It’s hard to believe that we are about to kick off our third Seedcamp Week event. It has been a whirlwind over the past three years as we try to create a platform that helps first time entrepreneurs start and grow businesses in Europe. That’s obviously a lofty goal, and our approach has definitely been refined and adjusted as we learn more about what is most helpful. We are now focused on offering a complete program, not just a week-long event, which includes ongoing mentoring from our amazing network, events all over the world, flexible investing structures, and access to the companies and people who happen to know a thing or two about building businesses.
Here are a few quick points that help put the last three years into perspective:
• We have reviewed more than 1,500 applications
• We’ve seen teams from 53 different countries
• We have connected entrepreneurs with more than 500 mentors
• We’ve held more than 1,620 mentoring sessions
• We’ve had Mini Seedcamp events in 10 countries
• We’ve mentored more than 280 companies
• And we invested in 14 Seedcamp winners
We now look ahead to Seedcamp Week 2009 and are happy to announce that the following teams have been chosen as finalists. Across the board, we were impressed with the overall quality of submissions this year, which continues to increase, and were happy to see so many entrepreneurs thinking about the practical aspects of making money, in addition to developing game-changing ideas. At the shortlist stage, we were extremely impressed by the quality of the teams and in many cases they had the killer combination of team and product. We saw everything from marketplaces, healthcare IT, middleware, gaming analysis, and some serious AI based solutions.
Seedcamp’s regional scope also continues to grow strength to strength with five finalist hailing from CEE (Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Estonia), two from the Middle East (Jordan, Israel), teams from Austria, Germany, Belgium, France and from all across the UK including Scotland, North England, West Country, Midlands and Cambridge.
Seedcamp Week Teams:
• Advertag – London, UK
• Boxed Ice – Bromsgrove, UK
• Brainient – Bucharest, Romania
• Codility – Warsaw, Poland
• Comufy – London, UK
• Erply – Estonia
• Joobili – Budapest, Hungary
• Kukunu – London, UK
• Loc8 Solutions – Edinburgh, UK
• Patients Know Best – Cambridge, UK
• Petsicon – Berlin, Germany
• Plug in SEO – London, UK
• ShoutEm – Zagreb, Croatia
• T27 Systems (Pearl Systems) – Bristol, UK
• Talasim.com – Amman, Jordan
• Teachable – London, UK
• Vooices – Wigan, UK
• VouChaCha – London, UK
• Wondergraphs – Leuven, Belgium
• World on a Hanger – London, UK
• YubiTech – Ramat Gan, Israel
Along with the 21 finalists, we’re very happy to have Kwaga from France and Platogo from Austria joining us at this year’s Seedcamp. These teams are winners from our Mini Seedcamp program earlier in the year and will benefit from the intensive week long mentoring and networking with the rest of the teams.
Thanks again to the hundreds of companies that submitted their ideas for Seedcamp this year. We really appreciate the time you spent thinking through your new ventures, and hope that you continue on your entrepreneurial pursuits! If you missed this opportunity to apply to Seedcamp, we are starting again with Mini Seedcamps in January 2010. And the best of luck to the Final 21 teams!