Talent Garten opens in Vienna

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The Talent Garden A1 Telekom Austria campus will be a physical platform for digital, tech and creative professionals to work, learn and connect. A reference point for the Austrian innovation ecosystem promoted by Talent Garden, Europe’s largest coworking network, with the strong support of the most important players of the industry and local institutions: A1 Telekom Austria, Raiffeisen Zentralbank and the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Venionaire is a proud founding partner of the Talent Garden Campus in Vienna.

A1 Telekom Austria provides the ideal location for the campus: 5.000 square meters’ venue that will host TAG café, event spaces, and coworking, which will open 24/7 and host more than 500 professionals.  Start-ups, existing companies, freelancers, investors, and agencies will work together to create innovations. The advantage is the exchange between the enterprises working there, in conjunction with TAG Innovation School, a unique in-house academy in the digital field, events, a community gastronomy and an internal networking platform. The coworkers can work based on their membership in all other Talent Garden locations across Europe.

Talent Garden successfully operates 18 such campus locations in six countries as a leading European company. Talent Garden has just closed an EUR 12 million investment round that will fund its further expansion into Europe, reaching 70.000 square meters across the network and 8.000 members.

 

Davide Dattoli, CEO Talent Garden: “We have been planning to expand into a German-speaking city for the first time since the middle of 2016. Vienna has convinced us for three reasons: Firstly, an ever-growing startup and digital ecosystem. Secondly, an incredibly positive feedback from our founding partner A1 Telekom Austria and all the industry-leading corporate partners and the public sector the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the City of Vienna and the Business-Agency Vienna Wien helped who us in a cooperative and bureaucratic way. From this point of view, Vienna is an ideal base for our community work in the region. Last but not least, a committed group of our local co-founders is crucial for the acceptance in the creative scene of a city. We have been working with our co-founders Martin Giesswein, Max Lammer, and Berthold Baurek-Karlic for months and together with our colleagues from Italy, they are now preparing the opening. From April on, Bernhard Kainrath as local managing director will join the team.”

 

Alejandro Plater, CEO Telekom Austria Group: “By hosting Talent Garden A1 Telekom Austria campus, we prove our long-term commitment to Austria’s Start Up ecosystem and outline, that we are working very hard on the development of new industries in order to strengthen Austria’s economy. We as Telekom Austria Group are the digital backbone of Austria as a business location and provide our core competences to the Start Up community to encourage innovation. Because: Innovation is in the DNA of Start Ups, which is the reason they have been disrupting entire industry sectors and will do so in the future. And exactly this kind of “will to innovate” is very much needed in a digital world”.

 

Margarete Schramböck, CEO A1: “As one of the major enablers of Austria’s digital future, A1 has already been supporting the Austrian Start Up scene for more than 5 years. We have helped almost 10 Start Ups develop and scale their business. Start Ups are a vital part of Austria’s economy and are responsible for more than a third of new jobs annually. With the Talent Garden A1 Telekom Austria campus we will support the Austrian Start Up ecosystem growing and innovating.”

 

Michael Höllerer, Member of the Management Board of Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG: “The concept of Talent Garden is absolutely convincing. It was clear for us, that we will support the idea of having such an innovation hub in Vienna. As international banking group, we focus on sustainable digitization and innovation topics. Cooperating with FinTechs and Start-ups is an important part of our strategy. Still during the first half-year 2017 we will start our accelerator program. For this Talent Garden provides the ideal basis and therefore we will have our own startup space within the campus. Michael Höllerer is coordinating the topics of digitization and the cooperation with Talent Garden for the whole RZB-Group.

 

Walter Ruck, President of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and Industry: “Industry 4.0, automation, broadband offensive, digital & mobile revolution – the economy of tomorrow has begun already. If we want to be a strong player in an international and competitive environment, we have to make the city of Vienna a hotspot for the young, wild and creative start-ups. This is also the reason why we support Talent Garden. In Vienna an international competence centre and home for the start-up industry comes into being. These are very good news for the location for business and the entrepreneurial future in this city“.

