The Global Startup Movement - Startup Ecosystem Leaders, Global Entrepreneurship, and Emerging Market Innovation

Oliver is a serial entrepeneur and investor in the internet/multimedia/mobile space. As founder and CEO of the Austrian startup SYSIS, Oliver and his team won a series of international innovation awards for their intelligent online community games such as Austrian national multimedia award and the Europrix Multimedia. As a small Austrian startup, SYSIS signed up customers from around the globe, including Time Inc. in the US, The Times & The Guardian in the UK and Ericsson with whom SYSIS managed to built a global strategic partnership. In 2000, Oliver sold his first business, FUNDAQ, a subsidiary of SYSIS that pioneered the field of online virtual communities, to Blue-C AG. At the end of 2008, Oliver returned to Austria and switched sides to become an angel investor in Austrian and CEE based startups. Mid 2011 Oliver launched Speedinvest, the first super angel fund in Austria fully focussed on internet and mobile startups. Speedinvest works out of Vienna, Austria and Silicon Valley, USA. 

On This Episode You'll Learn:

What were some of biggest lessons you learned or mistakes Oliver made in his first 10 million euro fund that has helped with his latest 100M Euro fund?

How did Oliver decide his initial to follow on funding ratio of 50% and what KPI’s determine which companies to double down on and which not to?

How has Austria’s startup ecosystem evolved over the course of Oliver’s career

Why does Oliver think there has been a lag in funding across Central and Eastern Europe and has he seen signs of hope over the past couple years?

Meet Jonathan Lewy, Managing Partner at Investo. In 2010 Jonathan co-founded MiOrden.com. At the end of 2011 the team sold the company to SinDelantal.com and realized that they lacked strategic advice during our venture. At the end of 2012 they decided to create a VC fir that would help other founders where they were lacking. Investo is a seed capital firm investing in tech startups with high-growth potential. The companies they've funded have gone on to create over a 1000 jobs in different parts of the world. They help startups with business development and programmers recruiting. They also provide seed capital and other strategic advice throughout their partnership with the startups.

On This Episode You'll Learn:

How does Jonathan evaluate the seed market today? Does he think it’s over financed compared to 5 years ago when he started?

Do you believe that in seed stage investing it’s more important to find the right team working on the right problem or focusing more on hard metrics?

What are Jonathan’s thoughts on appropriate fund sizes for Seed stage VC’s?

We’ve seen a huge spike in Coporate Venture Capital through Europe, Asia, and and North America, why does Jonathan think that Mexico Corporates haven’t taken to startups in the same way?

Meet Tim Schumacher, Chairman at Eyeo the makers of Adblock Plus. Tim is the Co-founder and Chairman of Eyeo.com and he's made various angel investments in his career. Eyeo, headquartered in Cologne, Germany, is the company behind popular ad blocking software Adblock Plus which has been downloaded over 400 million times world-wide. In 2001, Tim co-founded Sedo.com, the world's largest domain market place. Since selling the company, he is an active as an Entrepreneur and/or Investor in various start-ups, like Eyeo, Ecosia, Stuffle, BasicThinking, Aklamio, Miomente, Home, Convida, Joblift, Apptopia and others.

On This Episode You'll Learn:

About a year ago when Facebook publicly announced they would be forcing ads onto users even if they were using an ad blocker, what was it like for Tim to wake up and see those headlines everywhere?

Tim has become a very active angel investor in the digital marketing and privacy space, what stage does he like to get involved in and how has his investment thesis changed over the years?

Recently Tim opened up an office in Berlin after primarily running Eyeo based in cologne, why did he decide to expand into Berlin and what are some of the biggest differences between the startup scenes in Berlin vs. Cologne?

Tell us a little about the Cologne startup scene and it’s growth over the past 5 years.

Meet Frank Cottle, Chairman and Founder of Alliance Business Centers. The Alliance Business Centers Network and the Alliance group of affiliated companies is globally involved in all aspects of Office Business Centers and Virtual Office industries. They are headquartered in Newport Beach, California with other global offices and operations. Their mission optimize knowledge and empower business center operators with information and insider knowledge critical to the office business center industry. Alliance Business Centers Network is the leading network of independently owned and operated Office Business Centers. Comprised of over 650 locations in 42 countries, Alliance centers are in every major market in the world. The Alliance Academy is the definitive training solution for members of the Office Business Center industry, as well as all related industries that interact with the Office Business Center industry. They specialize in Executive suites, Office business centers, Serviced offices, Virtual offices, Business center operations, Training, Communications.

On This Episode You'll Learn:

How has the trend of globalization of the workforce changed commercial real estate industry over the past 5-7 years?

With Softbank’s massive $4.4 B investment into Wework, does Frank think this signals a potential winner take all scenario in the coworking market and what is the biggest thing Wework has gotten right?

What does the future of commercial real estate industry look like?

Where in the world are Frank’s hottest commercial real estate markets right now?

Say hello to Rune Thiell, CEO and Co-founder of the Rockstart accelerator in Amsterdam. Rockstart, one of Europe's first multi-vertical startup accelerators, was founded in Amsterdam in 2011 with a goal to provide startups with access to the market, capital, knowledge, and community. Since then Rockstart has become the specialist in building entire ecosystems around specific domains—such as Digital Health, Smart Energy, and Artificial Intelligence. Rockstart is actively building up entrepreneurial infrastructures around the world with its acceleration verticals, as well as early-stage startup programs, Rockstart Impact and Rockstart Launchtrack. Since the inception, Rockstart has invested in more than 100 startups and supported them in their journey to raise more than €45 million and hire more than 600 people. Rockstart is an international team of 40+ professionals dedicated to support and empower startups to become scalable and change their world for the better.

