Every year the World Economic Forum takes place in Davos. This global event was founded in 1971 by Klaus Schwab and has now become the global platform where business executives, political leaders, activists and thought leaders get together to improve the state of the world. Wide arrays of topics are discussed and this year entrepreneurship took the centre stage in many discussions. Below follows a synthesis of the role of entrepreneurship in 2011 and the future to improve the global economy and society. Entrepreneurship in Medvedev’s Keynote speech
Entrepreneurship not only took the centre stage at the forum but has been mentioned from the beginning as Russia’s President Medvedev opened up the annual meeting with his keynote speech. His words made it clear that the private sector not only solves crisis in the short term but is the only way forward in the longer term. Russia is trying to develop innovative entrepreneurship by creating a “Russian Silicon Valley” called Skolkovo, previously mentioned in our blog. In addition new legislation is being drafted to foster entrepreneurship to allow new ventures to have “preferential treatment”. From Russia to The Entrepreneurship ImperativeThe Entrepreneurship Imperative has been the title of a panel where the importance of taught entrepreneurship was discussed. The panel argued that entrepreneurship needs to be taught not as a subject but as a state of mind on a global level. From primary education to business schools a model where risk taking is encouraged alongside sustainable development and the generation of entrepreneurs rather than managers. Another key issue discussed was the idea that in order to be a sustainable entrepreneur one needs to be able to deal with failure understanding that the world’s success stories are the point of a much bigger iceberg. In addition role models are encouraged to take an active participation in fostering entrepreneurship and teaching that the importance of new ventures is not only money but job creation and the spread of certain values. An important fact from the panel is that SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises) are the top employers in the world, not multinational corporations! Entrepreneurship as the Pillar for the Middle-East growthThe Middle-East is “blessed” with a young and fast growing population, but this can be a double-edge sword if there is little job creation. Further this region has a climate that limits supply of water and food. Some countries are blessed with oil and gas fields, but these will not last forever. Innovative entrepreneurship in the fields of water and agriculture as well as in major tech and biotech industries are seen as a must for this region to increase employment and steer away from social unrest. This panel of experts discussed the importance of teaching entrepreneurship related skills to foster this body of knowledge and parity of opportunities to both genders and all income groups. The panel also reinforced that the legal structures and institutions that are in place in these countries should shift to create a better environment for taking risks, creating new ventures and ease bankruptcy procedure. Scaling-up Big Ideas & Social EntrepreneurshipBig ideas and social entrepreneurship are a hard match, but very possible according to this panel, what is needed is a pinch of help from multinationals and some willingness to give away some control. It’s a challenge to set up local social ventures and survive for long, so one can imagine the challenge it can be to scale existing social ventures to reach more people in dispersed geographic locations. The panel spoke of two examples where social entrepreneurs teamed up with corporations to implement social projects. The first example given was Coca-Cola producing the “ Mango Haiti Hope Juice” while the second example was with Cemex selling concrete at cost to develop communities where the people put in their labour. The reality is that in both example the social entrepreneurs had to make the sacrifices to give away a lot of the power in order for the projects to be carried ahead. In order to scale in such a manner or by creating partnerships and franchises the social entrepreneur must give away some control and power for the good of the project. Listed were some of the insights into entrepreneurship at Davos and what the world intellectual elite is thinking. Some ongoing themes appear that entrepreneurship is what keeps countries growing by providing jobs and in turns diminishes the chances of social unrest. In parallel, policies, decisions and actions that impede entrepreneurship are harmful on a short and long term perspective. The real issue though is not whether entrepreneurship is bad or good or if it should or shouldn’t be implemented. The question is how can entrepreneurship values be taught to increase the rate of entrepreneurship and the positive values around it?
