Pathways to Exit

The second annual White Bull, Pathways to Exit conference starts today!

Pathways to Exit, a three-day, invitation-only, conference forum for entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, and visionaries in the TMT and clean tech sectors, will include a number of highlights, including the 2011 Bully Awards ceremony on the final evening. If you need a refresher on the 60 Bully Awards finalists, here is the list.

Another highlight of the conference will be the BullPen startup & VC sparringsession going on today, headed by Coach and Wrangler, Hanna Manninen, Director of Public Relations & Social Media, ink Communications.

The BullPen is a half-day session where startups get to present their ideas to afistful of hard-nosed, successful entrepreneurs who will tell it like it is. The panel of entrepreneurs is comprised of Tina Baker, Partner, Brown Rudnick; Jeff Coe, Managing Director, Linden VC; Ashley Ward, Director, European Leaders; Tony Kypreos, Springboard.com; Paul Cautrecasas, Aquaa Partners; and independent investor, John Paty.

The panel will be hearing and critiquing presentations in what promises to be a day of learning for all in attendance.

Later in the week, Hanna Manninen will also be moderating the Building a Brandthrough Social Communications & PR, Marketing and Advertising panel. The panel will touch on different aspects of the current state and future of communications. We’re expecting a lively conversation between advertising, PR and marketing professionals.

All together, the conference is a must for anybody interested in the EuropeanTelecommunications, Media and Technology sector, and is one of our favorite weeks of the year!

Tags: Advertising, Ashley Ward, Bully Award, Business, Entrepreneur, Tina Baker, White Bull

Our take on Mobile World Congress 2010

There was a trade show going on in Barcelona – did you know that? Or did you just think Mobile World Congress was five days and nights of cocktail parties. We actually it is both. During the day, Mobile World Congress this year put in a grown up face and decided to do some work and companies actually figured out they can do some business there. Some of the same ridiculous nonsense went on -all the big names had big announcements and hogged the spotlight, the increasing convergence of celebrity and tech, obsessed mobile geeks spewing industry stats and glares if you aren’t using an iPhone. But if you were someone with a brain and dug past all of the shiny stuff, you would have seen that the real news was tucked away in several places including the country Pavilions, the Augmented Reality Showcase and App Pavilions  – where innovation was percolating. The AR show illustrated that there is more than one company out there with good AR ideas, the App Pavilion gave us one place to look at a variety of apps not only for fun but that help the planet and the Pavilions were a great place to see country by country innovation. The best things we saw were these companies:

• Powerkiss – A Finnish start up led by a Maija Itkonen who decided that cables and wires really suck so she decided what better way to charge your mobile device than to build a device in to furniture. We call this lifestyle mobile tech and we love it. Ciara Byne of Venturebeat had the chance to talk to them at MWC and reported their plans here. And Maija has agreed to a TattleTech Hot seat so look for that coming up soon.
• Alcosystems –  We have covered them before in the top 5 start ups to watch, but in reality, they are beyond where normal web 2.0 start ups are. This a lifestyle and health mobile device that we think will really affect many people around the world. Monitor your own blood alcohol content -the uses are far reaching. Mobile Health is new business in Mobile technology, read here for more.
• Myfc - More innovation out of Sweden, and this time along the lines of green tech – a portable fuel cell to be used in current and emerging markets like Africa. Mike Butcher, TechCrunch Europe did a great interview with the CEO at MWC about the fuel cells and their uses. This is the space to watch – emerging markets and renewable energy sources for the mobile market.
• TAT – also known at the Astonishing Tribe. The design mobile user interfaces but blend aesthetics and technology together – like mobile face detection and recognition with PolarRose’s FaceLib. Very cool stuff – pushing the envelope to more intuitive UIs including aesthetic augmented reality.
• PuddingMedia – Sure a mobile ad network but completely focused on APAC. We think SUPER smart because this is where the next wave of the whole mobile revolution is coming from. Check them out, they are very nice people and focused on creating and delivering this platform in a very specific way to this market.
• WidespaceMobile – Also an ad network, but much like PuddingMedia, have been intensely targeted on the Scandinavian market and mastering that market. Talk to them, they don’t care that Google bought AdMob, they think its good for them and their numbers show it and their revenue too. They have the good fortune of working with Ericsson IPX which essentially lets them focus on the sale behind the click and maximizing where that ad its make the most revenue.

On the down side, the media coverage still focused on the big names only (shall we say big advertisers?) and in a feeding frienzy around their favorite topics related to the big boys -they were totally oblivious to other innovative companies that were floating around. Not one single media outlet covered the more than 10 country pavilions which was a shame because sometimes the best ideas start small with the exception of the Show daily which covered the Sweden Pavilion. Despite all of that, it was one of the best MWC that I have attended in the past 13 years. Yes, that was lucky 13.

–JLH

Tags: Alcosystems, App Pavilion, Augmented reality, Mobile World Congress, MyFC, Powerkiss, TAT, TechCrunch UK, VentureBeat

European Venture Summit comes to an end, sadly

e-Unlimited proved again that it is serious about bringing together the venture and entrepreneurs of Europe at this two day event. Completely focused on letting VCs, angel investors and start ups in biotech, ICT, clean tech  intensely mingle and discuss the possibility of investment and the dream of having their company make it big. The Summit was a constant hive of activity and even Tattletech barely had time for a cup of coffee bouncing from meeting to meeting.

Despite the statistics and the mood of markets, there was no lack of entrepreneurial spirit and positive outlook at this event. Even from two start ups who were just looking for seed money to the Swedish mobile language learning tool seeking 10 million, both VCs and start ups were talking business.

