Happy Birthday BizSpark - one year old this week.
And what a year it's been. We now have over 7,500 start-ups in the program in Europe and I believe well over 25,000 in the program worldwide. Wow. Who'd have thought a year ago that would be the case?
I am really chuffed to see Europe as a region (or WE, CEE, UK, France and Germany if you want to break it down by MSFT regions) do so well and become the best performer for BizSpark, outside of the US. You can read a bit more on our progress and thinking for the year ahead on Informilo in our interview with Jennifer Schenker at the EVCA conference in Berlin a few weeks back. Jan, Cliff and myself were there to meet a load of VCs - and point them towards more BizSpark companies - in the hope that some will secure funding.
MSFT was also front and centre at the Money Talks Forum in Helsinki and the EBAN Winter Uni in Stockholm this week. Next week is all about Entrepreneurship of course...so I'm sure that will result in even more folks discovering BizSpark. Enjoy.
Not long now until the buzz of Global Entrepreneurship Week becomes a reality - the countdown is on. Thousands of events happening globally. Very exciting. You can vote for the YBI Entrepreneur of the Year too, here. My vote went to the candidate in Saudi Arabia...
From Saudi, to Helsinki and the Money Talks Forum happening today. Alas due to bugs and travel ban I am sitting at home while my colleagues John, Mika and Hanne lead the charge - meeting local VCs and start-ups, along with our fab BizSpark Network Partners Guidewire Group visiting from the Valley and local star, Technopolis. More on those guys soon.
Off to organise more GEW stuff now ...
I may be the anti-geek but even I am excited to see Win7 RTM made available on MSDN to BizSpark member companies. Check out the latest BizSpark news on Twitter. I finally joined the 21st century and signed up to Twitter myself a few weeks ago. Fascinating. It was down for a few hours today though (hit by DoS attack apparently).
My new-found technological embrace knows no bounds, as I do meetings on Office Communicator and talk to family currently working in Qatar and China, and friends in all corners on Skype. Now I just need a webcam.
Today I met another star at Cisco, Yann de Vries, their head of Venture/Corp Dev in EMEA. We talked about how we might work together to find and support great tech start-ups. I am really encouraged by these kind of conversations - it reinforces the art of possibility. Times might be less than ideal at the moment but we are still inspired daily by great innovation and tales of resilience, growth and prosperity for entrepreneurs and enterprises, against the odds. Plenty of companies are raising capital too.
Some places easier to do business than others, according to this index.
HSBC announced a decent profit for the first calendar half year but a significant decline year-on-year. While some of their business streams may have suffered, we saw great demand for the BizSpark program among their customers - in a few months more than 100 of them signed up in the UK and there's growth in Turkey, India, France, Mexico, Gulf and SE Asia.
Yesterday, Cisco Systems reported results: net income for its fiscal fourth quarter dropped 46% to $1.1 billion and revenue fell 18% to $8.54 billion. Results, though, topped Wall Street's expectations, and shares rose in after-hours trading. Chambers was bullish: saying there are signs the economy has reached a 'tipping point' last qtr and Cisco will return to double-digit growth. Read more on WSJ (ironically a story about WSJ subsciber-only content on BBC News as I write this).
WSJ also published a piece recently saying the 'Tide is Turning' for Microsoft. Yes!
So... 'unsummery' weather in England aside, plenty of reasons to be cheerful. Perhaps I can use the services of one of these nice travel start-ups to find the yellow ball in the sky.
Last week the wonderful Diogo Vasconcelos from Cisco made me aware of the appearance of something we'd discussed while plotting over wine and carpaccio in Brussels some time ago - Fixing the Future is now live and ready to support. Perhaps that can help create some momentum around investing in innovation and the knowledge economy, to get Europe out of recession.
Sweden takes over the presidency of the EU from this month and has some priorities during that six months. More detail on their plans here. From what we hear, they will also focus on helping start-ups and SMEs access funding - as well as a focus on women's enterprise. On 9/10 November, EBAN will hold their Winter University for business angel investor members, in Stockholm, hosted by SVCA. The Nordics appear to be pretty bouyant despite the downturn and Sweden has also seen more than 200 start-ups sign up to the BizSpark program since launch 7 months ago. Encouraging.
This morning we announced a new IP Ventures spinout company - InishTech - in partnership with Enterprise Ireland. The new company is being led by serial Irish entreprenerus Aidan Gallagher, John O'Sullivan and David Smyth. InishTech is a spin-off of Microsoft's Software Licensing and Protection Services (SLPS), providing licensing and protection services to developers - ISVs and in-house developers. They also take over the management of the existing customer base of over 120 companies.