On This Episode You'll Learn:

With Oracle’s acquisition of Wercker, Rockstart now has 5 alumni startups that have been acquired, how has perception and the attention towards deal flow coming out of Amsterdam changed since Rune started Rockstart?

What different traits of the leadership team does Rune think are needed in the early stage vs later stage as the company's scale?

What lessons has Rune learned when it comes to hiring during a state of hyper growth at Rockstart?

What has Rune the most excited when looking forward at the next couple years in Amsterdam tech?

Say hello to Eitan Bienstock, Founder and CEO of Everything IoT. Eitan is an experienced executive, investor and entrepreneur. He founded Everything IoT in 2015 to provide focus and global perspective for the Internet of Things in Australia. With the mission to propel IoT innovation, Everything IoT quickly became a global platform for IoT innovation connecting corporates with startups. Before founding Everything IoT, Eitan spent over 20 years working for fortune 100 companies, venture capital firms, incubators as well as founding couple of startups in Israel, the US and Australia. An ex Intel Capital, Eitan is highly involved in the Australian startup ecosystem as an investor, mentor and startup builder. A recipient of the “Intel Achievement Award”, he was responsible for the development and management of Intel Israel’s incubator program in the late 90’s that resulted in 100’s Million dollars of economic value to the participating companies and a successful NASDAQ IPO ((NVMI). Eitan was Israel rowing champion for a period of 10 years competing in world championships. Currently, he lives in Sydney Australia often enjoying his morning's paddle on Sydney's beautiful harbor.

On This Episode You'll Learn:

Does Eitan see IOT companies as disruptors similar to Uber or Airbnb or does he think partnership with incumbents will be the pathway to success for IOT startups?

What are Eitan’s thoughts on the current market opportunity of consumer IOT vs. B2B?

With this next wave of companies, IOT, drones, etc. What does Eitan think is the appropriate level of regulatory involvement by governments?

What’s an up and coming startup scene in Australia that the rest of the world might not know about?

Say hello to Kago Kagichiri, CEO and Co-founder at Eneza Education. Kago is an internet-less space advocate, having built technologies for last mile mobile handsets. Eneza Education is preparing the next generation of leaders in rural Africa. They deliver affordable, high quality education as interactive lessons, live tutoring and a gamified personal experience to over 1.8M learners irrespective of the mobile device they own in their home. Eneza's learners access nationally aligned primary and secondary, financial and teacher training content for as little as $0.50 per month.

On This Episode You'll Learn:

How does user acquisition for Eneza differ between a market like Nairobi and more rural parts of Kenya?

With the speed of innovation happening in African education, what does Kago see as the future of education in Africa? Will Edtech be a collaborative or a competitive force?

How was Kago’s experience raising capital from Impact Funds different than the Venture Capital he’s raised

What have been some of the toughest challenges Kago faced while scaling to African countries outside of Kenya?

Meet Bill Liao, entrepreneur, philanthropist, diplomat and author, is a co-founder of the social network service XING and CEO of Finaxis AG, a privately held company in the financial services industry. Bill is a special diplomatic envoy for St Kitts and Nevis, with a special interest in sustainable development and the environment. He is also founder and co-ordinator of Neo.org, a global citizenship initiative, and WeForest, which will reforest twenty million square kilometers of stripped land. Bill is dedicated to the vision that business and enterprise, conducted fairly and with respect for the environment, can and will create a better environment for work, life and the world that we all share. This vision is captured in his book: Stone Soup; a Secret Recipe for Making Something from Nothing. Bill Liao is also a European Venture Partner at SOSV, and a co-founder of Coder Dojo.

On This Episode You'll Learn:

As a founder, what value do I get from a specialized VC like a Biotech or Fintech focused fund that I might not get from a more general fund?

How is investing in Biotech Startups different than software or hardware, and what are the important KPI’s in the industry?

Besides Ireland’s corporate tax rate of just 12.5% why does Bill think a large amount of Silicon Valley’s Unicorn are so attracted to Ireland when opening up their international offices?

How are the Cork and Dublin scenes different and which is the bigger ecosystem?

Meet Karen Boers, founder of the European Startup Network and Startups.be. Karen holds a degree in German philology and started her career with View Interim. She went from an interim consultant to office manager and HR consultant, before making the transition to iMinds (formerly IBBT) in 2005. In January 2013, Karen joined forces with Dirk Peusens and became fully self-employed. She now specialized in team dynamics and organizational development from a people angle. She believes allowing teams to develop while working efficiently and effectively towards a common goal is a key success factor that is all too often overlooked. That’s exactly why Karen is also actively involved in Startups.be, as a founder and managing director, developing this non-profit organization into a unique platform allowing tech starters to meet coaches, investors and all kinds of experts who can help them jumpstart their business. She is also a certified Pimento Map consultant.

On This Episode You'll Learn:

What’s the current sentiment towards failure in the Belgium business culture?

What are some of the common challenges that all entrepreneurs face when scaling across Europe outside of their home markets?

What does Karen think is the best way for European countries to encourage and catalyze angel investment into their tech ecosystems?

What sort of things are Europe’s startup community leaders doing to move their communities forward?

Say Hello to Paulin Dementhon founder and CEO of Drivy. Drivy offers occasional drivers a better alternative to car ownership, while allowing car owners to cut down on car expenses. They are a community of neighbors and travelers who share their cars and like to use their resources more efficiently. They have over 2 million rentals a day. Prior to Drivy, Paulin founded Quivaou. Quivaou was a dynamic ridesharing project. The objective was to match drivers and passengers in real time for short urban rides, using smartphones. It was both technically too complex for a beginner, and marketing-wise had no solution to the critical mass problem.