 

Martin Giesswein: “Parallel to the adaptation of the building, we are going to invite Viennese start-ups, freelancers and digital-oriented companies together with other well renowned corporate partners in the coming weeks to move into the campus with us when it opens middle of year 2017. We will ask well known stakeholders from the innovation scene of Vienna as ambassadors to work on building a vibrant and open campus community.”

 

The new Talent Garden A1 Telekom Austria campus will be presented to the Start Up community and the media at a community event at 28th of march. If you are interested in Talent Garden Vienna, please send us a “hello(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)venionaire.com”.

Picture: © Talent Garden, Instagram.

Technology Stack for Investors I: Research

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How to make it on the Road to Dakar? Winning the race with a strong investors’ brand. In this blog series, we explore what it takes to get your investment tools in order by looking at the following four major areas: research, deal flow, portfolio management and network management.

 

There is some truth to the saying that “investing in early-stage tech is more of an art, than science”. However, just as the Paris-Dakar rally is not won purely based on enthusiasm and gut feeling, but rather the adequate handling of the right machine and equipment, early stage investors also need to be adequately equipped to perform. Funnily enough, we found out that although a majority of investors deal with innovation and technologies every day, they stick to excel spreadsheets, word documents, as well as paper and pencil for their own work. “The blacksmith’s horse has no horseshoes” is resounding in our day and age as well. To be fair, technology for this industry has only evolved a couple years ago and the adoption rate is rising. The need for a technology stack is not only directly correlated to the rising complexity of the business, it is particularly necessary to track one’s investments effectively as well as providing resource efficiency. Investors have to balance their fix costs as they have a direct negative impact on the IRR. Whether you are mostly looking for a deal flow at the very beginning, or just started to improve your inner processes, or find yourself in the need of a better way to track a large number of investments: you will have to choose if you stick to the old way or implement a digital technology stack for your early stage investment business. Ultimately, you want to choose the best machine if you want to get to Dakar.

First quest: what does my machine need to be able to do

To guide you through the windy and sandy maze on your route to Dakar, we have divided the technology stack into four major areas:

  1. research,
  2. deal flow,
  3. portfolio management,
  4. and network management (including business intelligence, monitoring and internal communication).

 

 Technology stack for Research

VCs provide research: a) to gather the important expertise b) to be known as an expert in the field and c) gathering inbound deal flow. Thus to make it onto the race track, the rally driver needs to prove his skill and practice.

 

Gathering Expertise

Just as the race driver needs to first train to become one, investors need to do their homework – this is a time investment which needs to be made. There are many useful tools providing valuable data and information to facilitate your research such as

  • Product Hunt,
  • AngelList,
  • Crunchbase,
  • EVCA

or paid services such as

  • Pitchbook,
  • CB Insights,
  • Bureau van Dijk

which should be systemically followed in order to understand market dynamics, technology trends and current developments of valuations – as prices (multiples) will change in hype-cycles just like publicly traded companies. Apart from increasing the likelihood of successful investment strategy, venture investors need a deep understanding of markets, investor landscapes in a certain field and eventually deciding upon certain investment niches over others. The distribution of supply and demand of innovation across industries is critical to analyze in advance of a deal (as far as possible), as you will need to exit an investment down the road.

The pricing usually varies, depending on the functionalities and features a user prefers. Below is the table showing the comparison of free and pay services for some of the useful research platforms. See our table of software features.

Free databases like Crunchbase (in its basic version at least) and Product Hunt represent useful tools for general information, data mining and getting a quick overview of markets and competition. However, if your ambition is to dig deeper and generate high-quality information and real insights – including news and analysis, we recommend CB Insights, BvD and Pitchbook (make sure to verify if company data is 100% correct through a commercial registry, though). For the access to structured, official commercial register data on the global level we recommend Kompany.com.

As a company with a focal point oriented more towards European markets, our machine of choice is Pitchbook. The platform contains a better database of funding histories, valuation, series terms, information about the investors and startups and much, much more. The integration is well executed, as it enables exporting possibilities and integrates directly with other platforms, such as Salesforce and Microsoft Office Suite.

