What does a bank designed for the needs of a six year-old have in common with an iPhone app designed to help you donate money to a religious organization and a system to help spot issues with legal documents? Well, they were all spawned out of Seedcamp’s recent Seedhack FinTech which took place 30th, 31st March and 1st April. We had over one hundred energetic and entrepreneurial hackers register to take part in the event in the purpose-built Campus by Google and enabled by our generous sponsors: Paypal, Domain.me, and 10gen.
Friday night’s kick off was led by a keynote speech from Michael Rolph, Director at Anthemis Group, a leading Financial Technology investment firm. He highlighted how a key part of the financial tech investment opportunities involves bringing additional transparency between those that manage capital and those that invest or use capital. The old model of a few people exploiting inefficiencies in information are over as new startups increasingly democratize the information necessary to make better financial decisions.
After the keynote, we had our API speakers present what their companies did, as well as how their technology could be used within the context of a new project. Our API presenters were:
Following the talks from our speakers, the attendees had the chance to mingle, eat some great food courtesy of @centralworking and bounce ideas off of each other. Once done, the group headed back upstairs to go into a pitch rally of ideas. After the pitch rally, everyone settled in for a late night of hacking away on their respective ideas.
By late afternoon Saturday, 16 companies had been formed and were mentored by our Judges which included:
What’s amazing is that in spite of having little sleep, the companies had tons of energy and were still struggling with how to make certain ideas work and getting their MVPs ready until late into the evening.
On Sunday, crunch time started at 4pm as all the weary-eyed hackers commenced their final pitches. Below is a summary of the top three companies formed (that presented), what the project was about, and who the members were. The best Demo award went to Holy Light, with the runner up position being split evenly between Sayvd and Minipots, both showing how awesome a product can be built in just slightly over 48 hours. The company that was given a fast track to an upcoming Seedcamp event was Business Semantics, which worked on a project to help alleviate the burden of legal document review.
Business Semantics
Using semantically-rich terminological dictionaries/ontologies and linguistic analysis to identify and remove ambiguities in contracts which by their nature constitute litigation risk.
HolyLight A CRM solution for churches to manage churchgoers + mobile & social app to allow anyone to donate anywhere via PayPal.
MiniPots Are creating a casual social game to help friends bet each other about the topics they care about.
Sayvd Sayvd is a social mobile app giving you an easy way to save small amounts of money and stick your savings in a safe place for bigger purchases later. Save 2,5 on a coffee towards your snowboard.
What’s clear after the Seedhack FinTech event however, is how much innovation still needs to happen in the space. Many of the conversations that the attendees had with each other as well as during customer validation calls circled around a huge dissatisfaction with current payment systems, credit card processing systems, security, and even banking. We truly hope to see much more innovation coming out of this space!
Berlin has been a fixture on our Seedcamp calendar since 2008, not only because of the great entrepreneurs and the startup activity but also because we have always had great relationships with local investors and mentors. This, and of course, the recent surge in activity and attention for the German Capital’s startups, makes us more than excited to come back for our fourth Seedcamp in Berlin.
Last year’s Berlin event was a full-on success for us: not only did we invest in three companies as a result of the event – Mopapp, EfficientCloud and Crashpadder (who was recently acquired by Airbnb) – but other great results also followed. Our recent guest post by Christian Thaler highlighted how he met Bonusbox at Seedcamp Berlin last year and made an investment after being in touch with the founders for a while. Similarly, Passion Capital invested in wireWAX, who were one of last year’s participants. Since we set out to not only invest in great companies, but also to facilitate connections beyond our events, we couldn’t be happier with last years’ event.
This year, we are playing an even bigger fiddle. Fresh off the back of our huge U.S. trip in March, Tel Aviv this week, and April’s Seedcamp in Tallin, we will come back to Berlin in May, where we will be hosted by our new investors at BDMI for what looks to be our biggest and best event in Berlin yet.
Seedcamp Berlin will take place on May 15 in the beautiful “Unter den Linden 1”, one of the most iconic buildings in the capital. We already have some of the best German and European startup investors, entrepreneurs and mentors signed up, and can’t wait to see what the applications will bring.
