Seedcamp, the European seed funding network and startup accelerator, came through San Francisco this week as part of its annual multi-city trip to the US. All 18 companies were solid — you can find the full list here — but I pulled aside five of the most compelling startups for one-on-one interviews to get a bit more insight on what they do. → Read More
With the rise of numerous accelerator programs in Europe one cannot help but wonder whether jumping through the application process hoops, sweating through the mentoring sessions and flirting with investors at demo days are all worth a founders’ time.
When I attended the recent Startup Sauna demo day in Helsinki in December 2011, I met teams not only from Finland but also from Russia, Poland and the Baltic Rim. I was amazed how young many of the participating entrepreneurs were. So when the performance stats from Startup Sauna hit my mailbox I was curious to learn what actually happens to all those startups after they complete the seven-weeks-long coaching program in the startup co-working space Aalto Venture Garage.
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Kwaga, a Paris, France-based startup that specializes in tools to make email ‘smarter’ by leveraging semantic technology, has raised $1.55 million in Series A funding. The company, which received seed funding from Seedcamp and Kima Ventures after its founding in 2008, raised the money from unnamed private investors, advised by investment consultancy firm Financière Fonds Privés.
Kwaga aims to build semantic software that will make us love email again and turn it into a productivity enhancer rather than killer. The company’s flagship service, WriteThat.Name, for instance automatically updates a user’s address book based on the information contained in the messages received. → Read More
Kwaga, a Paris, France-based startup that specializes in tools to make email ‘smarter’ by leveraging semantic technology, has raised $1.55 million in Series A funding. The company, which received seed funding from Seedcamp and Kima Ventures after its founding in 2008, raised the money from unnamed private investors, advised by investment consultancy firm Financière Fonds Privés.
Kwaga aims to build semantic software that will make us love email again and turn it into a productivity enhancer rather than killer. The company’s flagship service, WriteThat.Name, for instance automatically updates a user’s address book based on the information contained in the messages received. → Read More
Kwaga, a Paris, France-based startup that specializes in tools to make email ‘smarter’ by leveraging semantic technology, has raised $1.55 million in Series A funding. The company, which received seed funding from Seedcamp and Kima Ventures after its founding in 2008, raised the money from unnamed private investors.
Read more at TechCrunch Europe. → Read More
In this, our third installment of “Free Startup Tools”, we wanted to highlight an agreement launched by Seedcamp, the European startup accelerator, to help startup founders negotiate the early stages of building a company. (You can check out our first post on The Founder Institute’s effort to standardize the founder-advisor relationship and compensation here and the second post on a tool that helps founders compare their term sheets to the standards here.)
While we’ve touched on these better ways to negotiate term sheets and relationships with advisors, founding a company also often entails bringing on co-founders to help you build your business. Of course, in doing so, it’s important for co-founders to be able to establish a level of trust that allows each founding member to fairly share in the benefits of success. → Read More
As I wrote last week when Seedcamp made a flurry of announcements, including fresh funding and ambitious plans for international expansion, I spent some time in London last week to get acquainted with a bunch of interesting European startups.
Below is an overview of all 20 Seedcamp Week 2011 finalists, starting with the 3 (well, actually, 4 winners).
But first, it’s worth noting that Seedcamp, which had already financially and otherwise backed 16 of the 20 companies that presented their wares during Seedcamp Week 2011 – over and over, I might add – held interviews with the four remaining startups and decided to inject some seed capital into them, too. So, in a way, everyone kinda sorta ‘won’. → Read More
As I wrote last week when Seedcamp made a flurry of announcements, including fresh funding and ambitious plans for international expansion, I spent some time in London last week to get acquainted with a bunch of interesting European startups.
Below is an overview of all 20 Seedcamp Week 2011 finalists, starting with the 3 (well, actually, 4 winners).
But first, it’s worth noting that Seedcamp, which had already financially and otherwise backed 16 of the 20 companies that presented their wares during Seedcamp Week 2011 – over and over, I might add – held interviews with the four remaining startups and decided to inject some seed capital into them, too. So, in a way, they all sorta kinda ‘won’. → Read More
I’ve spent the past couple of days in London getting caught up in the Seedcamp Week craziness, meeting some of Europe’s finest entrepreneurs and investors. Me and Mike Butcher will soon post a round-up of this year’s finalists (and highlight a few interesting ones separately), but first, Seedcamp has some – actually, a lot of – news of its own to announce today.