 

Be known as expert and gather inbound deal flow

A simple but effective way to strengthen your presence in the ecosystem is simply by publishing valuable insights through platforms like Medium for blogging, Quora for Q&A interaction and Slideshare for presentations. Your public presence will not only boost your reputation as a market professional, it will also help to gather inbound deal flow. The better your market reputation, the stronger you are as an investor, the higher the quality of deal flow and eventually your negotiation position will be when it comes to terms and valuation. If a large number of startups are addressing you as an investor, you will statistically have a better chance to select superior deals, but you need to know what you are looking for.

The platforms used for presentation of content (Medium and Slideshare) come in very practical packages, as the free versions offer a broad range of possibilities for raising awareness of your brand. For the purpose of sharing content, we consider Slideshares basic service more than enough. Depending on the preferences and subjective orientation, its Silver, Gold and Platinum subscription models offer upload benefits, monthly tracking of leads and geo-targeting, depending on the chosen model.

 

Conclusion

Research comes as a starting point, the first lap of your long and intensive race. It is also the point where you start assembling your powerful motorbike that should get you to the finish line before the other contestants. Be careful, power is not everything. The machine has to be balanced out according to your needs and adjusted to the conditions of the race. In the next lap, we will pay attention to the deal flow, the next critical piece of assembly you will need for your powerful drivetrain.

 

Some of the best practices from investors like Andreessen Horowitz or Sequoia that are using various platforms for their public presence could also be of use to you:

Blogs:

YouTube:

  • Sequoia Capital’s Doug Leone on Luck & Taking Risks by Sequoia

 

Clever Clover – Kick-Off NEO II

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Last Friday, the beautiful Dylan Hotel in Amsterdam was the venue of choice for Clever Clover’s annual New Years event. The founders and managing partners of Clever Clover invited current portfolio und prospective startups, experts, and investors to share some news about the current portfolio of the firm (NEO I), thoughts on the last year, important learnings that have been made and how they kickstarted NEO II, with some little modifications compared to NEO I. Venionaire started to work with Clever Clover a little bit less than a year ago and it has been a trustful start of a strong collaboration between our two firms.

Amsterdam is a very interesting startup hub, you can literally feel innovation every second you walk around, as the city is a benchmark for electric mobility, many cabs are Tesla cars and there is this beautiful mix of modern, creative, courageous architecture shaping the character of the city. Of course, the Netherlands have a long tradition in international trade and do have numerous international corporates as well as some of the wealthiest pension funds, but we learned that there is even more, speaking to one of the rising startup accelerators NEXT Amsterdam. Esther and Timan are not only building their own business, they are also very enthusiastic about developing the ecosystem in Amsterdam and connecting it to European Hubs – let us see what we can do together.

 

NEO II

It sounds a little awkward, that NEO II is a Venture Capital Fund fully dedicated to the old economy – where most people would expect a strategy of digital or tech products, when they hear “Venture Capital”. Clever Clover is different. NEO II, the second fund of this VC focuses in particular on Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) and it is a very well needed field to cover. The best proof for this is the strong demand of startups approaching the experienced network of Clever Clover.

We do believe there is a lot of fantasy in retail products and trust in the deep knowledge of Clever Clovers team. It is very hard to build a brand and place products in shelves all over the world, it is very expensive to develop hardware products and bring them into mass production, but if you succeed, you have most likely build a sustainable “old-economy” company. Venionaire brings in additional network and resources to back the management team in special situations. It’s valuable expertise in the field of digital services, performance marketing and fundraising helps Clever Clover in the development of their portfolio companies.

Clever Clover focuses on five sectors in relation to FMCG: Media, Sports, Distribution, Food and Retail in general. A unique selling proposition make NEO II a very special fund: NEO II aims at an exit through a founders buy-back of shares – at a clear multiple set at the time of investing. In order to achieve this goal, Clever Clover selects specific products and matches them with a strong mentoring and market access network in order to build solid, profitable companies.