If you are a web- or mobile-orientated startup, focusing on an exciting space apply before 25th April. We invest from a prototype to a live minimum-viability product through to launch with a few users or customers. As usual, we are excited to see companies from all over Europe applying. We are especially looking forward to see what Berlin’s and Germany’s startup communities are working on, and also expect to attract a record number of applications from the neighbouring countries.
On Thursday we’ll be hosting our fourth Seedcamp Tel Aviv event. This year we have chosen to work closer with lool ventures as our Israeli partner and will be investing in any winners jointly with them.
The lool team headed by Yaniv and Avichay are well rooted in the vibrant Israeli scene, and their deep involvement with the entrepreneurs they partner is a profound component in their investment process, which is well aligned with the Seedcamp approach. We are delighted to be welcomed back by Afeka College who have generously loaned us their fantastic event space, and to have The Windows Azure Accelerator as our local sponsors.
The region has developed impressively since we first visited in 2009. This is most quantifiable in the huge surge in mentors – all industry leaders who are keen to give up a day of their time to meet and mentor some of Europe’s most exciting startups. We’re proud to have 90 mentors for this year’s event.
Applications have also seen a surge in quality. We received applications from over 18 countries ranging as far as the USA and Australia. Last year we selected 14 teams; this year, as quality has been so high, we’re very happy to announce that we’ve selected 18 fantastic teams. We are delighted that there is a stronger international demand to participate in a Tel-Aviv-based event, proving that Israel is a key location for startup activities, with teams travelling in from Latvia, Hungary and Slovakia to attend.
So, without further ado, please meet the 2012 Tel Aviv teams.
Once again our gratitude goes out to our local sponsor The Microsoft Azure Accelerator, which is a four-month programme aimed at helping early stage startups doing big things in Cloud, Internet, and mobile. Microsoft will provide the best workspace, top mentors, and all the tools needed to create the most successful startup.
Also to our local partners lool ventures and Afeka College both of whom have been giving us endless support to ensure this year’s Seedcamp will once again be a huge success.
We’d like to thank our yearly sponsors Bizspark, Qualcomm, Google and Paypal for their ongoing support.
We started Seedhack with a simple question. If we combined top-notch hackers with leaders from different industries, would we see the creation of innovative solutions for organizations or sectors that desperately need them? Could this format help foster great new startups that address untapped needs? Well, we tried it, and it did… you can read about how it went here.
Friday
Sunday
Image via Wikipedia
Talented Estonia Estonia has established itself in our eyes as a firm hotspot for incredible talent ever since we first encountered Erply in 2009. Since then, this view has been further strengthened by a number of other awesome teams that have joined the family: GrabCAD, Sportlyzer, Campalyst, Qminder, TransferWise and, most recently, Pult.
As a country with a population of 1.34 million, it’s one of the least populous members of Europe; yet it has a phenomenal pool of talent. The Seedcamp Team will be packing their bags and we’re super excited about exploring the startup community in Tallinn further on April 18.
Estonia IT College has very kindly offered us its premises to host Seedcamp Tallinn. They pave the way in connecting academic knowledge with the commercial world. An impressive one-third of all their lectures come from IT firms and companies, making them a perfect partner for us. We are also very proud that Skype – one of Europe’s most successful startups ever – is sponsoring the event alongside our original Estonian investee, Erply. In addition to their support, we are happy to announce Enterprise Estonia as a major partner and sponsor. Their mantra is: “the more startup entrepreneurs there are, the higher the survival rate of their companies and the greater the number of fast-growing enterprises will be.” This is obviously very much in line with Seedcamp’s core belief that Europe needs to work together to support and accelerate our fantastic startup talent.
Besides the immense local talent, we are looking forward to receiving applications from teams from the broader Baltic region and Scandinavian countries. We’ve previously enjoyed hosting Seedcamp Copenhagen and Stockholm, and hope to see many more teams from those regions apply. Obviously we’re all about timing rather than location, so if you’re ripe for disruption and want to make it big – apply now from anywhere in Europe of further afield!
Please familiarise yourself with the process: check out the FAQs and read up about Seedcamp on our website and blog. The more you know about us, the more you will get out of the whole Seedcamp experience (and you might also learn an interesting thing or two on the way!). Applications are open until Thursday, 29th March 2012.
With only a couple of days left to apply to our fourth Seedcamp in Tel Aviv, taking place on 29th March, we want to ensure that, you don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to 
meet with some of the best local and international mentors around.