Our Venturepreneurs are individuals with great insight into the world of entrepreneurship, start-ups, investments and much more. For this reason the first Venturepreneurs’ Organization Online Video Channel has been created with the intention of recording these valuable insights and allowing viewers to learn from this content. The channel will feature various topics, from Company Creation to M&A to Team Management. Below is a list of the first Venturepreneurs who have been interviewed: Christopher Pommerening – German Founding Managing Partner of Active Venture Capital, also Founder of the Venturepreneurs’ Organization explains why the Venturepreneur is the ideal investor for any seed entrepreneur and the added values s/he can bring. See VideoJan Andresen – German Founder and CEO of Veeseo talks about Mergers and Acquisitions, the right timing and the importance of an M&A Advisor. See videoAlbert Armengol – Spanish Founder of eConozco (acquired by Xing) and co-Founder & CEO of Doctoralia shares his experience about the importance of knowing and understanding how financing works in a start-up. See videoDušan Stojanović – European with with a Swedish passport (as he describes himself) is a very active Venturepreneur in many start-ups including Alternativa.fr, Prowebce.com, Payson.se, Chapatiz.com, Adriatic-home.com and Lightagency.se highlights the importance of focusing on sales in a start-up. See videoOliver Holle – Austrian Founder and CEO of themerger.com a services company that helps similar sized, complimentary tech companies merge together. Oliver speaks about the benefits of mergers between such companies. See videoKarl Funke – German Founder of A.M.I.G. Aguilares-Muro Investments GmbH explains the importance of assessing managers, executives and people in the company and the importance of the “gut” feeling when targets are not met. See videoRichard Murbeck – Swedish Founder and Chairman of Seavus talks about the art of catching the opportunity when it appears. See videoWe have also done a general mood video of the 6th Venturepreneurs’ Summit that took place in Castelldefels. This video gives an idea of the ambience at these unique gathering and the special mix between hard work and the pleasure of enjoying life. Our Venturepreneurs are unique individuals that understand the sacrifice of work, but also understand the importance of living life. See Video
ACTIVE Venture Partners SGECR (“ACTIVE”), one of the market leaders in Spain in the venture capital tech scene, announced their second fund; ACTIVE Venture II F.C.R. (ACTIVE Venture II) that adds up to a total of €25,000,000. ACTIVE Venture II has on board the top European private and institutional investors. More than 50% of the capital derives from a group of 3 private investors (Family Offices) and the managing team’s own funds. The remaining sum comes from NEOTEC CAPITAL RIESGO SOCIEDAD DE FONDOS SA, promoted by CDTI, participated and managed by the EUROPEAN INVETSMENT FUND and by Axis/ICO through their fund FESPYME FCR. The partners and managers of ACTIVE, Christopher Pommerening, Philipp Schroeder, Ricard Söderberg and Blair MacLaren, are vey satisfied with their investors and having been able to make their first close during 2010. ACTIVE is one of the few European venture firms that have been able to close a fund in the last 18 months, as it has been a complicated time for fundraising. ACTIVE plans to have their second closing for the ACTIVE Venture II fund in march 2011. The management team is already negotiating with new investors for the next close and has already secured additional commitments. ACTIVE’s Venture II strategy is to invest two thirds of the fund in Spain and the rest in Europe with a special focus on Germany and Scandinavia. The sector focus is on internet, software telecommunications and energy efficiency. ACTIVE specialises in the start-up and expansion phases and the investments oscillate between €500,000 and €4,000,000. ACTIVE Venture II has already invested in Oooferton ( www.oooferton.com) the e-commerce live shopping company, the first of its kind in Spain About ACTIVE Venture Partners SGECR: www.active-vp-com ACTIVE is a managing company that manages venture capital funds registered with the CNMV. ACTIVE is one of the first international venture capital companies in Barcelona. Investments are directed towards technology companies based in Europe that are either in the start-up or expansion phase. In addition active supports the portfolio companies by offering strategic and operational advise experiences and access to an international network of contacts. Being entrepreneurs themselves, the founding management team of ACTIVE created the Venturepreneurs’ Organization that unites the know-how and experience of serial entrepreneurs that also invests in the seed phases of a company. ACTIVE manages the fund Molins Capital Inversion SCR and Active Venture II F.C.R. with total assets under management of €45,000,000.