The regional focus of the fund is mainly Austria and Netherlands, as it is obvious considering the core operations out of Vienna and Amsterdam. With its first portfolio, NEO I invested and accelerated a number of well-known startups like Flying Tent, Scoot and Ride, FlyFit or Adoptiq – with regard to performance, Clever Clover confirmed that its portfolio is exactly on track to achieve its target return.

NEO II was established as a legal cooperative (B.V.) based in Amsterdam and registered as an AIFM, by Marloes Voermans (Netherlands) and Heinrich Prokop (Austria) in 2016 and started to sign investors (members – to be technically correct, speaking of a cooperative). Marloes is very creative and hands-on. Connecting start-ups with the right people is an art to her and this is truly some magic hard to copy. Heinrich really needs no introduction in Austria, as he has been on three seasons of the famous Puls 4 TV Show “2 Minuten 2 Million”. He is a very successful entrepreneur in the field of FMCG himself – having run and build Gutschermühle to what it is today. (Note: Gutschermühle was acquired by swiss HACO AG in 2015)

AWS Risikokapitalprämie: “Kick-Back” for Early Stage Investors

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[UPDATE 05.02.2019. The AWS Risikokapitalprämie ended with 31.12.2017]

2017 starts with very good news for national and international Start-up Investors. As of January 1st the Austrian Wirtschaftsservice (AWS – Austria’s federal promotion bank) provides a new risk capital initiative (Risikokapitalprämie) or „kick-back“ for investors, who invest in Austrian Startups.

Investors may receive up to 20% “kick-back” (immediate cash) from their investment of up to a maximum of EUR 250.000 per year, thus receiving a maximum “kick-back” of EUR 50.000 per year. This incentive is open for private investors, their private holding companies or family offices, but not for funds (which might be difficult to discern in some cases) as long as they are not publically listed. In terms of income and capital gains tax, this kick-back will most likely be considered tax neutral, similarly to other grant schemes – however, we do advise you to consult your tax advisor for specifics and validation for your specific case.

 

A lean 3 steps application process for AWS Risikokapitalprämie

First step: Investors will need to apply for the investment grant on the AWS web page directly – at the so-called AWS Fördermanager – before an investor is about to finalize an investment. You may have been signing a term sheet, but have not signed the final shareholder agreement nor closed the deal before this application.

Second step: Unless the startup has already been certified and possesses an identification number, a startup will have to undertake a so-called “Selbsttest”, a specific quick check on the AWS Fördermanager immediately, after an investor’s application. The startup should thus be prepared to hand in certain documents. This could be

  • a business plan with proof of the market innovation (ie. providing pending patent applications),
  • gained traction such as received risk capital in the past, a growing number of employees or a significant revenue growth projected,
  • in addition/alternatively, a startup may refer to other grants of AWS or FFG received before this application.

 

Third step: After the positive evaluation by the AWS, certified startups receive an identification number. The investor submits this ID together with a signed participation agreement and a transfer voucher of the amount invested. We have as of yet, how AWS will deal with investments other than cash (e.g. work for equity, media for equity, provided materials or any other kind of resources). We assume, that those will be treated similarly to other AWS programs – such as “double equity”, which have been considering those non-cash (at least a few types) investments in the past.

Several investors, within specific financing round, may apply for this “AWS Risikokapitalprämie” program. Trustors or other types of syndication vehicles should be also eligible for the grant if the participation chain is disclosed to the AWS. We would advise in this special case to consult AWS directly for clarification.

Good news for Austrian as a startup hub

Looking at comparable programs in neighbouring countries, we expect this new initiative (AWS Risikokapitalprämie) to attract more international investors to invest in Austrian Start-ups. We are looking forward to promoting a higher number of syndicated pan-European investments through the European Super Angels Club, where Business Angels, Family Offices, and (U)HNWIs will profit from this initiative in Austria.

