nowEurope

Hungarian attendees seemed more pessimistic than I did about what we saw this week at BarCamp Budapest, at least according to my random sample of conversation. I enjoyed thoroughly being one of the only foreigners at hand, along with TechCrunch Europe editor, Mike Butcher and a handful of presenters. The best English-language tweet of the day came from Julia Krysztofiak-Szopa (AdTaily).

with all due respect for the #barcamp #budapest speakers – powerpoint presentation suicide & u don’t have to speak magyarul to notice it.

The truth is I hardly watched any of the presentations, except to occasionally poke my head in the door. I had been lead to believe that at BarCamp, the audience is the content, and so I used this as my excuse to largely ignore the prepared program and talk with people about what’s currently happening in the Hungarian online market.

Everybody’s heard about Jeremie, and several people I met had a business idea in their back pocket. The ad recession hit hard last year, and revenues are down across the board. One local media agency, Arcus, recently imploded. I have the impression that a good number of talented people are knocking around for opportunities.

Continue reading ‘What I learned by ignoring the presentations at BarCamp Budapest and talking to the audience’

This week is ground zero for Hungary’s nascent startup market. Eight new Jeremie VC funds are still in startup mode, and literally any day now they will be flush with EU cash – roughly €160M all told – with four years to invest this money. What better timing for a startup competition?

The BarCamp concept isn’t new, nor is it new to Budapest. What is new is that this fifth edition of the Web 2.0 Symposium / Bar Camp Budapest features a startup competition sponsored by Budapest Bank. Each of six finalists will be given 10 minutes to present their business ambitions to a jury of professional investors. The first three finalists will win undisclosed ‘valuable prizes’.

However, that’s not why I’m going. I go to these kinds of events to meet the other attendees.

A cursory glance through this event’s attendee list suggests that I’ll be one of the oldest people in the room. I know most of the older generation of entrepreneurs and investors, but we are clearly the minority.

The one constant in Budapest is change. I played a small part in Hungary’s last startup boom (1999-2001) but I have very few preconceptions about what and who I’ll discover this Wednesday at BarCamp Budapest. This is a new generation.

I do find one thing remarkable, though. The conference materials are available only in Hungarian, but the two keynote speakers are English-speakers.

Continue reading ‘BarCamp Budapest is ground zero for Hungarian startups’

CEE Chips bills itself as an online investment network that connects businesses from Central and Eastern Europe seek funding with investors from all over the world. I came across CEE Chips, when founder Alexandar Petkov sent me a contact request at LinkedIn. He offered me free access to his site, and so I had a look around.

The concept of online investment brokerage isn’t new, but to the best of my knowledge this model has never been applied specifically in this region. The US market leader appears to be Funding Universe, but I’m more familiar with Angelsoft. The logic behind such sites is obvious: entrepreneurs want money, and investors want dealflow. Success mean building a critical mass of investors and deals, and providing both parties the means to evaluate each other and build trust.

So the question is, will CEE Chips be able to build that critical mass in Central Europe?

Continue reading ‘Bulgaria embraces entrepreneurial spirit with CEE Chips, but is Central Europe ready?’

It’s one thing to dream about changing the world with your revolutionary business idea. It’s quite another thing to convince an investor to put up the money. Your supporters might praise your idea, but they won’t provide you 40 hours of labor each week until you offer them a paycheck.

Money has a way of making things real.

Part of our job, with CITT, has been to share a dream. Centrope designates the border regions of four countries (AT, HU, CZ & SK). The distances are short, but the cultural differences are big. This region has great potential for innovation, but most of this knowledge is locked away in research labs, divided by increasingly abstract national borders.

CITT’s dream is to knock down those borders. Fortunately, we are not the only ones at work on this vision. If CITT and similar projects are successful, the results will be measured in new products, new companies, new jobs and new opportunities.

This is a big dream, and big dreams need money.

Continue reading ‘What Jeremie means to nowEurope & CITT’

The Eurecan European Venture Contest, aims to identify world-class innovative companies with the potential to dramatically impact their industry and contribute to increasing European competitiveness and growth.

For the past five years, Europe Unlimited, has been running these events, and I’ve taken part in several as an expert reviewer. I also took part this year, at the EEVC 2009 event held recently in Budapest.

This year was different. Thanks to more than €100M arriving from the European Commission in December 2009, a large number of these companies actually have a chance to win funding.

Continue reading ‘Assessing Hungary’s current generation of startups – the rules have changed’

How many of you have heard about the Jeremie Fund? This is European Commission initiative to provide seed funding and other support to innovative, early stage companies. Most of what we’ve heard in Hungary has been word of mouth. There’s been very little published in the Hungarian press, or on the Internet.

RealDeal.hu published this brief announcement:

Eight winners have been announced in a tender for the New Hungary Venture Capital Program (Új Magyarország Kockázati Tőkeprogram), which will see venture capital funds receiving EU backing to help finance local start-ups.

The eight winners were selected from among 18 applicants, and will be managing nearly Ft 45 billion (€165.75 million), of which the local firms will provide Ft 13.4 billion and the EU Ft 31.5 billion.

Does Jeremie operate in other CENTROPE countries?

A concrete opportunity for hi-tech innovative companies in Centrope is arising from the Eurecan European Venture Contest (EEVC) Semi Final hosted by ITD Hungary and NKTH in Budapest on October 28. 10 winners will get a free ticket to present themselves at the European Venture Summit in Düsseldorf on Nov 30 – Dec 1. They will also become a part of the EEVC Top 100, out of 25 most promising companies will be selected by a jury for the final in Barcelona (90,000 euros cash prize) in December.

The contest is organised by Europe Unlimited, our long-term partner located in Brussels, that has been working in this field for more than 10 years. Some readers may remember Steven Carlson and me assisting local companies from Hungary and Czech Republic to present their ventures at similar events a few years ago. This is where the efforts around the European Venture Forums turned into.

The EEVC aim is to identify, promote and reward the most innovative early stage companies in Europe with breakthrough innovation in ICT, Cleantech and Healthcare technology or services with international ambition and potential. 25 finalists will be selected within six semi-finals – to be held in Dusseldorf, Pamplona, Budapest, Turin, Luxembourg and Lisbon – and get a chance to network with investors, industry leaders and potential partners.
Continue reading ‘Apply for the venture contest 2009 semi-final in Budapest’

EBAN in co-operation with LBAN held their annual Winter University last October in Luxembourg.

Over 100 participants attended the one-day event and among the topics discussed, the actual economic situation could not be left out.

In his final statement Anthony Clarke confirmed that it is the right time to make an investment in new and promising projects especially as the financial markets actually do not provide better or no return.

It has also been proved that it is in a downtime period that the most promising investments have been done.

What is your take on this statement that you should try to be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy?

On Monday I had a chance to participate as one of the reviewers in the European Venture Contest semi-final held in Prague. As I announced earlier here there was seven semi-finals all together taking place in Brussels, Stuttgart, Linz, Copenhagen, Pamplona, Eindhoven and Prague, each picking up three most promising hi-tech companies for the final to be held in Barcelona on December 17 with the cash prize of 90,000 euros.

So who won in Prague?

Continue reading ‘The European Venture Contest semi-final results’