The Venturepreneurs’ Organization had its 6th summit on the 22nd and 23rd of October. The venue was a wonderful beach hotel in Casteldeffels called Bel Air. The meeting room had sea view and the sunshine blessed us during the whole event. Throughout the two days this group of entrepreneurs and investors enjoyed each others’ company with both intellectual and business talk as well as laughter and jokes. Most of what happens at these meetings is confidential and the information cannot be divulged. They also discuss some of the interesting trends in entrepreneurship and investment activities they experience. We’d like to share some insights with you: Video Search Engine Optimization – Video is playing an increasingly important role on websites. More and more websites are posting videos as a way to share content also because consumers are more responsive and engaged by this type of media. The problem with video is that it doesn’t have the same characteristics as text in terms of optimization for search engines. This new business around indexing online videos in search engines is a key objective of one of the Venturepreneurs’ projects: Veeseo . App Stores – We all know the app store for our iPhone, iPad, iPod and coming soon Mac. We also know about app stores for other operators. A particularity about the Android app store is that there isn’t simply one. There are many. Android allows for competition in this market. One of the topics that have been discussed at the summit was exactly this: The potential behind these app stores in the future. Some of the questions that are hanging in the air concern how one app store will claim supremacy over another? When will Venture Capitals jump in on the app store wagon? Will other platforms open up app store competition? Saving the World – This important and never concluding topic is always discussed especially at informal sessions between the Venturepreneurs. The need for sustainable capitalism is becoming greater day-by-day. One of the founders of the VP Org has suggested to focus on a new hybrid organizational structure between non-for-profit and for-profit coined not-just-for-profit. This new form of organization does not focus primarily on the maximization of profits but caters for the wellbeing of employees, the planet and the social corporate vision. Leadership/Followership – An intense debate about what is a leader? Who is a leader? Who is the perfect leader? escalated into a really passionate conversation. The most interesting conclusion was the importance of not just the leader, but of those that follow the leader – the followers. A sensible conclusions seems to be that a leader must have competent followers that are leaders themselves in other ways. Some food for thought! Secondary Markets – For many years we have known that a start-ups can raise capital from FFF (Friends, Family, Fools), grants & subsidies, loans, Angel Investors, Venturepreneurs ;), Venture Capital, Private Equity and by issuing an IPO. Well, there is another way now to raise capital. A stock exchange for private shares. This is a stock market where investors can buy existing shares of the company and where secondary shares can be traded. Interesting new trend that can bring fresh capital to start-ups! Alternative Energy – Solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric energy and now an old type of clean energy source that can become a big player with new technology – hydrothermal energy from geysers. In the past it has been expensive to use this type of energy, as the drilling costs would exponentially increase the deeper geysers were. New technology exists where drilling costs are much lower. Hopefully this as well as the others forms of clean energy will takeover fossil fuels sooner than later. Interviews – An exciting new feature will be the Venturepreneurs’ Insight Series. This is a video series of small clips where the Venturepreneurs’ are asked to explain certain challenges and aspects of their entrepreneurial career and what the key success factors were to overcome certain situations. Stay tuned for this exciting insight! Check out our mood video of the 6th Venturepreneurs' Summit
As released on the Spanish News Site Cotizalia, the Government of Navarra wants to incorporate certain fiscal benefits for entrepreneurs and business angels. New companies younger than five years, with a clear innovator scope, revenues less than €9 Million and have at least 15% of their total expenses dedicated to R+D, will not need to pay certain taxes. These include taxes on; economical activities, transmission of property, the 30% expense on company tax and in addition other fiscal postponements during the fiscal year. This is the first time that a Spanish autonomous region plans to provide such a fiscal reform that is already somewhat present in other countries’ legislations such as Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and Sweden. In regards to the business angels that invest in start-ups, they will be able to reduce 20% of the investment from their personal income tax with a maximum of €4,000. The two prerequisites needed for this to happen is that the participation of the individual or his/her family doesn’t exceed 40% and that the exit happens at least after 3 years. It is also important that the business angel doesn’t cover any executive roles, although being on the board of directors is allowed.
Our fellow member and well experienced venturepreneur Rodolfo Carpintier is sharing experience in regards to selecting companies to invest in through his company and incubator DaD: "No investor is capable of negotiating more than half a dozen - at the maximum a group of ten - new investments per year. At DaD we are receiving more than 600 requests every year, so we are forced to select very well where we can enter. Amongst the projects we like, our criteria are: - The quality of the management team and their know-how.
- The business model and its flexibility at the same time – It does not need to be definite but it's a field of huge possibilities where many different models would fit.
- The quality of contribution from our side at DaD beyond the infusion of capital.
- The long-term vision of the projec
- The clarity of the concept in terms of management and information
It’s impossible to invest in all projects and many of those that do not get funding from our end will obtain financing from other sources. Most important is to take advantage of the interaction with DaD in order to learn how to improve the proposal and project and, if we do not invest, improve the presentation for talking with the next investors." His original post can be found in Spanish on his blog. Thank you for sharing, Rodolfo!