Alternative Finance: Crowdinvesting on the Rise in Europe

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Crowdinvesting as we know it today, began to gain traction in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, as raising capital through traditional institutions was becoming evermore difficult. Crowdinvesting was originally seen as a much-needed solution to the long-standing funding gap but this model soon proved itself as a legitimate source of investment. Although crowdfunding and crowdinvesting have experienced significant growth in recent years.

 

We want to give you an insight about Alternative Finance and especially about the European crowdinvesting market. As terms of Alternative Finance are often used wrongly, we want to give you first an overview of the three most common types:

What is crowdinvesting?

  • Equity-based: purchase of company shares, usually from early-stage firms to investors.
  • Mezzanine-based: debt capital that gives the lender the right to convert to an equity interest if the loan is not paid back on time and in full.
  • Debt-based: lenders receive a non-collateralized debt obligation, typically paid back over an extended period of time. Similar in structure to purchasing a bond, but with different rights and obligations.
  • Others: ghost shares, profit-sharing, exit-participation etc.

What is crowdfunding?

  • Donation-based: no legally binding financial obligation incurred by the recipient to the donor and no financial or material returns are expected by the donor.
  • Reward-based: backers have an expectation that recipients will provide a tangible (but non-financial) reward or product in exchange for their contribution.

What is peer-to-peer lending?

  • Business lending: debt-based transactions between individual or institutional investors and existing businesses (usually SMEs).
  • Consumer lending: debt-based transactions between individuals, most commonly unsecured personal loans.

 

Alternative Finance in Europe

In 2014, the cumulative European market size for alternative finance added up to €2,955.3m. Overall the whole sector grew by a 3-year average growth rate of 146%, which was made up by an increase of 149% from 2012 to 2013 and 144% from 2013 to 2014.

A closer look at the transaction volumes of different alternative finance models reveals that the market’s sustainable growth stems from its various sub-markets. From 2012 to 2014 most of these doubled in size, whereas individual ones even tripled (peer-to-peer business lending, invoice trading, and crowdinvesting). Thus, the European alternative finance market certainly has achieved strong and diversified growth.

Source: Source: University of Cambridge (2015). Moving Mainstream: The European Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report. London: Wardour.

 

Market Potential for Crowdinvesting

In years past, crowdfunding as a means of financing a business was more of a novelty. Today, announcing a crowdfunding campaign is just as common as any other traditional financing possibility, if not more so. With a market size of €173.6m, in 2014 it is difficult to overlook its macroeconomic importance. However, crowdinvesting has already overtaken crowdfunding in terms of volume. Following the previously introduced taxonomy, the market potential for crowinvesting has increased steadily over the past few years. With an average annual growth rate of 195% over the last three years, the European market for crowdinvesting has developed rapidly, from €24.9m in 2012 to €90.2m in 2013 and €205.2m in 2014. This is particularly remarkable compared to an average growth rate of 129% on the market for crowdfunding. An end of this growing phase is not in sight, as the crowdinvesting market profits from the also fast growing startup ecosystem in Europe.

If you are interested in learning more about Crowdinvesting in Austria, Switzerland and Germany, the legal framework behind it, and further trends in the market, we highly recommend you to download our 100% free report on Alternative Finance.

 

Unicorns and Black Swans

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In his bestseller, The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb lays out a theory about how people perceive probability. The book focuses mainly on events named “Black Swans” which distinguish themselves by holding three main characteristics:

  1. They have a possibility of occurring, no matter how unlikely this possibility may be,
  2. if they do occur, they cause a disproportionately high impact,
  3. and they are almost impossible to predict.

Sounds familiar? It certainly does for anybody involved in the Venture Capital industry. The desired aim of all startup investors is to identify and invest in companies which will make it bigger than 1 Billion USD, commonly named Unicorns. Unfortunately, a Unicorn shares the same characteristics as the Black Swan described by Taleb, making them by definition almost impossible to predict. Therefore, investors need to be involved in the startup scene  – travel, socialize and chat as much as possible. Besides that, investing is always a game of numbers. The only way to achieve a high IRR is to invest intelligently in many companies, making the law of large numbers work on your behalf. Several studies and mathematical simulations have shown that it takes investing the same amount of money consistently in at least 20 to 25 companies before your returns begin to approach the typical return of over 20 percent for professional, active angel investors. This means, the greater the number of companies into which an angel invests, the greater the likelihood of an overall positive return.

