Companies from Barcelona in the Silicon Valley

The first start ups from Barcelona have just landed at the Plug and Play Technology Center (Sunnyvalle, California). Futurlink, Justinmind and 3scale now have new offices located a couple of blocks from Google and Yahoo’s headquarters.

In order to welcome the start ups from BCN, Plug and Play organized a welcome seminar. The event aimed to analyze the challenges that young startups and entrepreneurs face, and to emphasize the importance of fostering a culture of innovation and spirit of entrepreneurship at the universities. The 2 day Acceleration and Collaboration Track was opened by Mateu Hernandez, Executive Director of Barcelona Activa and had the prestigious keynotes of Dan’L Lewin, VP of strategy and development at Microsoft, and Ron Conway, Founder of SV Angels.

During the first day several best practices had been analyzed: companies as Google, MySQL and Metacafe talked about their creation and development experiences; speakers from Stanford, Cornell, MIT and Harvard examined the best practices to foster entrepreneurship and help entrepreneurs at the universities; and the cases of Israel and Canada were explored to analyze how government and private incubators can assist entrepreneurs.

The second day of the seminar held a showcase where international startups exposed their opportunities in front of top angel investors and VCs –Wellington Partners, Northwest Ventures and DFJ. Futurlink and Justinmind participated in the 2 minute-extreme-pitch and did a good job explaining the differentiating features of their products.

The Current Economic Turmoil and the Entrepreneur – Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum

After the housing bubble in the US, Ireland, Spain and the UK, and after the default on mortgage loans at financial institutions, there are still many uncertainties about where additional losses will occur.

As a result, financial institutions are reluctant to make or to buy loans; insolvency risk raises the risk among firms; and fear of runs lead financial institutions to seek liquidity. Meanwhile Sequoia Capital’s R.I.P.: Good Times* is traveling around the world, causing entrepreneurs to fear that it is not the perfect time to seek VC funding.

The speakers at the Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum agree that we are going through a “moment of extreme schizophrenia”. Limited partners are very stressed and this makes fund raising very difficult for GPs. Start ups that do not have revenues, will find it hard to get follow on rounds. From the investors’ point of view, now is perhaps the moment for making long term investments, always looking for very large returns.

However, “difficult times always create opportunities” and thus it can be a good moment for entrepreneurs to think of “making something out of nothing”. In the current global world, perhaps it is an opportunity to go to international investors for getting funding.

The future? It is not predictable. The results will be different than in 2000. Then, we suffered an equity crunch and now we are going through a credit crunch. Most likely after the crunch the situation will become more stable and clear, which means that the financial institutions and the loans will be carefully regulated.

* Sequoia Capital: R.I.P.: Good Times (http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on-startups-and-the-economic-downturn-presentation?type=powerpoint)

Life as an Entrepreneur

The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UC Berkeley offers a seminar for its MBA students which has the goal of discussing the ups and downs, pros and cons of the entrepreneurship. The lectures are given by entrepreneurs who have “been there”.

Every Tuesday an experienced entrepreneur is invited to this Life as an Entrepreneur seminar to talk about how they created something out of nothing: searched for an opportunity, became passionate about an idea, searched for resources and launched in the market. They explain how their organizations were created and share the lessons they learned. Additionally, the class participates in active group discussion of a new venture idea facilitated by the student coordinators with the input and guidance of the guest speaker and/or second year MBA students with relevant industry experience.

The interesting part of this MBA course is that students at the Entrepreneurs Association lead. They are responsible to select the speakers and make the arrangements to have them talk about their experiences. After the class a small group of students has the opportunity to share a dinner with the speakers.

In the first weeks of this Fall Semester 2008 some very interesting entrepreneurs have been invited to talk about their personal experiences. This speaker series was opened by Will Price who is the CEO of Widgetbox. Will talked about his professional transition from a VC firm to his current position. He moved from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners –a VC firm specialized in seed and Series A investments of SaaS, opensource, on-line video and consumer web companies- to Widgetbox which is a San Francisco-based start up which enables people to find, make and distribute web widgets for blogging, social networking services, and personal websites. His experience as a VC gave him the opportunity to learn the best practices of the start up process.