The organization, which combines an early-stage seed investment fund with a world-class mentoring program for European entrepreneurs, is expanding by striking a number of international partnerships, setting up new events (Seedhack), establishing an ‘experts-in-residence’ program and an impressive advisory board, raising more funding from a number of new strategic investors and strengthening its offering to fledgling companies with the help of several corporate sponsors. → Read More
What if we could combine top-notch hackers with leaders from across different companies? What if we could bring talented developers from all over Europe to create innovative solutions for organizations or sectors that desperately need them? Could this format potentially form great new startups that address untapped needs?
Those are the three rhetorical questions asked by Seedcamp, the well-known European early-stage seed investment fund and mentoring programme. In its quest to get answers to those questions, the company is organizing a new, totally free event called seedhack, which will be sort of like a hackathon – like the one we organize during TechCrunch Disrupt – but not just for programmers and designers but also for business people (with or without ideas). → Read More
What if we could combine top-notch hackers with leaders from across different companies? What if we could bring talented developers from all over Europe to create innovative solutions for organizations or sectors that desperately need them? Could this format potentially form great new startups that address untapped needs?
Those are the three rhetorical questions asked by Seedcamp, the well-known European early-stage seed investment fund and mentoring programme. In its quest to get answers to those questions, the company is organizing a new, totally free event called seedhack, which will be sort of like a hackaton – like the one we organize during TechCrunch Disrupt – but not just for programmers and designers. → Read More
Something is happening in Europe. The tectonic plates in the startup ecosystem are moving and, like penguins on ice-flows, we all are slithering around trying to get a handle on how things will play out over the next couple of years.
We’re having exits (such as Tweetdeck to Twitter for $40million), large funding rounds (such as Wooga raising $24 million) and higher valuations (like Moshi Monsters).
Events have ramped up considerably. GeeknRolla in London was a blast this year, as was DLD, Founders Forum and the 1,000-strong Dublin Web Summit. And we still have The Europas and Le Web to go.
At the same time the incubator and accelerator scene is booming. A new study named Seedcamp as the top European accelerator with StartupBoootcamp looking like a pretty strong second.
And this week the brand new Oxygen Accelerator in the UK said it would literally give away £75,000 ($84,000 Euro / $120,000) with no equity tie as a prize to the ‘most improved startup on its programme’ (applications close June 30th, apply here).
This goes to show just how white hot the incubator and accelerator market in Europe is right now.
But despite studies I really feel that, amidst the birth pangs of a genuine pan-European tech startup scene, it is far too early to be ranking incubators and accelerators. There remains a huge amount of chaos in the market, and what appears to be a scramble for positions across territories and cities. → Read More
Seedcamp, the London-based startup accelerator program which has been operating in Europe for the past four years, has been named the top European startup accelerator by a year-long independent study. However programmes run by Startupbootcamp in Europe took three of the remaining positions in the top eight named in the study. And three of the eight singled out are based in Ireland. The study was commissioned by the Kauffman Fellows Program in the US. I don’t know about you but I find these results fascinating, and they reveal quite a bit about the European startup scene as it stands today.
Seedcamp was singled out for its “Seedcamp Week” jumpstart where A-List mentors swarm over startups in London and described as the European “gold standard” of accelerator programs, with the biggest number of Alumni and three exits to date.
But Startupbootcamp (also an affiliate of TechStars Network), which has only got going in the last couple of years, appears to be in Seedcamp’s rear-view mirror with its programmes in Spain, Denmark and Ireland. Additional programs will be run in London and Berlin for 2012. They’ve even hired former TechCrunch France editor Roxanne Varza.
The study also found as many as 40 startup incubators in Europe, with 50% of them starting in 2010. → Read More
It’s been over 3.5 years since Seedcamp was launched to help establish Europe as a great place for startups, and how things have changed since then.
From where I’m standing, the European startup scene appears to be alive and kicking, and although we’re still very, very far from Europe being a perfect place to launch a business in many regards, I remain hopeful about the chances of major technology companies booting up around here in the next decade and beyond.