Venture Capital is all about making the right hit while investing. Giving the fact that any particular company has roughly similar odds of succeeding or failing, the lopsided nature of the returns means that, on balance, the more companies in which you invest, the more likely your whole portfolio is to generate higher returns. Finally, investors have to be prepared to accept failure. Finding a Unicorn often means experience some of the biggest disappointment and disasters you can imagine. At the end of the day, it’s all about having your winnings being bigger than the losses, which ever number of Unicorns turning out to be ordinary poneys.

Hermann Hauser is Business Angel of the Year

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Big ideas in front of high mountains: This year the Business Angel Day – organized by AplusB and the Austrian Wirtschaftsservice – took place in Obergurgl, Tyrol. One of the highlights was the nomination of Hermann Hauser as Business Angel of the year 2016. Hauser invested just a couple of weeks ago in the crowd investing platform CONDA. Alone this year, he could add nine new Austrian startups to his portfolio. (on the picture from left: Bernd Litzka (aws), “Business Angel of the Year 2016” Hermann Hauser, Marcus Hofer (AplusB) and LR Patrizia Zoller-Frischauf).

 

Pushing the startup agenda

Tyrol seems to be a good place for the venture industry: Over 100 participants took part at the Business Angel Day, among them many new faces and international top investors. Perfectly organized with a great activity package (get together dinner, gondola ride, and ski race), the event offered many opportunities for networking. This year, the main topic was about co-investments. Experts such as the Business Angels Markus Ertler and Peter Koch, or lawyer Rainer Kaspar (PHH Rechtsanwälte), shared their knowledge. Daniel Beck, investment manager at the European Investment Fund (EIF) emphasized the importance of European angel networks. Such networks offer angels – among many things – access to high-quality deal flow and professional execution of transactions. Our CEO Berthold Baurek-Karlic got a lot of positive feedback for the idea of a pan-European Angel Club, a project we are working on with KPMG Austria. In addition, he had good talks with Magdalena Hauser-Venier from I.E.C.T. about investments in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. A great sign for the fast progressing Austrian startup ecosystem was the participation of the Austrian Broadcasting Company ORF with its new startup engagement vehicle futurelab.261.

 

Hub to new markets

Thanks to the support of the Tyrolean government and especially Mrs. Patrizia Zoller-Frischauf, Tyrol is evolving to a regional startup anchor. The Business Angel Day is already the second high-class event this year in Tyrol. In July, the Business Angel Summit attracted over 100 business angels and investors to visit Kitzbühel. Harald Gohm and Marcus Hofer from CAST and Standortagentur Tirol together with AWS i2 Business Angel Börse and sponsors such as PHH Rechtsanwälte or Venionaire, these events are acting as networking hub to new markets, primarily to Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Opportunities such as the Business Angel Day are very important for the Austrian startup ecosystem emphasizes Rainer Kaspar, a partner at PHH Rechtsanwälte: “We really appreciate the effort undertaken by AWS and Standortagentur Tirol to bring together the Austrian investors community and also involve investors from neighboring countries. This was again a fabulous event which leads the way in building a solid base for potential co-investments in the DACH-region.”

Europe’s journey back to the top

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“i-volution” – Europe’s path becoming a global innovation leader was the overall topic of the 14. IT- & Beratertag in the Vienna Hofburg. Raiffeisen Digital Banking & Innovation used the opportunity to present innovative startups on stage. Our CEO Berthold Baurek-Karlic provided an intro to the topic, explaining why Corporate Startup Engagement (CSE) is gaining awareness in Austria and Europe. The main reason being the fourth industrial revolution, which brings us highly automated processes and a further expansion of digital technology. This development is pushed forward through broadband access, almost unlimited memory capacity, object-oriented coding, unified modelling language, and quantum computing. These technologies make it easier and cheaper for new players to launch a business and challenge established companies. One strategy for corporates to encounter this development is by working closely with startups and therefore gaining access to innovation and new business opportunities.

