Cmune
“Asian Eye for the Startup Guy”

• 15.15
KEYNOTE
Errol Damelin – Founder and CEO, Wonga
“The future of money in a realtime world”

• 15.40
COFFEE BREAK

• 16.00
KEYNOTE
Tariq Krim, Jolicloud
“Cloud apps – what’s next”

• 16.25
SPEED PANEL
“Silicon Roundabout – Mythical hype or Tech City foundations?”
Paddy Cosgrave, Dublin entrepreneur, founder of F.ounders
Hussein Kanji, VC
Elizabeth Varley, CEO TechHub
Anthony Browne, Chief Economic Advisor to the Mayor, Greater London Authority
Moderated by: Tim Bradshaw, The Financial Times

• 17.00
SPEED PANEL
“Exit stage left – Exits in Europe”
Iain Dodsworth, Tweetdeck
Brent Hoberman, PROFounders
Rich Martell, Floxx
Tommy Ahlers
Moderated by: David Rowan, Editor, Wired UK

17.35:
• DemoPit Judges Josh Bell, Robert Dighero report back on “DemoRolla” companies

• Announcement of GeeknRolla Startup Competition Winners
• Closing remarks and end of conference

• 19.30
After Party, Pacha

LEAD SPONSORS

Microsoft® BizSpark™


Microsoft® BizSpark™ is a global program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage startups by providing key resources when they need it the most:

Software. Receive fast and easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools, platform technologies, and production licenses of server products for immediate use in developing and bringing to market innovative and interoperable solutions. There is no upfront cost to enroll.

Support. Get connected to Network Partners around the world — incubators, investors, advisors, government agencies and hosters — that are equally involved and vested in software-fueled innovation and entrepreneurship who will provide a wide range of support resources.

Visibility. Achieve global visibility to an audience of potential investors, clients and partners As a Microsoft BizSpark member, you’ll be tapping into a rich, vibrant ecosystem of peers, partners and support resources around the globe, helping you grow and succeed. Microsoft BizSpark is the quickest way to get your Startup fired up.

Joining is easy. Check to see if you qualify – most privately held software development startups in business for less than 3 years that are generating annual revenue under USD $1 million can join. You can join BizSpark through a valid BizSpark Network Partner or a Microsoft BizSpark Champ to get your BizSpark enrollment code. Enrollment is free, just pay a USD $100 program offering fee at program exit. For more details about BizSpark, see: The Startup Program Guide , which describes the program benefits and more. If you want to join BizSpark, click on the link below or send an email to BizSpark@microsoft.com if you are eligible, we will send you a code. www.microsoftstartupzone.com

Moonfruit has been providing DIY tools for people to design and build ‘Beautiful websites, simply.’ since 1999. To date 2.7m+ websites have been built by small businesses, communities, families, designers, crafters and freelancers who want to express themselves online without having to code. Moonfruit is passionate about creativity and simplifying technology for everyone. Our latest release Moonfruit 5.0 is not just a website editor, it behaves more like a graphic design package giving you control over the detailed design of your site. The Flash environment allows true drag and drop, point and click editing. You can layer, crop, animate, colour, apply transparency to objects on your page. You can also now add HTML widgets and social media tools to your sites. All sites are rendered in Flash and an alternate version in HTML. Moonfruit has been profitable since 2003 and grew 70% in 2009. Please go to www.moonfruit.com for more information.


DFJ Esprit: At DFJ Esprit we believe that good venture capital begins with good judgement and good relationships. Our partners have a track record of helping entrepreneurs to make their companies successful. In today’s world the best businesses have global ambitions from day one and the best venture funds have the networks to support those ambitions. DFJ Esprit is a member of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Global Network, the largest venture capital network in the world with 140 investment professionals and over 600 portfolio companies. DFJ Esprit is a single team of partners all of whom benefit from and contribute to the success of our investments. We are entrepreneurs ourselves and we are proud to have built our firm to its current size and are passionate about continually moving forward, which means backing winning companies and doing everything we can to help them achieve and exceed their ambitions.


TechHub (@TechHub on Twitter) is the new hub for the technology community. Just 10 seconds walk from Old Street tube station, TechHub London is aimed specifically at technology entrepreneurs, startups and developers. Inside London’s main technology cluster and close to the financial heart, it offers affordable permanent desk spaces, a large member-based co-working area, meeting rooms for hire, a large board room and a conference/event space for up to 200 people. You can work all day on the 100mbs WiFi and connect with a great community of TechHub members. TechHub runs its own events as well as being available to hire for tech or developer events, conferences or meetups. Members are already joining TechHub from all over Europe, Silicon Valley, the Middle East and Asia to use TechHub as a base when they’re in London and we’re arranging Member discounts at some of the great bars, restaurants, cafes and hotels in the area too. TechHub facilities include: 30 permanent desk spaces for monthly hire, 100 pre-bookable co-working spaces, meeting rooms for hire by anyone (discounted for TechHub members), A/V, whiteboards, kitchen facilities and printing. Permanent deskspaces come with wifi/wired data, power and a mailing address. Contact us here. Join the mailing list to get regular updates here. Address: TechHub, Ground Floor, 76-80 City Rd, London, EC1Y 2BJ. Old St tube (exit 5) and a short walk from Moorgate Tube, Liverpool Street mainlines station, and close to taxis and buses.

STREAMING MEDIA PARTNER

Bambuser offers a service that gives its users the opportunity to stream live video from a mobile phone or web-cam using 3G or WiFi network. The simplicity of the application and the unlimited mobility gives you the opportunity to instantly share your experience with your viewers and interact and communicate through the web- to-mobile chat. Share the world, Live and Mobile with Bambuser, visit www.bambuser.com. Bambuser is drawing comparisons to mobile videocasting service Qik. The major difference is the lower latency that bambuser offers due to different technical approaches. Another difference between the services is that Bambuser offers streaming both from your computer and mobile, while Qik only allows streaming from the mobile. In October 2009 Bambuser was the first of the live streaming start-ups to allow users to stream video directly from their mobiles to their Facebook Wall.

MEDIA PARTNER