1. Reshma Sohoni, co-founder & Partner - Seedcamp
@rsohoni
reshma@seedcamp.com
European Entrepreneurship & Innovation (ME421)
Stanford Engineering School
March 5 2012

2. 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

3. So – what is Seedcamp?

4. 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.

5. Process
Preparation Application
Mini Seedcamp Seedcamp Portfolio

6. 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

7. 22 companies in SC 1
Kyko

8. 33 companies in SC 2
Blossom.io
CROWD

9. 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

10. 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

11. What’s up in Europe?

12. Exits are birthing new angels
Big M&A:
Small M&A:
Plink
US VCs have noticed

13. Huge numbers of events and
hackathons
Competitions Training Accelerators
Hackathons

14. 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

15. 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

16. Some portfolio companies

17. 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

18. 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!

19. 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

20. 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

21. Thanks for having me
Contact me any time
reshma@seedcamp.com
@rsohoni