Some highlights included the amazingly and oddly interesting commentary by the keynote  Dr. Thomas Meyer an Economist for Deutsche Bank Research who, despite his youthful looks, talked about an aspect of economics that held everyone’s attention – the economic benefit of start ups to this particular economy in terms of keeping a fire burning in the business cycle – making the market more flexible and rich in diversity.

Charles Van Costenobel, Director Eurecan and Ester Palomar, Eurecan Cataluna

The Summit also had a large contingency of Spanish start ups as part of the work with Eurocan – led by the dynamic duo Charles Van Costenobel and Ester Palomar.  OK  first we have to just point out that they are with Caja Navarra which is Civic Banking – yes you heard right – Civic Banking a new and truly pioneering concept in banking.

CEO Davorin Gurnick and COO Dennis Gurnick, Intera

Tattletech’s favorites at the Summit were the Slovenian Intera rolling out software as a service for the Enterprise in the emerging Central European markets as well as German markets. Their competitive advantage lies in their business model and approach to market as well as the platform focusing on social media tools for the enterprise. We also liked IRL, led by a young and dynamic team out of Amsterdam. They had the business model right when it came to location based social networking because they also had a platform for corporations as well. (video to come!) They were passionate about their product but also extremely realistic and cautious about investment and how to use that money to correctly roll to market. Also, Yasmo LIve which is a mobile application for networking at conferences – in other words lets you know who is there so you can get some business done and provides a revenue producing opportunity for conference organizers and promotional options for sponsors. The company was led by the only female entrepreneur at the event, Areti Kampyli.

As we said before, Spain seemed to dominate and three other favorite Spanish start ups were Intelliglass which improves energy efficiency of buildings; La Cupula Music,  founded by another Dutchman, is focused on the digital distribution of music for the Spanish and Latin America markets; Zentym led by the one of the most dynamic CFO’s we have ever met – Jaime Pont who is going to revolutionize and make profitable (he claims) advertising models, distribution and relevancy for MobileTV, and then of course Tattletech’s personal favorite, nuubo. So many reasons we like nuubo – because they have taken smart materials and combined them with  innovative software & wireless communication systems in order to make bio monitoring clothes or equipment to improve health or save lives. Sure that is one of them. Because he went along with a little semantic joke, or  because they had one of the best presentations for a start up that we have ever seen, because they are already working with Telefonica Mobiles to bring this to market or because their General Manager Rodrigo Miranda Beltran is just the most charming, deeply intelligent and ultimate gentleman on the planet universe.

Arican Wegter, Internet Entrepreneur & Angel Investor and Dorte Wiene, Regional Director, e-Unlimited and bGrand Advisory Board

We also found that angel investors like Internet Entrepreneur and Angel Investor Arican Wegter, former founder of Lovefilm (Europe’s NetFlix) but he embraces the true spirit of the entrepreneur – providing funding, business support and direction to help them get off the ground successfully with the right business model and foundation for growth.

This week we will post a series of video interviews with many covered in this post. So stay tuned.

Tags: Arican Wegter, Caja Navarra, Civic Banking, e-Unlimited, Intera, IRLConnect, La Cupula, Lovefilm, nuubo, Zentym

Smart Window Technology, change the world for the better – cool stuff

ChromoGenics isn’t web 2.0 but it is right where we need to be in talking about energy consumption.  Too bad there were not more people in the room because this is true Clean Tech. Leave it to Sweden to lead the way in reducing energing consumption through a product that appears so simple but yet can reduce energy consumption by up to 50% through the coating on the windows. Their  technology enables the production of plastic foils with throughputs of light that can be changed by an electrical voltage. The company was recently selected as the top 100 Clean Tech companies in Europe by The Guardian and that will change the world for the better.

In between all the other mobile advertising, ad server social networking pitches, it is refreshing to see  a start up that is trying to make the world better.

Nordic Venture Forum coming soon!

Image via Wikipedia

On October 20, the Nordic Venture Forum will be held in Copenhagen where the 50 most promising entrepreneurs from Life Sciences, Cleantech and Information and Communication Technologies to an audience of Nordic and international venture capital and corporate investors and strategic partners. TattleTech will be there to report on the next wave of innovation coming out Denmark and the Nordic region. If you want to schedule an interview with us – contact news@tattletech.net.

Tags: Europe Unlimited, Investment, Nordice Venture Forum, venture capital, Venture Capital and Technology

Down the Rabbit Hole party at IBC

Alex Crab (ink), Adir Hadid (Harmonic), Ofer (Verimatrix)

JoeOHalloran, (Content2Mobile), Stuart Thomson (Editor, CabSat Europe), Katrina Coyne (CabSat Europe)

Alex Crabb, Ben Lawerence (ANT), Christian (Dreampark)

Clean Tech

Today, Joel Dreyfus, the seasoned editor in chief of Red Herring, moderated a panel on Clean Tech. It was great. It was great because I think that there is still a question out there about what clean tech is and what is actually going on in the sector.

Here is my opinion of the summary of the panel:

* Having talent men and women at the top is key
* That being said, the talent that is being sucked into clean tech is so loud that is is making a “sucking sound” (i get it but I think that maybe there could have been a different word used)
* Producing a energy conscious sports car is not going to save the world
* Follow the ripples out into the world into countries that you don’t think would be leaders and build there
* There is no shortage of capital
* Capital exceeds the supply of entrepreneurs – um can you hear the door being pounded open now?