Startupbootcamp Open Pitch Comes To Helsinki

    Is past performance and indicator of future success? Startupbootcamp, the biggest seed accelerator network in Europe, is on a roll at the moment. August’s batch of 10 teams in Amsterdam is now funded. Berlin’s 10 teams are all in negotiations. And Startupbootcamp teams were nominated in 10 different categories in the Europas. Now Startupbootcamp’s Open Pitch is coming to Helsinki with VentureScout as part of its Nordic tour to meet the community and find promising startups for the Startupbootcamp Copenhagen re-launch.

    Lars Buch, the Copenhagen lead and speaker at the last Arctic15, tells us that the vision is to build the Copenhagen branch as the main ‘bootcamp hub of Scandinavia. The event will take place January 21st from 2-5pm at Café Dubrovnik in Helsinki, downstairs from Corona. Around 10-12 companies will pitch in the afternoon, followed by casual networking.

    In Helsinki they say they will be bringing investors to the venue who are eager to meet startups for potential cooperation, but are also scouting for large corporate investors to also attend. In general they are looking for startups in the alpha/beta stage. Specifically for Startupbootcamp, they tell us they are generally looking for:

    1) B2C startups within social networking, publishing-related fields and e-commerce. For these startups we have a large interested corporate investor so you should be interested in taking investments.

    2) Startups within the Health/Medical field to be recommended for Startupbootcamp in Dublin and for the Amsterdam Startupbootcamp, both starting shortly.

    3) Startups within the mobile field, both B2B and B2C as well as both software, hardware, apps and SaaS for the Copenhagen “Mobility” focused program starting summer 2013.

    The accelerator’s main benefit is its network. They claim a minimum of 100 mentors per city, and a huge database of investors. It sounds like there is a lot of weight on funding, but those are just the nice numbers to throw around. Buch tells us that a lot of teams are turning around and making revenue after the program, which should be noted.

    For the accelerator program, Startupbootcamp takes 8% equity, but in return accepted teams get a free apartment, a team of mentors waiting for them, and €15,000. At the end of the program they throw a demo day.

    Another thing I learned about the program is that they don’t just drop you off after the program is over – which Buch calls a week spot in the standard accelerator model. Teams can stay in the office space and still tap into their mentors,and Startupbootcamp works closely with the government to negotiate external support.

    Venturescout also tells us:

    VentureScout specializes in sourcing startups and innovation for large international corporates and have offices in London, Copenhagen and Berlin. The company aims to bridge the gap between corporates and startups. VentureScout does this through direct sourcing of startups as investments opportunities for Venture arms, by building internal accelerators or by sourcing innovation for industry clusters. VentureScout is run by an international team of entrepreneurs and ex-corporate executives.

    The VentureScout application can be found here.

    More information about the program can be found on the Startupbootcamp website. We’ll see you at Dubrovnik in less than a week!