Why should you want to? Except for being nice people they are not Austrian and are both heavily into the tech scene. These guys see and analyze tech startups for a living, probably seeing some of the coolest stuff of 2015 today. Pitching your own idea or talking about your/their view on tech, diets, photography and startups, diabetes, massive market research, how mobile can save lives, life, gaming and pets… it simply broadens your horizons and could also land you a talk with future partners or investors on the other side of the pond. O and it’s fun to throw parties.
Anyhow, it was a pleasant evening and ended early in the morning the day after.
Mike wrote a short article on the trip in his blog, Commuting VC mentioning his view on the differences between the Valley and Vienna, Austria. Takeaway: The main differentiator is the eco system. Aye, we agree. As do most entrepreneurs! There is always talk about “Something has to happen!”, “We need more…”, “the eco-system doesn’t exist!”… Love stuff like Plug And Play Center which do something about it!
As Mike also notes, things are happening in Vienna, hell, alot of things are happening here. MehrBlick, Future Lounge, Wirtschaftsbund decides to support STARTeurope, InitialFactor and us working on Startup Week…
As we see it, it starts at the grass roots level. The foundation for an innovative and entrepreneurial society starts with breaking a few rules, showing the old ways your behind and building what is needed from the bottom up – hence our dedication to the early stage of startup life. Whichever path you walk later on when it comes to financing your venture, through boot strapping, grants, investors or consulting to make ends meet – the community is always needed.
We also did some interview with the guys! Check’m out!
Interview with Michael Klein, Canaan Ventures, filmed at Sektor 5
Interview with JT, Plug and Play Tech Center, filmed at Sektor 5
Anyways, Mike and JT, thanks for popping by and see you next time around!
Place: Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), Porto
Guests: 11
Mentors: 9
Experts: 2
Idea pitches: 7
Venture teams: 6
End presentations: 5
Nationalities: 3
The first STARTup Live Porto!
STARTup Live landed in Portugal and, once again, rocked! During 58 hours we had great pitches, awesome teams, a looooot of caffeine and a wonderful atmosphere. The experts and mentors commitment and willingness to help was AMAZING and proved how inspiring this experience is.
This was not your “standard”-Live, but an event focused on pitches and presentations! On Sunday evening, after 3 pitch sessions where each team pitched their idea, got rated by experts and received feedback from the mentors, the investors (code name: “sharks” ) arrived at the scene to hear our 5 teams. The “sharks” watched the “show” and loved it!
Myplace2stay, Et al., Mydeabook, A-TV and iCoach: you were FANTASTIC!
Mentor Driven
During the weekend, mentors and experts came by and supported the teams – founders, experts in marketing, biz modelling, public funding and sponsorships, sales and design. In a dual-mentoring system, the teams got to say what they needed – and the mentors were “inserted” into the projects that were relevant for them. This innovative system worked very well.
Luis Alves Martins – Architect Evangelist at Microsoft
Expert Rated
During the three presentations the experts-panel gave feedback to the presenting teams. These guys are usually investors or experienced entrepreneurs, but this time we focused on people of incubators and VC’s. Most stayed on afterwards to share a few laughs and war stories.
On the experts panel of STARTup Live Porto #1 were
Clara Gonçalves
Executive Manager at UPTEC - Science and Technology Park of University of Porto
Sara Medina
Member of the Board at SPI – Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação and SPI Ventures
Powered by
Companies and Ideas
And now, please welcome the teams and their ideas!
myplace2stay – WINNER
Pitcher: Julius Parrisius Tagline: accommodations. smart. simple. fast. Description:
Myplace2stay provides a metasearch engine for all apartment and other comparable accommodation offers on the internet. If an individual is looking for a place to stay, the search process, as it is today, involves many separate search efforts on a number of different websites. This makes the quest inconvenient and annoying. To solve this problem the metasearch engine will present all offers on a single website. Not only does the individual benefit from the ease of use, but accommodation offers can be presented to a much larger target market through our search engine.
Et al. [editing] – 2nd place
Pitcher: Margarida Maia Description:
Et al. [editing] is a web-based platform offering premium editing services for scientific researchers.
Mydeabook – 3rd place (ex aequo)
Pitchers: Sebastian Richter & Johannes Ketterer Tagline: Mydeabook wants to make the startup process much easier. Description:
Mydeabook is a web-based platform with standard software technology developing new processes to improve the structure of networking with users to advance ideas with everybody, from everywhere at anytime.
A-TV – 3rd place (ex aequo)
Pitchers: Bruno Soares & Alexandre Rodrigues Tagline: Imagine if you could buy anything you see on your TV Description:
A-TV will change the way brands reach their clients by promoting interaction.
iCoach – 5th place
Pitchers: Miguel Neto & Pedro Neto Tagline: The Future of Football Description:
iCoach will change the way how football coaches work and interact with the fans. Imagine what Mourinho would do with an iPad on his hands…
On January 21st Michael Klein of Canaan Partners and JT Buffmire of Plug and Play Tech Center visited Sektor 5 in Vienna and our community had the opportunity to get to know these guys.
) arrived at the scene to hear our 5 teams. The “sharks” watched the “show” and loved it!