In a next session Bambi Francisco (in the picture), Founder and CEO of vator.tv used the information of her interviews with entrepreneurs to list 10 key pieces of advice to start a new company. Vator.tv is a useful internet tool which consists of short videos of interviews with managers of the most innovative and important companies in the Silicon Valley. The interviews are done by the founder Bambi herself who worked as journalist at Dow Jones MarketWatch.

Another interesting speech was the one given by Dean Drako, co-founder, president and CEO of Barracuda. Dean explained all the steps of his entrepreneurial career started in 1998 with Design Acceleration, Inc. –acquired by Cadence Design Systems in 1998- and followed by Boldfish - acquired by Siebel Systems in 2003- and Velosel Corporation.

Follow the series at http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events.php?group=A.+Richard+Newton+Distinguished+Innovator+Lecture+Series

How to select your advisory board?

One of the most critical tasks as founder of a startup is picking those who will sit on your board of advisors. To discuss this subject, SVASE organized a meeting on the 11th of September in San Francisco and invited two expert panelists:

* Sam Allen, CEO, ScanCafe - Sam has over 15 years of experience in managing intricate engineering projects for companies like Cisco Systems and Northern Telecom. Sam also has extensive operational experience in both Europe and Asia and managed a $10 billion acquisition portfolio while at Cisco.

* Bruce Taragin, General Partner, Blumberg Capital - Bruce has 17 years experience as a technology venture capital investor, entrepreneur, technology investment banker and corporate attorney.

An advisory board is a group of expert individuals appointed to make recommendations to the managers and the board of directors. Advisors do not have authority to vote on corporate matters. An adequate advisory board team will help a company to solve problems without involving the board of directors in the resolution. They advise about diverse areas such as technology, management, strategy, marketing and others.

The number of members involved in the board is not the most important. Usually three are enough. The most important is to choose the right ones. In order to maximize the benefits Sam and Bruce gave three key pieces of advice:

1.- Identify the right person: the entrepreneur should think about his/her lacking skills and try to fill in this expertise. Remember that it is about “individuals” and not about “organizations”. “We want Steve Richards, PhD from Stanford; not a Stanford PhD”

2.- Second the communication has to be excellent. That means that the entrepreneur, after analyzing his/her own weaknesses, has to clearly say what he/she wants and what are his/her expectations in terms of time.

3.- Third the entrepreneur has to be involved in the resolution of the problems. That means that he/she has to talk to the members of the advisory board frequently and spend real time with them. To achieve this goal, it is very important to create an advisory board consisting of professionals with whom he/she can collaborate.

It is also important to prepare the meetings very well by sending the material to the members in advance and by personally talking with them about the subjects to be discussed. Additionally, a final evaluation of the meeting should be done in order to analyze the results of the discussions and trying to emphasize the benefits of the meetings.

The most frequent and useful compensation is the one which creates a win&win linkage between the entrepreneur and the advisors (around 1.5%). Under equity compensation the players give and bring value to each other. Monthly compensation is not the most frequent but it is sometimes used ($500-$2,500 per meeting).

Trends in Terms of VC in the Silicon Valley – Organized by the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at UC Berkeley

The first Entrepreneurs Forum has been held on the 28th August at the Haas School of Business-UC Berkeley. This opening session started with a couple of pitches. Some of the speakers were entrepreneurs seeking capital; others were researchers seeking advice for business development; or even some entrepreneurs looking for team members to start a new company.

Subsequently Steve Bengston, analyst at PricewaterhouseCoopers, presented an overview of the current trends in VC funding in Silicon Valley. The data presented had been published in the MoneyTree Report developed by PricewaterhourseCoopers jointly with the National Venture Capital Association.

