As the most connected international seed investor in the world, we are building the best seed platform for internationally minded entrepreneurs. Since launching in 2007, we have come a long way. We have reviewed 5,000 applications and mentored 800 teams through 8,000 mentoring sessions making 48,000 1:1 connections. We have funded just over 1% of these companies (88) across 33 countries who have since gone on to raise $90M in funding.
One thing we always keep is a laser focus on is our entrepreneurs. This means we regularly take the advice we give our own startups: Listen to our customers – the best globally ambitious founders – and adjust our offering to best match their needs. With Seedcamp London, we want to announce our calendar for the year 2013 and tell you more about the way founders can interact with Seedcamp, and how we will help connect local startup ecosystems across Europe and internationally.
The improvements we are announcing today are the result of various experiments we ran over the past year, and of discussions with our local partners across the world. They will make it easier for founders to meet the Seedcamp team, will enable local partners to work more closely with us, and bring us to more places than ever before.
More local events and more involvement for our partners
One of the most repeated questions we hear is “when do you come to our city”. Our friends in places like Lisbon, Budapest, Ljubljana, and Tallinn have worked tirelessly to bring Seedcamp home and make our visits a full success. This is why we have decided to come up with a better structure that will allow us to go to more places, and at the same time empower our local partners that do such an amazing job at helping us explore their cities.
Mini Seedcamps are back
Each local Mini Seedcamp will be ran by Seedcamp and a local partner. While the structure is still evolving, these events will always include startups pitching to our team and investors, coupled with straight feedback and advice. We will invite the best startups from these events to investment interviews and fast track them into the Seedcamp program. We will also bring speakers, mentors, and investors to make the events as interactive and interesting as possible, and to continue enforcing the bridges we have built in the last 5 years.
We have already set up a number of these events for this and next year, and will continue to publish dates and more details. Watch out for Mini Seedcamps in Jordan, Tel Aviv, Dublin, Sofia, Krakow, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Zurich, Vienna, Barcelona, Moscow, and Ljubljana – you will find the constantly growing calendar on our homepage – expect to see us in 20 to 30 cities around the world during this year.
Focus on core locations
London and Berlin have manifested themselves as the leading local startup ecosystems in Europe. Both continue to grow at an amazing pace, and both have local strengths and weaknesses that allow them to coexist perfectly. While Berlin is thriving as the creative capital of a new startup generation with great ambitions, London is manifesting its place as the financial and technology capital for both European firms and US companies looking to expand.
This is why we have decided to focus on these two core hubs in 2013. We will hold four main Seedcamp events interchangeably in London and Berlin. This is where we will invest in new companies, bring together our community of mentors, and hold demo days for active investors looking to invest in Seedcamp teams. We will continue to make Seedcamp events the ultimate get together of the best European entrepreneurs, investors, and mentors.
Seedcamp London is happening as you read this, and the first Seedcamp Berlin 2013 will take place in Mid-May with the help of our friends at BDMI and the Factory in Berlin.
Even better bridges to the US
Our US trips have become the fastest paced acceleration experience for European startups. From an educational, networking, but also investment perspective, there are few excursion that are as valuable to fast-growth oriented founders as our trips to the US startup epicenters of San Francisco, Boston, New York, Seattle, and SXSW. Within weeks, startups built partnerships with industry leaders and investment relationships with several of the best firms in the space. Convinced by the success of these trips for our startups, we decided to literally double-down on them.
We will now tour the US twice a year with our recent companies, and enable founders to build connections with leading VCs, tech companies, and other startups. We have already planned out much of our US trip in February and March, and the companies joining out of Seedcamp London will be able to join us on the trip. They will get to visit out partners like Microsoft, Google, Twitter, and Facebook, Pitch in front of Investors like Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock, and Softech. We will also visit the fastest growing startups in New York, Boston, and the Bay area, to learn from the best and get inspired.
Setting up a Home and Getting Busy
Google Campus has proven to be a real game changer for us and our teams in the nearly 1 year since we set up here. Having office space in London alongside us for 3 months has provided a huge value in day-to-day interactions between teams and us, between the teams themselves, and with all the other events that happen at Campus.
We have also formalized our monthly learning days with speakers like Sean Ellis and Eric Ries and numerous local entrepreneurs and investors into a key component of the program. You’ll continue to hear more about these in the coming months.
We are excited about the coming year, and how investing through London and Berlin will enable the teams to bond much more, and will enable a better format of interaction for support, development, and follow on investment.
How to apply to Seedcamp in the new format
We will have applications open at all times, for investment interviews in London and Berlin. As always, we are looking for teams from all over Europe and the world, in the mobile and internet space, at a prototype or product stage.
We will also allow teams from Mini Seedcamps to be fast tracked right into the Investment Interviews, without going through the application cycle. The applications for the local events will always be managed through Angellist – we are proud to be the first European partner for the new applications feature.
The Investment structure for teams that join Seedcamp
One key thing that founders have been asking us for is a choice in different funding options for companies wishing to participate at Seedcamp. Different companies can benefit from Seedcamp in different ways, and we have worked on various structures to accommodate those differences in the past.
We want to officially announce three ways that founders can participate in our program – all of these are tried and tested methods we employed in the last years and have proven to be very beneficial for founders.
The first, our ‘classic’ offer, is €50,000 for 8-10% ordinary shares of your company. We believe this amount helps founders reach the most amount of momentum fastest. It allows the team to focus on a first iteration of their product, and sets a good basis for fundraising towards the end of the Seedcamp program.
A second variant is designed for companies that have some funding and will add to that Seedcamp’s investment. This level is at €25,000 for 5% of ordinary shares and includes all of the other benefits of being a Seedcamp company. We’ve seen companies raise small angel rounds before Seedcamp, and this offering works well to accommodate these founders in the program.
The last option is for companies that are already generating cash and/or have received more substantial funding, where participating in Seedcamp with an investment isn’t possible. For 3% of ordinary shares, founders get to fully participate in the Seedcamp program. As part of this, we offer the companies a stipend of €5,000 to help cover the direct costs of participating in our program (travel costs to events, etc).
We look forward to a rocking 2013!
At Seedcamp Week last year we promised a different Seedcamp experience in 2013. We think the broader and deeper calendar and greater funding options for entrepreneurs provide just this. We are thankful to all our founders, partners, and investors for their feedback in helping us build an amazing Seedcamp 2013.