 Our last summit took place a few days ago. This time we chose a special location a bit outside of Barcelona: AC Beach Hotel in Gava Mar and Beach Club Tropical. Around 20 Venturepreneurs came together during two days for knowledge and experience exchange surrounded by a relaxing atmosphere close to the beach.
To kick off the Venturepreneur Summit, the Venturepreneurs gathered for an experience sharing session with successful Barcelona based entrepreneurs from the tech incubator Seedrocket. We were honored to have Ken Morse with us, Founding Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship in Center in Boston, who held a great and insightful keynote presentation about Entrepreneurship.
On May 10th the Spanish Newspaper “La Expansion” released the following article and we'd like to share our free English translation with you. ...... Every member invests between 25.000 and 250.000 into each project. At the next summit two new Venturepreneurs will be welcomed to the Organization: Marek Fodor ( Atrápalo) and Heiko Rauch ( Zanox). Catalan economic history books always emphasize the entrepreneurial character of this region. Recently it’s been enriched by a new movement of young foreign entrepreneurs who left their successful projects in other European capitals to move to Barcelona. One case is Christopher Pommerening, originally from Hamburg (Germany) who created various Internet portals until when, in 2004, he allied with Philipp Schroder (also German), Ricard Soderberg (Swedish) and Blair McLaren (Scottish). These four are forming the management team of Active Venture Partners, a management company of the risk capital branch of the Molins family, owner of Cementos Molins. In 2007, the Active Venture Partners initiated the creation of the Venturepreneurs’ Organization, a network of international investors with headquarter in Barcelona. Next to Active other supporters of this initiative are Didac Lee, Catalán with Chinese roots who founded Inspirit – with the Carulla family, owner of Agrolimen, as partner – and Carlos Muñoz, founder of the first Spanish low cost airline Vueling. Venturepreneurs’ Organization, a non-profit organization which comprises more than 30 investors, is a special red of business angels. “ We contribute with entrepreneurial experience, knowledge in distinct sectors, contacts and knowledge of international markets, meaning all the attributes and entrepreneur needs”. This is how Christopher Pommerening explains the leading motive of the Venturepreneurs’. GatheringsOther members of the organization are Rodolfo Carpintier (Netjuice), Albert Armengol (eConozco) and Jesús Encinar ( Idealista.com). Twice a year they come together for a Summit where they share new potential investment opportunities. Every member of the organization decides individually where and how much he/she invests as the entity as such does not form part of any investment activity in a company. The amounts of investment range from 25.000 to 250.000€. The average investment amount is around 100.000€. The members of the organization take minority participations in the first rounds during the Start-Up phase. Until today, the Venturepreneurs’ have invested in around 200 projects. Just mentioning a few of the funded projects Bloguzz, Genoom, Linqia, 3scale o Garmz. The upcoming summit will be held from 20th to 22nd May in Gavá Mar (Baix de Llobregat). Then it is expected that two new Venturepreneurs will join the organization: Marek Fodor, co-founder of the leisure and travel portal Atrápalo, and Heiko Rauch, creator of the online marketing company Zanox. What do the members of the Venturepreneurs Organization have in common? All share the same mission: “Create one European ecosystem for investment activity into companies in their seed stage.”, comments Christopher Pommerening. At the same time the Catalan capital provides all the necessary conditions to become a hub for entrepreneurs. The investors not only contribute money to the companies they support, but also their experience and network of contacts. Further their profiles are filled with international references, which contributes added value to the projects. This means the companies start off by already paying attention to international markets.
This blog post has been shared with us by Eneko Knoerr, one of our fellow venturepreneurs from Bilbao, Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts, Eneko! ........................ When I was young, I remember the habitual conversations we had amongst our friends returning home after a night out. We had not caught what we wanted, wondering what was happening in town and where we could find girls to flirt with. I'm sure that, like us, there were groups of girls who returned home also complaining about not having eaten any donut. Supply and demand had not met each other. And each party was "mourning" on his or her side ... Speaking between entrepreneurs, it’s habitual to comment that there are no investors, there’s no money for projects, that all is a disaster and so on. Come on, there's no way to "catch"-money, in this case. But the funny thing is that when I talk to investors, I often hear that there are no projects and they complain that they don't find any projects to invest. They don't find any entrepreneurs even though they are searching. Just like in the world of flirting: supply and demand is desperately looking for each other but there is no way they find each other. From my position as an entrepreneur and investor, the truth is that I understand the comments from both sides:- The Entrepreneurs. Many times we feel lost. We don’t know whom to approach, where to begin, which type of investor would be a good match for us … In the Internet space there are a some very active business angels that come to our mind but the possibilities are scarce (or they seem). We think (sometimes with good reason) that the public risk capital remains discarded because they won’t understand our project. We heard about the people who were looking for financing for months without any success. Of course I’ve also seen those who complain about not receiving any investment and it turns out they’ve never sent their project to any place (yes they might have composed something "presentable" …). The sensation is clear: there are no investors.-The inversor. Some receive very few projects. Others receive proposals from sectors which they don’t invest in. There's the one who finds powerpoints valued for several million euros. And it’s common to see entrepreneurs who know only a little about the business they plan to get in. After all, between small entrepreneurial movements and little amount of projects, as investors we say that there are no entrepreneurs.Who’s right? The Truth is both. In future posts we will see how we can set and end to this incomprehensible situation. How do you see this? Are there no investors? Are good projects missing? Leave your comment here!