Here are the main conclusions of the presentation:

- In general, since 1995 and dismissing the dot-com bubble the amount of VC invested in the SV has continuously grown.

- During the 2nd Quarter (Q2) 2008 40% of the US investments where made in the Silicon Valley: $2.9 B and 306 deals.

- Currently (data from Q2 2008) the highest VC amounts are being invested in software ($1,252M), energy ($1,152M) and biotechnology ($1,079M), followed by medical devises and equipment ($833M) and media and entertainment ($586M).

- Regarding the number of deals, in Q2 2008 219 deals were closed in the software sector, 111 in biotechnologies and 110 in media and entertainment.

- In Q2 2008 most of the investments were made in later stages ($3.1B) and in follow on rounds ($2,6B).

- First rounds ($1.6B and 301 deals) accounted the highest amounts of investments.

- The deal size has steadily decreased from $8,0M per deal in Q2 2007 to $7,5M per deal in Q2 2008.

- In 2007 Australia (234) and UK (143) led the ranking of number of IPOs.

Alex Castellarnau at IDEO – The Creative Thinking

Last week the LANDING project met Alex Castellarnau at his office in Palo Alto. Alex moved from Barcelona a year ago to Palo Alto and he is now a member of the design community at IDEO. We know that IDEO has been studying the possibility of opening a new office in Spain. They travelled to Spain some weeks ago to meet some managers from big companies and some technology parks, 22@Barcelona among them.

What were their impressions? What are the conclusions?

IDEO is a global design consultancy: they work with their customers to provide them creative solutions –from competitive marketing strategies to incredible product designs.

Philosophy: work with customers; look for the right problem or question to be rapidly solved and prototype the solution roughly. IDEO has a bottom up strategy which puts the customer in the centre of the process.

Customers: Apple, Bank of America, Caterpillar, Stanford University, Intel and Nike.

Locations: Palo Alto (CA), San Francisco (CA), Chicago, New York and Boston in the US. London and Munich in Europe. Shangai in Asia.

Some weeks ago IDEO team travelled to Spain and met the managers of some of the most important multinationals and technology parks in Spain, including the managers at the 22@Barcelona. Alex said that they were warmly received and that professionals from this Spanish multinationals were very interested in the way IDEO interacts and works with their customers.

In Alex's opinion, opening a new office in Spain, and why not at the 22@Barcelona, could be a good opportunity to reach new customers in the Mediterranean area.

Theoretically, it seems that IDEO could benefit from being close to other industries at the design-cluster. IDEO considers design as a way of thinking, as a different way of addressing all sorts of business challenges. IDEO's Design Thinking, goes far beyond a project outcome. Its presence at the 22@ could positively complement and enrich the design-cluster.

Find detailed information about IDEO at their new website! http://www.ideo.com/

The Keys of a Killer Presentation

Reporting the Start U SFO event celebrated on the 14th August at the DLA Piper in San Francisco.

Speakers:

1. Scott Milener, CEO, AdRocket – more than 15 years of experience leading technology businesses
2. Bob Bozeman, Serial Venture Capitalist – Investment success included Google, PayPal, Ask Jeeves, AvantGo!, BrightMail and RedEnvelope

The Principals:
1. Self Confidence– Show off the team, board and advisory board
2. Express the motivations behind the opportunity
3. Pitch Effectiveness – NO MORE than 15 slides and 20 min!!

* Show in 5 words: what you are? What you solve? Why should the VC invest in you?
* Show the need and the concept ASAP – use GRAPHICS and finish with a DEMO

and some advises
4. Sizzle – tell the VC something that they will not expect

5. Practice – make a list of VCs and go to the best for you LAST!
* LISTEN the feedbacks
* Use FEEDBACKS to improve your presentation and pitch

6. Respect your Competition
* Reflect the reality – everything has competition! WHICH IS YOUR VALUE?
* Show that the opportunity is STABLE
* Panel the competition & YOUR CO.

