Reshma Sohoni, co-founder & Partner - Seedcamp

@rsohoni

reshma@seedcamp.com

European Entrepreneurship & Innovation (ME421)

Stanford Engineering School

March 5 2012

About Me

• Born in India

• Grew up, studied and worked in the US in business and tech (M&A and incubator 1.0)

• Moved to Europe for MBA, worked in Corporate, back to VC for 6 mos, started Seedcamp

So – what is Seedcamp?

Seedcamp – catalyzing Europe!

• The #1 European startup accelerator – Funded (unique) by the VCs and Angels across Europe

– 1.500 mentors active annually

– 200 companies mentored annually (500+ total)

– 20 investments made annually

– 12 Events across EMEA/US annually (40+ total)

– Wide reach beyond our portfolio

• Active in all of Europe and beyond – Finland to Italy, Spain to Croatia, Canada to Brazil

– From idea stage to great products

– Awesome founders, always.

Process

Preparation Application

Mini Seedcamp Seedcamp Portfolio

Program Timeline

• Mini Seedcamp – Monthly, one major startup city in Europe

– 20 Teams, 80 Mentors from the industry

– Average of 2 Investments

• Monthly Seedcamp Days – In London, by topic, with experts from the network

• Seedcamp Week – London, September – 500 mentors, experts, speakers

– Huge Demo Day and many networking events

• Seedcamp US roadshow

Kyko

22 companies in SC 1

33 companies in SC 2

CROWD

Blossom.io

Success Stats

• Growing a great group of startups – 60 portfolio companies

– More than $45 million raised by companies

– Employing 400+ across portfolio of companies

– Several category leaders

• Basekit, Boxed Ice, EDITD, ERPLY, GrabCAD, LOOKK, Mybuilder, Ubervu, Zemanta

• Strong partners to grow further – Reach: Startup competitions

– Support: Local partners like 500startups in Valley

– Funding: Partnership with Angellist

– Access: Sponsorship & support from GOOG, MS, FB

Challenges – US as one part of

the arsenal

• Mini Seedcamp New York – Mostly European Teams, connecting with our mentor base

• Strong connections since start – Investors in SC companies, friends of Seedcamp:

• Atlas, USV, IA Ventures, 500startups, Redpoint, Matrix, many angels

– Partnerships with HQ, not European divisions

• Seedcamp US roadshow – 3 weeks of meetings – 1 week East – 4sq, NYSE, mongoDB, USV, Betaworks, ETSY

– 2 weeks West – Goog, FB, LinkedIn, Twitter, i/o, 500, etc

– Rest – Microsoft, Amazon, Qualcomm, finale at SXSW

What’s up in Europe?

Exits are birthing new angels

Big M&A:

Small M&A:

US VCs have noticed

Plink

Huge numbers of events and

hackathons Competitions

Hackathons

Training Accelerators

Several hot spots

• London is number 1 in Europe, all ingredients: – Startup successes = experienced entrepreneurs and Angels

– Tech ecosystem = talent, customers, partners, acquirers

– Diversity = Local talent, universities, creatives

– Finance ecosystem = angels, VCs, LPs, later stage finance

• Berlin is catching up and has a major cool appeal – Startup successes = the much hated copycats and others

– Ecosystem is growing = place to be in DE, but no industry

– Diversity = lots of talent, creatives, cheap labour

– Financial Ecosystem is nascent, but no place is far

Hotspots, c’td

• Paris is still very local – Strong scene, great design and creativity

– Few connections to outside, but starting to improve

• Vienna is surprisingly active in the south – Austria, Slovenia, Turkey, Italy, etc close by

• Estonia has its own Skype Mafia – 4 of 20 SC investments in the last year

– Great talent & infrastructure in Baltics (Skype, Nokia, Rovio)

Not Silicon Valley, but our own local color

Some portfolio companies

EDITD – Bloomberg for Fashion

• Big data geek & fashion designer – Large scale thinking about industry trends

– Skills and insights in place

• Fashion is changing – 8 seasons per year – move fast, adjust

faster

– Competition driven market – copy or die

– Social is driver & multiplier – understand or vanish

• Success – Great customers (brands, retailers,

designers, agencies)

– Great investors

GrabCAD – worlds biggest engineering team

• Outsourcing mechanical Engineering (CAD) – Market place for 3D designers,

mech. Eng.

• Estonian Mafia – local talent – Former Skype engineers & design

– Mechanical engineers as founding team understood issues

• Worldwide market – Starts w/ smaller projects, growing

in size

– Competitions bring PR and great coops

• Great progress and Investors – Atlas, Matrix,

– now over 40K Engineers!

Vox.io – real browser telephony

• Team of former Slovenian Telco engineers – Very relevant local experience

– In SF at the moment – hiring!

• Use social paradigms for telephone – Vox.io/albert

– Linkify, short URLS, one-time codes

– Think bit.ly for your phone

• Industry ripe for 2nd wave – Skype huge but slow

– Mobile a big item

Transferwise – p2p FX

• Very European problem (GBP, EUR, CHF)

– Transfers a daily issue between currencies

– Currency gap because of little innovation in banking

• Cut out the middle man – Virtual transfer between individuals, match

and leave

– FSA regulated = trust + access to mid market rates

• Great team with relevant background – First non-founder employee of Skype

(=currency issues)

– Fin Services advisor and experts

Thanks for having me

Contact me any time

reshma@seedcamp.com

@rsohoni