Note:
Agreeing on a valuation is one of the most critical point for a good corporate startup relation. We developed a startup valuation tool to help with that.

[hubspot type=cta portal=5314519 id=bc2a7bcd-bcee-4a08-960b-b43a6cea4bfe]

 

7 awesome Austrian startups

So which are the promising startups in Austria?

First, Blue Code presented their pan-European mobile payment scheme. It is based on blue codes, which are generated and displayed on mobile phones and can be easily scanned by the merchant. With this solution the banks stay in control of their customer data and merchants can integrate the solution in their customer relations programs. You can use Blue Code already in several stores such as Billa, Bipa, Hervis, Spar, Unimarkt and much more.

 

https://twitter.com/Venionaire/status/799223366074986496

Cashpresso is the winner of the RZB “Innovation to Company” Startup Challenge. Co-Founder Daniel Strieder explained how they offer costumers an easy access to loans. You can read more about this startup here.

 

The idea of purchased.at is to enable easy and cost efficient integration of professional payment methods for online shops specialized on digital goods. The big advantage of this startup is that it is a spin-off of the IT & payment service provider IXOLIT. The company has a lot of experience concerning payment methods integration into web shops on a global scale, helping companies to save “a shitload of money”, as IXOLIT COO Stefan Kajer emphasized. Read more about purchased.at here.

 

Yodel got especially good feedback from the audience. The company – founded in Austria and London – offers an artificial intelligence business phone assistant, which can answer and process customers calls, helping companies to save time and efforts.

 

Chillbill is a young Austrian Startup, which offers automated management, storage and processing of invoices.

 

Firstbird is going to change the way you recruit employees. They see the most natural and efficient way to connecting people with jobs through personal relationships and built a cloud-based employee referral platform for teams and corporations that makes recruiting easy and more effective.

 

Last but not least, FRUX presented its solution: a way in which companies can get more hot leads. The startup already won the CA Technologies Startup Challenge.

 

We think these startups are great examples of the high quality we have and how corporates can profit from starting their own Corporate Startup Engagement (CSE) Program. For more details about CSE check out the presentation from Berthold Baurek-Karlic or contact us. We are more than happy to help!

 

Slovakia on the fast track

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Need an effective solution for customer research? Want to look and feel good? Miss Harry Potter? Slovakia’s Startup Scene has a few aces up its sleave. Our Laura Lennkh had the pleasure to visit Slovakia twice within the last few weeks, both times coming back highly impressed by the talents that the country attracts.

 

On the 26th of September at the European Commission‘s Innovation Radar Prize held in Bratislava this year, I had the joy to hear pitches from EU funded projects and assess their market readiness as a jury member. As part of the European Commission’s ICT Proposers Day, the event attracted participants from all over Europe. Two things that struck me about this event: the first, that this is really what the EU is best at – selecting and supporting the brightest minds in Europe to foster our development and innovation. The second: we were an all female jury. Ever heard about that at a startup event? Me neither. It isn’t so much about the fact that we were all women, but rather that discussion and finding the winners for each of the prize categories (Excellent Science, Horizon 2020, ICT innovator, Industrial & Enabling Tech and ICT for Society) happened so smoothly. In case you are asking – I highly recommend doing this again!

 

Slovakia’s Startup Awards

Second time I hopped on a train to Slovakia was a few weeks later in the beginning of November. Slovakia’s Startup Awards (#SASK2016), organized by Neulogy, is Slovakia’s largest Pitch Event with an estimated number of 1000 participants on December 2nd, 2016. In preparation for this event, 23 startups were pre-selected to have the opportunity to partake in a Mentorship Bootcamp over an entire weekend, 4-6th of November. As part of the mentors, I sweated it with them: tweak your pitch here, make sure you get the message out there – not to mention that the entire event (and pitches!) were held in superb English.

 

The first biodegradable plastic sunglasses from Crafting Plastics.