7. Develop Board and Advisors
Board and Advisors are not the same→ but they are complementary
* Advisors are specialized and temporary
* Board Members are for ever

8. Know the Investor – what are they investing in? How do they screen?
Again, http://www.punctuative.com/vcdb/ can help you

9. Get an Introduction – it gives you priority, respect and feedback

10. Develop Traction – do not give up visiting VCs although any of them show to be interested in your opportunity

11. Be helpful - to close the deal and the due diligence & to understand the technology

12. Explain your current situation but look to the Future not the Past
Step 1 – Done!
Step 2 – In process
Step 3 – What’s next?
… have the EXIT mechanism in mind.

And prepare some Extra Slides for supporting the questions and the discussion

Good luck!
------------- +++ --------------- +++ --------------
Book recommendation: “Founders at Work” by Jessica Livingston (2007) - is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days.

What types of startups are getting funded in the Silicon Valley?

The Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs – SVASE - organized an event to explore the current trends of venture capital investments in the Silicon Valley. The event was sold out three days in advance.

Date: 2008 August 7th – 6pm
Location: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto – one of the premier legal firms to technology and growth enterprises
Participants: 130 in attendance, most of them entrepreneurs, and a panel of 4 investors:

1. John C. Occhipinti, Managing Director, Woodside Fund
2. Carol Sands, Founder and Managing Member, The Halo Funds
3. Daniel Joensen, Deal Screening Committee, Band of Angels
4. Anthony Lee, General Partner, Altos Ventures

All four investors seemed to be actively investing in early stage of high tech companies. Anthony Lee stated that he closed three deals during the last week!

Main conclusions:
Hot Sectors: although investors do not usually specialize in one sector or stage of investments, “it seems green is the hot sector now”.
The Team: -better than an individual founder- they have to be passionate, enthusiastic, committed, motivated, realistic, and have specialized technical knowledge and business experience –even failed experiences are positive. “the failure makes the entrepreneur trustworthy”
Screening and Investment Period: an average of 6-8 months are required.
International investments:
- Growing international investments; It is typically required for the invested companies to open a location in the Valley.
- VC’s look for partnerships in the US and in also in other countries.
Protection of Ideas: investors are not going to “steal” opportunities, so entrepreneurs do not have to be afraid of sharing their idea.

Tips for Entrepreneurs:
Have the exit strategy in mind: the investors are looking for huge returns so they want to know about the exit strategies from the very beginning.
Aim for the key investors: do not waste time meeting all the investors. Identify the ones which will be interested in your technology, sector, stage, business model,…
The Venture Capital Data Base -http://www.punctuative.com/vcdb/- can help you to identify your key investors.
Meet high quality lawyers: they know all investors and are well connected. They will give you good advice about the key investors for your idea. Frequently they do it informally for free!
Meet the companies in the portfolio of your key investors: they will tell you what this investor is like.
Power Point presentations: should start with:
1. What is the problem?
2. What is the solution?
3. Why should the investor invest in your idea?
4. Include a case of a customer whose problem has already been solved.
Look for other financing sources: angel investors, banks, government grants, incubators, corporate ventures…

A priori it does not seem difficult. Silicon Valley attracts a lot of investors, but also a lot of entrepreneurs. Identifying the key potential investors for your business idea seems to be the key strategy.

Landing Program visits Plug and Play Tech Center, USA

During the 3d Technological and Innovation Bridge from Catalonia to USA, Landing Program had the opportunity to visit Plug and Play Tech Center.

The Plug and Play Tech Center is a strategic partner and incubation fortechnology start-up companies in Silicon Valley. The center has its offices in Palo Alto, Redwood, and Sunnyvale. Plug and Play has nearly three decades of history and has played an important role in starting over 50 successful ventures in Silicon Valley and around the world: companies like Logitech,PayPla, etc. Currently their offices are hosting 118 companies.

