We kicked off our biggest ever Seedcamp Week 2010 today with massive buzz and a record number of 23 teams – ready to show the 100+ mentors the best they’ve got. The morning saw razor sharp pitches from teams that cover 16 regions throughout EMEA and who definitely have their game on. We saw all the trends described by the Guardian and Telegraph – product-, monetisation-, and fashion-focused startups make up parts of this year’s batch.
After the pitches, we had the pleasure of listening to a masterclass from Jos White of Notion Capital who famously sold MessageLabs to Symantec for $700 million back in 2008. His engaging and frank talk with his brother and business partner Ben White enlightened us on their journey from starting in a barn in Cirencester, to making a multi million dollar exit and the trials and tribulations that came along the way. Tim Bradshaw also wrote about the talk on the Financial Times Blog.
A few key take aways from their talk are summarised in Jos’ slides:
Our first day was all about Founders and the teams were mentored throughout the afternoon by the likes of Iain Dodsworth from Tweetdeck, Nathalie Gaveau from Priceminister, Simon Murdoch, and of course also Jos and Ben White.
Check out the video of the day to get a feeling of the energy and people at Seedcamp week this year:
Seedcamp Week 2010 Day 1 HQ from Seedcamp on Vimeo.
We’ll also be making a splash in the press this week, with a record number of media attendance this year including the FT, Reuters, TechCrunch, Wired UK, the Telegraph and more – so join our twitter and blog and keep updated on everything Seedcamp Week 2010.
Tomorrow is Product and Marketing Day…bring it on!