The first biodegradable plastic sunglasses from Crafting Plastics.

 

Meet three of the 12 finalist startups: At Groupsolver Survey Monkey meets McKinsey style consulting in this Saas solution for customer research. Traction? With quarter over quarter revenue growth of 50% and offices in Slovakia and the USA it answers for itself. Ever heard of Crafting Plastics? Meet your first biodegradable plastic sunglasses. Sounds boring? Milano Fashion Show didn’t think so –  look good and feel good about it too.

Do you miss Harry Potter? Maguss will let you perform your own set of magic tricks through its AR game. Before even launching – they managed to reach over 170% of needed funds on Indiegogo in less than 10 days. I look forward to seeing the finals on December 2nd. If you are curious too, you can get discounted tickets here. (promotion code: SASK_Special_Venionaire_k67)

 

Danube Valley

What I saw this weekend is that it’s all there: bright minds, startups with strong traction and a small but highly engaged emerging ecosystem. Pretty much representatives from all of Slovakia’s investment scene – VCs, Accelerators, Angels and some large corporates – took time off to spend the weekend supporting the most promising startups. No further question about dedication. As our long gone empire still spooks about in our Austrian DNA, I personally thought about the following: Slovakia’s capital Bratislava is only 45 minutes away from Vienna (having lived in Mexico City where a commute through the city to get to a meeting can easily take you up to 2 hours – this seems like a breeze). Prague: 4 hours away. Budapest: 2 hours away. With so many talents about in the region – shouldn‘t we start thinking of a Danube Valley?

 

Among others, Premek Piska from AgentBalance pitched at the Startup Awards.SK Bootcamp.

 

Inspired by the EU Innovation Radar Prize reminding us that we are all one strong Europe, convinced that our region has a solid economic, cultural and historical connection and a regional competitive advantage, I raise my hand to join forces between our small but strong and ever growing startup ecosystems. No Austrian imperialism – I promise.

Cashpresso wins Raiffeisen Startup Challenge

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from left: Berthold Baurek-Karlic (Venionaire Capital), Hannes Cizek (RZB Group), Jörg Skornschek und Daniel Strieder (Cashpresso), Michael Höllerer (Executive Board RZB Group), Paul Kaiser (RLB Oberösterreich). © RZB Group

 

Raiffeisen Zentralbank AG (RZB Group) selected Cashpresso as the winner of its “Innovation to Company Startup Challenge”. Cashpresso offers its customers a quick and easy way to borrow money via mobile phone. The Viennese FinTech receives an innovation bonus of 10.000 Euros and – even more beneficial – Raiffeisen is offering the startup a long-term cooperation. This is for both sides a win situation: “While traditional banks profit from the dynamics of FinTechs, they need on the other hand the know-how, data and systems of big banks to scale their product and services”, says Michael Höllerer, a member of the RZB Group executive board and responsible for digitalisation and innovation. Raiffeisen will present the results of this cooperation in the second half of 2017.

 

Second places go to Blue Code and purchased.at

Besides Cashpresso, the Austrian startups Blue Code and purchased.at [Update 2019: purchased is no longer in business] were invited to the final pitch at the RZB Group headquarter. Blue Code is offering a payment method for smartphones while purchased.at is a payment solution for merchants of digital goods. Our CEO Berthold Baurek-Karlic mentored all three startups, helping them to prepare for the pitch. As operative deal flow and analyst partner of “Innovation to Company”, Venionaire identified and analyzed for RZB Group more than 87 startups in Europe with a focus on payment solutions. The startup challenge was the first milestone for Raiffeisen in its corporate startup engagement strategy. The bank is now developing its own accelerator program, which will have certainly a huge impact on the Austrian startup ecosystem.

 

Innovation to Company

Innovation to Company is Europe’s biggest Corporate Innovation Challenge: RZB Group, A1, AccorHotels, Microsoft, New Frontier Group, Post, and Verbund invited startups to work with them on specific challenges. The aim of this initiative is to merge the innovation strength of startups, with international networks, strong market positions and the financial power of large corporations.

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