The services that this incubator is offering are ready to move-in office space, strategic advices and consulting, co-investments with other Venture Capital Firms. Plug and Play Tech Center also is providing Direct Investments coming from its own Venture Capital called Amidzad Ventures. Amidzad is investing directly (or co-investing) in technology based projects between $ 50.000 and $ 500.000.

For more information, please contact us.

Landing Barcelona Team

Teknikhuset in Barcelona

Landing Barcelona Program attended to a meeting with representatives of Teknikhuset Incubation center, Sweden. The meeting took place at the famous Agbar Tower, situated in the District of Innovation 22@ in Barcelona.

Teknikhuset has 20 years of experience of creating products and solution based on the customers’ needs and preferences. Nowadays this incubation center is one of Sweden's leading suppliers of integrated solutions for large companies and organizations, which places high demands on security, availability and performance: for example companies from the Swedish public sector.

In particular, Teknikhuset focuses on developing new network-based business models based on so-called Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technology. Currently it has about 40 employees in the cities of Umea, Stockholm and Lund, all in Sweden.

During the meeting, the representatives of Teknikhuset made interesting presentation about its main products:

- Content Studio, ranked as Sweden's best big Content Management System),

- AudioIndex, that integrates RFID technology, speech synthesis and mobile applications,

- Wawo, based on unique research in the areas of image analysis

- CS Library 2.0, development of the first standard in the world under the "Library 2.0-vision,

- e-Learning, interactive solutions for information and learning.

Teknikhuset was looking for possible clients, partners and distributors for its products in Spain and the region. If you are interested do not doubt in contacting the Landing Barcelona Team.

14th Investment Forum: More International, More Networking, More Forum

17^th of April 2008

Landing Barcelona Program informs you that on 22th of April 2008 will be hold the 14th Investment Forum. It will take place in Barcelona International Convention Center.

According to the sponsors of the event, the Investment Forum is having enough success. Since its inception the Forum has facilitate more than 100 investment and business deals, raising over 50 millions of Euros. Throughout this year´s Forum 30 Catalan projects and 11 projects from across Europe (selected from more than 250 proposals) will be presented to the public. The business projects are grouped into four sections: ITC Companies, Companies in the Energy and Environment sector, Biotechnology and Life Sciences Companies, Companies Providing Resources and Services. In addition, more than 100 European private investors and ventures capital will participate in the conference and more than 1.000 people are expected to attend.

The Investment Forum 2008 aims to improve the networking and facilitate the communication between the business projects and the capital funds. In order to that, spaces will be arranged where entrepreneurs can interact with investors. In addition the coffee breaks and lunch breaks will facilitate interaction with participants.

If you would like to attend to the 14^th Investment Forum 2008, you will need to register on the following website:

http://www.foruminversio.cat

Landing Barcelona Team

III Technological and Innovation Bridge in the US, 2008

16th of Abril, 2008

22@Barcelona would like to inform you and provide further information about the 3rd Technological and Innovation Bridge in the US, in which 22@Barcelona also will participate and will be part of the official delegation.

The event will start on April 25^th, when we will attend at the Angel Capital Expo in San Francisco (www.angelcapitalexpo.com), a premier gathering of the angel capital community, organized by KEIRETSU Forum. KEIRETSU Forum is the largest North American angel investment network created to foster collaboration among angel groups, as well as reach out to the larger investment community. At the Angel Capital Expo there will be around 400 investors and 12 projects in the areas of the technology, healthcare/life sciences, consumer products, real estate, and funds will be presented.

On 28^th of April the participants in the Bridge will meet David A. Warar – President of Global Strategy, Inc (International Business Development Consultant) and will have an orientation presentation about how to enter the US market.