The partnership with lool.vc will give teams a great advantage, as they’ll gain a local support network as well as Seedcamp’s connections across Europe and the US.We’ve partnered with lool.vc, who are fantastic guys and have a strong local network, so – combining our resources – we have 70 fantastic mentors signed up to spend an intensive day mentoring the most talented and ambitious teams who have applied.
If you fit into that category – i.e. you have a startup and want to go places – then you have until 11.59pm on 1st March to submit your application here.
Want confirmation that the mentors are as good as we say they are? Here is a small teaser as to whom you can expect to meet and brainstorm around your business with:
We’d like to extend our gratitude to AFEKA College of Engineering for hosting us once again, this time at their wonderful new lab building. Thanks are also due to our yearly sponsors, Google, Microsoft BizSpark, PayPal and Qualcomm for their continual support.
Submit applications here before 11.59pm, Thursday, 1st March.
Seedcamp London
Over 100 mentors and a record 22 teams joined us on 31st January for Seedcamp London. Thanks to iStockphoto, eOffice and Talk Talk, we had a fantastic venue in the heart of Soho and, true to the area, the buzz and energy throughout the day was intense. Seedcamp London was organised in our typical style of quick presentations from the teams, a masterclass panel and then an afternoon of intense mentoring sessions.
The winners We had a record number of applications for the event, so all the teams were immensely proud to be selected. We were very impressed by their shared enthusiasm, drive and ambition – a really positive atmosphere throughout the whole day.
Despite the fierce competition, four teams really won us over, and in two weeks’ time they – along with 15 other Seedcamp teams – will be travelling to the US with us to meet over 300 key players from both the East and West Coast. The US trip is a priceless opportunity for all our teams to refine their pitches, win new customers, form partnerships and of course attract further investment.
So who are the winners?
24symbols from Madrid, Spain What: Spotify for books. 24symbols is an HTML5 service that lets anyone read books (or sections of books) anywhere, with a freemium model. Why: There is a strong and growing demand for ebooks, and 24symbols is in an incredible position to disrupt this industry.
Bluefields from London, UK What: Bluefields intelligently organises amateur sport. Bluefields.com takes away the administrative burden, reducing a weekly organisational workload of around four hours to five minutes. Why: Bluefields joined us from Seedcamp Paris in December, and showed impressive capabilities at building a sleek platform to disrupt a common pain-point in amateur sports.
Checkthis from Brussels, Belgium What: Checkthis, a micro-publishing tool (between nothing and a blog), enables anyone to instantly publish and share webpages to sell an object, advertise a job, and do practically anything else you might want to do online. Why: We see huge potential in this beautiful product and are excited to add value along the way in their journey to growth.
Pult from Tallinn, Estonia What: Pult lets you stream your content to any screen with a browser. Pult’s platform transforms your smartphone into a hub that carries your identify and billing information. Why: As this is our sixth Estonian investment, we obviously have a soft spot for the incredible talent coming out of this country. The Pult team is very experienced and convinced us with their ambition and simple, but ingenious idea.
Thank you to: Everyone who attended Seedcamp London on 31st January, and all 22 teams who challenged the mentors and were eager to drive their business forward and seek advice from a room full of experts. All 112 mentors who gave up their precious time and expertise in order to help startups map out the road to success. Last but not least, we’d like to extent a huge thank-you to our generous Event Sponsors, iStockphoto, and our fantastic hosts, eOffice and TalkTalk, who all worked tirelessly to ensure the day was a success. And, of course, we can’t forget the invaluable contribution of our yearly sponsors, Microsoft BizSpark, Qualcomm and Google, who support Seedcamp on a ongoing basis. Also, we announced PayPal as a new partner for us – we’re looking forward not only to work with them here in Europe, but also to visit their US HQ during our trip.
What’s next? If you’re a startup wanting to get involved in the Seedcamp action, then applications are currently open to: • Seedcamp Tel Aviv, taking place on 27th March. See here for further information about the event and how to apply. • Seedhack FinTech, taking place on 30th–31st March and 1st April in London. We’re looking for talented developers who are keen to disrupt the financial world of technology. To join us, apply here.
Stay tunned for our coverage of the US trip!
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