It’s incredible how we come to break every one of our own records this year – more applications then ever to our events, more mentors, more investments, and more financing coming to our portfolio. 2011 was a great year so far, and our yearly Seedcamp calendar is coming to a phenomenal end next week: We’ve been working on Seedcamp Week 2011 since a couple of months ago, and it will be, in one word, awesome.
Seedcamp Week is where the best of the companies we have met throughout the year are coming together to meet the absolute cream of the crop of the European and international startup scene. We have three days of mentoring with the most important industry experts, entrepreneurs, and investors, which will enable the Seedcampers to take their companies to the next level. This year, we have also added a large Demo Day, which will show off the companies to Europe’s most important Investors. We can’t wait for the kick off on Monday, and are looking forward to see everybody again.
The startups at Seedcamp Week 2011
So – who is taking part in Seedcamp Week 2011? Twenty amazing teams from all over the world, which we have gotten to know throughout the year:
- Appextras from Canada / Brazil (Mini Seedcamp NY)
- Bilbus from UK / USA (Mini Seedcamp NY)
- Blossom from Austria (Mini Seedcamp London Ljubljana)
- Campalyst from Estonia / Lithuania / Finland (Mini Seedcamp NY)
- Compilr from Canada (Mini Seedcamp NY)
- Crashpadder from UK (Mini Seedcamp Berlin)
- Crowd from France (Mini Seedcamp London August)
- Efficient Cloud from Austria (Mini Seedcamp Berlin)
- FarmerOn from Croatia (Mini Seedcamp London August)
- Fractal from London (Mini Seedcamp London August)
- GrabCad from Estonia/USA (Mini Seedcamp London January)
- Holvi from Finland (Mini Seedcamp London Stockholm)
- Mopapp from Italy (Mini Seedcamp Berlin)
- Oust.me from Slovenia (Mini Seedcamp Ljubljana)
- Psykosoft from France (Mini Seedcamp London January)
- Rentlord from UK (Mini Seedcamp NY)
- Sportlyzer from Estonia (Mini Seedcamp Ljubljana)
- Transferwise from London (Mini Seedcamp London August)
- Vox.io from Slovenia (Mini Seedcamp London January)
- Zin.gl from USA / Belgium / Russia (Mini Seedcamp NY)
The mentors – more than ever, from all over the world
Another record to be broken this year is the number and level of mentors who will come to Seedcamp Week to extend their knowledge, network, and industry insight to the companies. We will have a total of more than 400 of Europe’s most important founders, investors, product, tech, marketing gurus, and industry experts signed up and can’t wait to meet them all. It would certainly go beyond the limits of this blog post to list them all, but amongst others, teams can expect people from companies such as software and internet giants like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Qualcomm, eBay, Twitter, Yandex, Asos, AOL, Nokia, Skype, Rackspace, founders of awesome startups like Soundcloud, Wonga, Spotify, DataSift, Mind Candy, FON, Moo, Livebookings, Groupspaces, successful Seedcamp companies like myBuilder, EDITD, Ubervu, Zemanta, LOKK, ERPLY, and many, many more. Of course, the top European investors will also be in attendance, as will the press, bloggers, and startup community at large.
Masterclasses and workshops – Broadcasted to the world
In addition to the mentoring sessions, Seedcamp Week is always a huge learning forum for everyone in attendance. This year, we will have some amazing talks like the founding and growth story of Yandex, the Russian search giant (delivered by cofounder and CTO Ilya Segalovich), learnings from the startup roller coaster at FON (Martin Varsavsky joining us from Spain), insights into product development at Mozilla (by Mike Shaver), a big UX workshop from Enrique Allen of 500Startups for the companies. As before, we will film the talks and make them available through our blog and website – this year in cooperation with our Business Partner, the Tech City Investment Organisation, part of the UKTI.
Thanks to our sponsors
All of this is only possible because of our generous sponsors, who support us year round and for Seedcamp Week. Qualcomm is our Seedcamp Week sponsor this year, and we are very happy to have them supporting the European startup community. Microsoft Bizspark and Google continue to support us, as do the Founders’ Sponsors – with many generous offers to the Seedcamp companies directly. We are also very thankful to Imperial College for hosting us this year – both the Coputing Department and the Business School went out of their way to accomodate us, and we think it will be a perfect match for the biggest Seedcamp Week ever!