On the following day the delegation will make its way to the Silicon Valley and with the aim to get to know different models of innovation, we will visit Google´s Headquarters and the Stanford Research Institute – SRI International (www.sri.com). SRI is a Private Research Centerand it has an important role in the world of the innovations due to the fact that during its 60 years of existence they have invented the mouse, the PC users interface, the first Networking Information Center (NIC) in Internet, etc.

After that, trough the Communication Platform Tertulia Digital, representatives of Spanish companies and institutions settled in California will share their experiences with all the Spanish delegation. At the evening, Mr. Jordi W. Carnes (Deputy Mayor of Barcelona City Council) and Mr. Josep Morell (Commissioner of the Presidency for ICT and Information Society of Barcelona Chamber of Commerce) will make a presentation of Barcelona (“Do it in Barcelona”) in front of American guests.

The next day the participants in the technology and innovation bridge 2008 will visit the Mayor’s Office of International Trade/Commerce (MOITC), PlugandPlayTechCenter.com, the US Market Access Center (US MAC) and InBAC. The visits will be important for the delegation because these actors are playing very important role in the business environment of San Francisco and the region of the Silicon Valley:

- International Trade/Commerce (MOITC) oversees the international commercial affairs of the City of San Francisco with a mission of increasing and enhancing international transactions and international business opportunities in San Francisco;

-PlugandPlayTechCenter.com (http://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com) represents a community of over 120 technology start-up companies in the areas of Web 2.0, software (SaaS);

-US Market Access Center (US MAC) (www.usmarketaccess.com) assists small to mid-sized, high-growth technology and life science companies from other countries with entry into the U.S. market;

-InBAC (www.inbac.net) has a very innovative approach to business acceleration offering to the IT companies a completely different view of how to exploit technology and how to grow in the global market.

The second phase of the Technological and Innovation Bridge will begin on May 1^st, when the group will arrive in Boston. There we will have the possibility to gain more knowledge about the US education process orientated to the development of new technologies and innovations. This is why the delegation will go over different laboratories in interest groups in the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (http://web.mit.edu/). Moreover we will visit the Harvard University/Harvard Business School (www.harvard.edu, www.hbs.edu) and the Cambridge Innovation Center (www.cambridgeincubator.com).

The next day the members of the Bridge will meet with the entrepreneur spirit of the City of Boston. We will go to visit Create Boston, an economic development initiative of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, designed to help businesses rooted in creativity to achieve their potential for success. The program seems to be very interesting and competitive, considering that it is focusing on six industries with significant growth potential: music, film, design, media, performance and crafts.

After that we will visit another program: LifeTech Boston, which main focus is to attract, retain, support, and strengthen Boston companies engaged in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and other related industries toward Boston’s rich industries in education, medicine and manufacturing.

The day will end with the visit to the Babson College (www.babson.edu) which is ranked #1 among all business schools for entrepreneurship.

The 3^rd Technological and Innovation Bridge in the US ends on 3^rd of May when the official delegation flies to the city of Barcelona.

Meeting BEOPLE

9th of April, 2008

Landing Barcelona Team would like to inform you about the BEOPLE meetings, an interesting event which, according to the creators, is “an all about being inspired by the personal and human side of some of the greatest entrepreneurs around”.

In general, BEOPLE represents monthly informal meetings between people willing to undertake business projects and a guest who is talking about his experience doing business and how he/she has achieved his dreams. The interview format of the event is moderated by a journalist and also the participation of the audience is very important. BEOPLE aims to provide an entrepreneurs platform and network, where people will find inspiration and motivation trough exchanging experiences, sharing knowledge and contacts.

On 7th of April was held the first BEOPLE meeting for 2008. The guest of the event was Antonio González Barros. He is the president and founder of Spain’s leading internet incubator, Grupo Intercom, with success stories like Infojobs and Neurona. The meeting took place in Gild International private business club in Barcelona.

For more detailed information you can check BEOPLE´s web site:

http://www.beople.net/ or write to: beople@beople.net