Category Archives: Business

Six surprising facts about potential startup founders

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Party Time

Party Time

Teaming up with Bloomberg Beta, the ‘startup signals tracker’ Mattermark studied 1.5m budding entrepreneurs in the US to see who was likely to be a startup founder.

Below are the six surprising facts they discovered – I have to confess pretty much all six surprised me. I wonder what Berlin Startup Ranking will find out about London startups, when it launches in the capital in the next few weeks?

  • 38% of venture-backed founders are over 40 years old

  • Only 15% of venture-backed founders have a Computer Science degree

  • Management consultants are more than 2x more likely to be venture-backed founders than engineers

  • 43% of venture backed founders worked at a venture-backed company immediately before founding

  • Two thirds of venture-backed founders were not in a senior leadership position prior to founding

  • Contrary to conventional wisdom, being “stuck” in the same company or position for a long time (even a decade) does not diminish your likelihood of becoming a founder

ECE Startup Campus launches in Rotterdam

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The ECE Startup Campus, an initiative of the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship, launched on 2nd March in the city of Rotterdam: “Got the entreprenuerial spirit, join our community.”

It holds flexspaces, meeting rooms, a lecture-room and a workout facility. It is already providing place for these startups, with some pretty interesting and impressive business models:

  • Symbid – Global leader in online equity financing that helped fund other ECE startups (Gambitous, Equidam and Declaree). “Symbid is the only platform in the Netherlands where investors become shareholders via a cooperative. Via financial partner InterSolve, the invested money is under supervision of the Dutch Authority Financial Markets and the Dutch Central Bank,” Eric Recter, Founder Kidswatcher.
  • Gambitious – Global leader in gaming crowdfunding: “The first managed crowd finance platform dedicated to the games industry! Connecting international investors with innovative companies and promising entertainment projects.”
  • Equidam – Valuation of SMEs and Startups: “supports information transparency for the growing sector of online investments in high growth startups by offering a cloud system for financial and accounting services.”
  • EnWake – World’s first Smart, Personal & Portable circadian rhythm solution: “EnWake is an innovative solution presenting an intelligent “pair of glasses”  (incorporating sophisticated light system) connected to your Smartphone, which helps you optimize your sleep/wake cycle and adjust your  energy levels to match your lifestyle.”
  • Declaree – Online expense reporting: “Take a photograph of your expense using the mobile app and it will automatically be stored online.”
  • Intigames, developers of the game Helix (one of the finalists of the ISPO sports business trade show in Munich and available in 10 countries this summer): “We believe that anyone can play passionately, anywhere, anytime! Our goal is: worldwide, playfully encouraging people to move!”
  • Effortless-Housing – Student to student housing provider – that’s it!