Our fellow Venturepreneur Markus Wagner has great news to share: The transaction of the world’s leading online people search service! His incubator i5invest and Austrian venture capital firm Gamma Capital Partners successfully sold one of their portfolio companies: The French PagesJaunes Group has acquired a 100% stake in 123people. " We've started 123people just 30 months ago beginning from scratch. 123people is a great success story for everybody involved. The founding team, venture partners, business partners, the new shareholder and last but not least the internet users profit by the leading realtime internet people search. The success of 123people proofs once again, how effective the i5invest setup works", i5invest partners Markus Wagner and Stefan Kalteis state. 123people was founded two years ago, and with currently 40 Million Unique Visitors per month, ranks as the world’s leading provider of name-related vertical search on the Web. " PagesJaunes Groupe, as the new owner of the company, brings in substantial online-expertise for 123people. Synergies between a renowned and leading directory service and a company, which is considered optimizing people search on the Internet, are obvious.“, says Markus Wagner, founder and CEO of i5invest. „ Once again a leading and global company has been established with Austrian Venture Capital. The acquisition by PagesJaunes Groupe has positive effects for all stakeholders involved: the founders are being rewarded for their initial phase of building the company, jobs in Austria are being secured and widened and Investors happily profit from a 200% return per year“, says Klaus Matzka, who lead the transaction on behalf of GCP gamma capital partners, about the successful trade-sale of the company.123people was founded with strong support of i5invest and has been financially backed by Gamma Capital Partners. „ PagesJaunes Groupe’s involvment truly enriches Austria as an IT and Web location. I5invest’s vast international network of individuals and companies has yet again proven it’s viability and success.“ Within two years to global player: 123peopleAfter its relaunch in 2008, 123people quickly became a synonym for people search on the web and global brand. Under the leadership of CEO Russell E. Perry and an experienced management team headed by Iris Pittl and Martin Stemeseder 123people currently reaches 40 Million people (unique visitors) with eleven localized country sites (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sweden, USA and Canada). At every request more than 200 data sources are being pulled into the service, whereas a majority of them is location-specific, and is thereafter being displayed in a structured way on the Web. Since its incorporation in 2008, 123people continuously grows both revenues and profits. i5invest GmbH operates offices in New York, Vienna and Salzburg and is a „Startup factory“ for Web and Mobile companies. With a team of internationally trained and experienced entrepreneurs and a vas network in New York, Silicon Valley and Europe, i5invest acts as Incubator for tomorrows’ Online and Mobile businesses. I5invest’s current portfolio on companies consists of Online travel guide tripwolf, Coupon platform DealHamster, social yellow pages startup Tupalo and mobile App company Adaffix. Furthermore the company is shareholder in Online gaming world Papermint and supports both the leading gaming provider Xendex and Augmented Reality startup Mobilizy. About GCP gamma capital partners AGGCP gamma capital partners AG is a leading Venture Capital (VC) investor with offices in Vienna, Munich and Bratislava. GCP provides equity und mezzanine capital to technology-driven startups and family-led growth companies. Investors are leading austrian and international financial institutions, private investors and renowned foundations. GCP’s current portfolio is built of more then a dozen dynamic technology growth companies, for example the RFID holding Indentec, the game commerce platform fatfoogoo, the med-tech company Pantec Biosolutions, the wastewater treatment company Organica, the agro-generics holding GAT Microencapsulation or the industrial biotechnology business Eucodis. Thank you for sharing, Markus!
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