Anyway, Seedcamp is one of the ‘local’ projects I most admire, and today they’re sharing some numbers and facts – long overdue if you ask me – that underline just how important a role they play in the European startup ecosystem. → Read More
Seedcamp, the pan-European micro seed fund and startup accelerator, has announced the winners of its recent startup showcase in Berlin. The two companies beat off competition from 20 finalists, while Seedcamp Berlin had the most applications to-date. Both will join its existing 38 portfolio companies.
So, without further ado, the winners are: → Read More
Last week we announced that Startupbootcamp was spreading it’s wings and conquering more European territory, à la Seedcamp. And yesterday, Seedcamp announced the 18 companies selected to participate in Seedcamp London on January 25th.
According to the blog post published by the team, this event received a record number of applications from across the globe – including India and Australia. And despite the strong majority of UK-based companies on the list (although nowhere near as many UK companies as last year), the 18 teams selected actually represent 9 different countries.
Here’s a rundown on the killer startups who made the cut… → Read More
Like a European AngelList, Seedcamp has put together the new Seedsummit site to showcase largely European Angels – although it does include US ones as well. It’s a sign that Seedcamp is becoming more international and less geographical. The initiative has grown out of a “Seedsummit” event which the programme put together in London last year where Angels chewed the fat about startups. Angel gate? Hardly – more like the first time European Angels had properly met eachother in a dedicated conference. The idea behind it was to help to create a forum for active European seed investors. Quite why it’s taken this long for them do a site off the back of the event is a mystery but those Seedcamp guys do travel a lot. → Read More
Like a European AngelList, Seedcamp has put together the new Seedsummit site to showcase largely European Angels – although it does include US ones as well. It’s a sign that Seedcamp is becoming more international and less geographical. The initiative has grown out of a “Seedsummit” event which the programme put together in London last year where Angels chewed the fat about startups. Angel gate? Hardly – more like the first time European Angels had properly met eachother in a dedicated conference. The idea behind it was to help to create a forum for active European seed investors. Quite why it’s taken this long for them do a site off the back of the event is a mystery but those Seedcamp guys do travel a lot. → Read More
I have no idea why it seems to be “Europe week” for me, but here’s some more news from across the pond: Seedcamp has raised a new €3 million fund. I’m a huge fan of Seedcamp, even though I’ve given the co-founder Saul Klein a hard time about some of its winners in the past.
It is a combination of Y Combinator, a competition like TechCrunch Disrupt and a super angel, but one that aggressively takes itself on the road every month to find the best startups in emerging markets, particularly Eastern Europe. (It’s not unlike my own obsessive emerging market reporting. Oh wait, it’s completely different. They have actual money to invest.)
We caught up with Seedcamp’s other founder Reshma Sohoni to find out more about Seedcamp’s newly enlarged global ambitions. The video is below. → Read More
In this week’s show, we talk to one of our favorite angel investors, Saul Klein, who just wrapped up his third annual Seedcamp in London. In addition to being a partner at the powerful Index Ventures and having a British accent — which lonely expat Paul can’t get enough of– Klein is impressive because he’s one of the only angel investors who has made what is traditionally an intensely local way to invest work globally. He holds mini-Seedcamps all over the world, and the annual London event included entrepreneurs from 16 countries. Just two weeks ago, Fred Wilson gave Klein props as the guy to get to know if you are trying to start a company in a fringe market and don’t have a lot of investing contacts.
In this video, Klein tells us about the overall theme of this year’s Seedcamp, and we dig in on the company we liked the best (Spoiler Alert!) and the company we liked the least (Spoiler Alert!). We then ask him why with so much going on in fast-growing economies in Africa, South America, Asia and the Middle East we should still care about stodgy old London’s tech scene, and he gives a pretty good answer. We wrap up with a discussion about Klein’s latest experiment: He’s relocated to Israel for a year to figure out why returns have fallen off in a country with so much technical and entrepreneurial talent.
Then Paul and Sarah say goodbye to Klein and have a fight about incubators. Paul tells people to get on a plane to the Valley if they want to start a company; Sarah loses it and calls him names. A lot of eye-rolling ensues.
Video below. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
