The Jaiku co-founder Jyri Engeström, who recently left Google (see our previous story here), has joined Xiha Life’s board. Both Jaiku founders, Engeström and Petteri Koponen have switched into the dark side, namely after founding several companies of their own, they have now moved into investing in new startups.
Engeström has started to do angel investing in a chosen few companies, while Koponen co-founded Lifeline Ventures, one of the Finnish Vigo accelerators (see more on the Vigos here)
This might not seem like a big deal, but it is. Finland has been suffering from a deficit of investors that believe in and understand the consumer Internet. Just recently we wrote about the state of the Finnish venture capital and the picture was quite clear: We need more entrepreneurs that have succeeded in the consumer internet to share their experience, inspire(!) and invest in the young guns who want to reach for the stars, but don’t have much more than a boat load of energy to start with. Jyri, along with Petteri, are clearly on the right path.
Here’s Mike from TechCrunch interviewing Jyri just minutes ago:
Jyri Engeström from Mike Butcher on Vimeo.
Xiha Life on its part not only closed Engeström to their advisory board but also a $1m seed round. Currently XIHA boasts 700,000 members who come from over 200 countries, with no country accounting for more than five percent of total traffic.
[hat tip to TechCrunch)