As with previous IP Ventures companies, Microsoft will have a minority stake and an observer on the board. This is the eighth IP Ventures company announced, InishTech following in the footsteps of Zignals, another Irish company and partnership with Enterprise Ireland, announced at our European Investor Summit in June 2009.
You can read the press release here one of the first articles on Informilo. Congratulations to Aidan and the team!
Here I am in sunny Frisco and attempting to adapt to PST. My feet barely touched the ground in the UK after my time in Eastern Europe, before I boarded a plane bound for the West Coast. Yet again I am surviving on a few hours sleep and cramming in as much time with friends & colleagues and experiencing the highlights of the city. Dinner at COI last night and their 11-course tasting menu. Wow.
Just digesting all the goings on at the Prague event (and the 11 courses from last night). Great feedback from participants at the event and we hope that the presenting companies go on to secure funding for their ventures. Read more about the presenting companies and the news announcements.
Mike Sigal from Guidewire is trying to tempt me into running the Bay to Breakers on Sunday. Not sure I am up to that really as my exercise regime in the immediate future appears to include mostly lifting the wine glass and circling the shoe department at Barney’s.
Today at our investor summit in Prague, Dan’l Lewin announced new partnerships with HSBC globally and with BT Business in the UK – who become BizSpark Network Partners.
HSBC Business Banking is a very exciting partner – BizSpark will be promoted widely to 2.7 million business banking customers in 31 countries enabling an estimated 40,000 companies worldwide. The partnership actively commences in UK, France, Turkey and Malta followed by other markets such as Poland and United Arab Emirates in the coming months. Read more.
We have over 130 people at the event and so far 10 start-ups have pitched for funding to an audience of more than 50 investors. More on that later….
EBAN threw a great conference in Madrid: BizSpark went down well with the Business Angel networks (helping save their portfolio companies money in the early years always popular) and the networking was very worthwhile.
I met some great people and we heard some fantastic stories about angel investing: for me Dr Cornelius Boersch and Prof Alan Barrell really stood out. I also love Permjot’s blog.
As a thank you for moderating the session on investing internationally (“Connecting Worlds”) I received a signed copy of Modwenna’s book on angel investing.
I enjoyed the session enormously and learnt a lot from my fellow panellists: Juan from BID Network (based in NL) told us about the opportunity for investment in LATAM (Juan thinks the best “natural born” entrepreneurs are in Columbia and you have to remember two things to succeed: wake up early and have a tan); Sharon from Astia gave some great insight into what seems a missed opportunity for female entrepreneurs and investors (3% of EBAN members are women and 7% of VC funding goes to women-led companies). Their program in the US (both coasts) and London are starting to really take off. India is next on their list.
Patrice filled us in on the dynamics of the Europe Plus Foundation helping connect companies in the US and Europe. They are hosting a World Investment Conference in France in June.
Though I felt my skills as a moderator will not be in demand in the future, I received great feedback (and great questions from the floor) from David Rose from Angelsoft and Stuart Rock, editor of Real Business and Real Deals.
While angel networks’ formation in Europe is on the increase, and co-investment between angels and VCs also seems to be a trend, some are still not convinced that the equity gap has gone away or even narrowed in the past few years. So I was pleased to see this intention by some well-known European serial entrepreneurs to invest in the next generation with the formation of a fairly substantial early stage fund.
You can see a bit more about my first day at the EBAN event here. Aside from the conference itself I managed to take in a bit of culture and would highly recommend a visit to the Museo Reina Sofia if you are in the city and like a bit of Picasso, Dali and Miro. For art of a different kind (tapas, wine and ambience) try the other Reina. Yum.
I am engrossed in The White Tiger at the moment. Awesome read. The BRIC countries are so vast and so diverse, still growing at quite a pace: India forecasting around 5.5% growth.
In London last Wednesday the theme was India: the opportunity for UK companies in India and Indian innovation that can benefit from UK investment – great brainstorming meetings with UK Trade and Investment and Cartezia.
I am tasked with getting more involved with UK India Business Angels network (and UKIBC) and ping between a rush at the opportunity and a sigh at the size of the task, simultaneously. So much to do.
There’s a delegation of Indian companies to London in May/June courtesy of Envestors – as UK investors seek to invest in high growth companies. We are also working on a plan to take an outbound delegation to India with UKTI as more and more companies look to Asia to source skills and reduce operating costs.
At dinner last Tuesday night I received fascinating insight into business dealings in India at Tamarind as I met some great people I am now lucky to call friends: businessmen from families in India that have built empires – Gaurav the latest in seven generations of wealthy entrepreneurs and part of a self-confessed elite.
Based in Delhi, Gaurav is charming, ambitious and articulate. He is an unabashed capitalist and leader of the family business: sugar. Both he and Ajay (running a retail business with a sideline in helping entrepreneurs – he heads up the London chapter of EO) contest that wealthy businessmen in India are not doing enough to facilitate the next generation. I had thought philanthropy was more more widespread and naturally occurring but these guys set me straight. Only after some time did Gaurav mention that they have set up five schools, three girls scholarship programs, sports programs and education projects. Modesty prevails.
So what about India and tech start-ups? The guys say it will be some time yet (years) before wealthy local families invest in Venture (be it ICT, Cleantech, Hi Tech). Property and Retail dominate – like so many other countries, be they established or emerging. When in Ireland (as I am this week) they talk about apartments and land, not cool technology and spinouts from DCU and Trinity College.
The other factor is inward investment versus the desire to legislate for indigenous industry. While outsourcing continues to grow, so does the creation of start-ups and SMEs. Emerging markets seem to reach a kind of tipping point where some of the brains employed in BPO are now considering taking their idea, their IP, and turning it into a real business.
BizSpark downloads may reflect that trend and TiE India are doing a great job. I think Bangalore is the largest chapter.
I am seeing Jim O’Neill (Mr Bric) from Goldman Sachs for lunch on Thursday. He says the BRIC has emerged and now it is the turn of the next category – the N-11. From what I see, he might be right. Who am I to question? In the meantime we shall aim to prop up the economy by eating fine Italian cuisine in Mayfair on Thursday.
Patience, belief, panic, loyalty, endurance, blind optimism, philosophy in the face of failure. Some of the characteristics of Ireland rugby supporters in the past decade. There was a period around RWC 2007 in Paris I wanted to change my shirt – and my passport.
Mid March, they delivered us just reward in the form of the Six Nations championship and the Grand Slam – Mulligan's of Mayfair providing the venue to witness what was a nerve-wracking, nail-biting game – and eventually, our first victory in 61 years.
Bring on the Lions tour.
Sometimes I describe what I do at being at the intersection of technology and politics and education. No better example of two worlds colliding than the use of Twitter during the G20 summit. There must be a real movement afoot as I cannot seem to go anywhere without hearing a reference to Twitter these days. I am such a luddite for not signing up. Yet. Indeed some of you may be going “Eh?”. Well here is a great guide by Lucy Atkins in the Telegraph.
Probably a good way to keep track of President Obama on his tour. He’s in Turkey now.
I am told that Stephen Fry has been ‘tweeting’ on his travels in Asia – bizarrely following a similar route to me just weeks before him. Singapore I know well but I did enjoy visiting Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia for the first time. Borneo is a good spot – we got fairly close to some orang-utans and lizards; though we did not venture deep enough into the jungle to meet leeches and snakes thankfully.
After sampling the sights and lights of Sydney and glimpsing roos in Queensland, it was time to chill in Bali with a friend. She managed to book me into an incredible little boutique hotel with luscious gardens, right on the beach, in a quiet part of the island. Then home to what should have been March mayhem but instead has delivered sunshine and warm days, as I eased myself back into the Q3 workload with intermittent dog walks, bike rides and flying lessons. This very pleasant spell has continued into April and people in general seem to have a sunny disposition.
Actually from where I am sitting the news is all good. The progress with BizSpark in the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region is incredible. 20 countries have launched and Turkey continues to lead while South Africa, Israel, parts of Levant and North Africa (Tunisia, Egypt) are storming ahead. Pakistan is doing a great job. Gulf and Saudi are ‘on the grid’ as are Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya. Very satisfying after months of preparation.
The trend in other emerging markets is similar: in Central and Eastern Europe, 19 countries are live with the program and - while Russia and Poland have an impressive lead – Ukraine, Romania and Hungary are closing the gap. Other countries continue to astound watchers with demand – Croatia, Belarus, Slovenia and CZ. There is no doubt that there is real appetite in these emerging economies and people will brave the challenging environment to start new businesses – often in what one would readily admit are not ideal social, economic and political circumstances. Still, good to know there are beams of light making it through.
For me, the last few weeks have been delivered quite a few unexpected or unwelcome events; and a few nice surprises. The weather for one. Snow forced Heathrow (and CDG) to close down, leading to transport chaos across the UK and disruption for thousands. I arrived back from the US two days after I set out and got to Brussels a week later than planned.
When I did make it to Brussels on Tuesday, I ended up at an impromptu late dinner with two gents (one from Cisco) and the triumvirate went on to come up with the new Lisbon Strategy (a simple ten-point plan to get Europe out of the financial crisis) over Sancerre and carpaccio. Fuel for the soul. We are now starting a movement that is reminiscent of student activism. Watch this space.
Given the news of record decline in the Eurozone I guess something radical is required. Today’s Telegraph also had an interesting analysis.
Being fiscally responsible myself, I flew to Brussels again today [Sunday – missing the rugby] as the flights on Monday were extortionate (same fare would get me to San Fran).
On Monday we meet EBAN folks, Tuesday morning an early session with MEPs at the European Parliament (with SME Union) followed by a meeting with EVCA and on Wednesday a workshop with some cool [Web 3.0] start-ups seeking investment, organised by Europe Unlimited. Should be fun. If I can understand all that semantic web stuff.
My colleague heads off to Minsk to launch BizSpark in Belarus. I send him to all the best places. Others are busy planning the next Innovation Day here in a few weeks.
Last Saturday, I watched Ireland beat France in the Six Nations championship. Who would have forecast that after six years humiliating defeat? Well, not me for one. I heard the French team were kept on the plane on the tarmac for hours at Dublin airport before they could disembark for training at Croke Park. Perhaps this aided our victory.
I have learned to hope but not expect where our national side is concerned (and the male of the species). Ireland went on to notch up a great score against Italy today (after what must have been a telling off in the dressing room at half time).….my uncle keeping me up to date by text from Rome.
Allez les vertes! While there no certainties in this life (and this week has certainly proved the notion) there are also some pleasant surprises and – despite the widespread doom and gloom - we continue to make great headway. Professionally and on the rugby pitch at least. Let’s hope the forecast is for more sunshine and temperate days as we approach Spring. Forever the optimist. I’m off for more Sancerre and carpaccio. Salut.
My good friend Mike Sigal from Guidewire Group will host a networking session (he calls it "Cocktails") for investors, entrepreneurs and other worthy people in London 5th Feb together with NESTA and partners. Worth going along if you are in town. Good way to connect to folks back in the Valley:
February 5th, 2009
18:30 - 20:30
The Long Acre
1-3 Long Acre
London WC2E
You can register on the website
Want to know more about the new program for start-ups? Cliff has written a great blog on the subject. We have seen huge demand for BizSpark since launch on 6 November.
Planning for launches in the Middle East and Africa is now well underway. I’m looking forward to seeing the reaction in Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan – Walid will keynote there end of Feb.
Dan’l Lewin is off to South Africa end of Feb too. Watch him in action at LeWeb and at XTOPIA in Berlin. Egypt, Pakistan and the team in Saudi are launching early March. The guys in Nigeria, Senegal, Kenya and Mauritius are gearing up too. I’ve seen requests from Afghanistan. Soon there won’t be a country you cannot download our stuff…
In Europe, the focus on start-ups and SMEs grows ever stronger. As we prepare for some big events coinciding with European Year of Innovation & Creativity and SME Week for instance, we are noticing the growth in many CEE countries – Russia, Ukraine, Poland, CZ – all seeing steady demand in this sector.
In fact I spoke to a VC setting up a new fund focused on Polish innovation today. Sign of the times. Eight of our CEE country teams launched BizSpark in Nov and another eight are poised to launch in Feb/March. It is not an easy time for VCs either – or start-ups trying to access capital. So I am glad we’re putting some energy into new partnerships with EBAN and HSBC.
I know access to technology isn’t the end game – but its not a bad start. Companies providing a platform to connect IP and ideas to capital such as Europe Unlimited – are starting to gain some momentum. So much investment in R&D.. yet so little of it successfully commercialised. We need to do a lot more in this space. Student orgs like JCI and Uni networks have also signed up to promote BizSpark to their members. NCGE still have to be a leader in this field.
In Western Europe, while economies contract and face unemployment stats reminiscent of the last recession, more people are starting businesses. We hope to help the software entrepreneurs get off the ground – and stay off the ground.
I will be speaking about BizSpark at an event in Dublin held by Microsoft Ireland if you happen to be in the area....
Ireland were one of the first countries to launch the new program on 6 November and have seen incredible demand so far. Great coverage on TV & Radio and some good articles in the newspapers. Of course none of that compares with the great piece of music that was sent to me that week as the US elections dominated our desktops.....as I recovered from completing the New York City marathon on the Sunday. Never again.
