Alan Cumming, the British actor, has become internationally famous through his Hollywood role as Nightcrawler, the superhero who helps save the world in the X Men films.

He is now playing a minor role in the salvation of European entrepreneurs by letting his London apartment be used for the Seedcamp party, ending a week of activities for 20 budding start-up teams.

Seedcamp has a long list of famous supporters, including the founders of Skype, the global internet telephony service, and Fon, the world’s largest wifi network supplier, as well as senior executives from Google, Research in Motion, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Brent Hoberman, co-founder of Lastminute.com, came to the event today to share some of his advice at a lunchtime question and answer session.

Among his pearls of wisdom was the recommendation to always raise more money than you think you need and to pitch to the venture capitalists you are least interested in first so that at least you can learn from the experience, even if you don’t get the funding.

For the 20 start-up teams, who hope to walk away with €50,000 of funding, today was the all-important pitching contest, where they got 15 minutes to sell themselves to the Seedcamp investors.

The winners, who will get a further three months of mentoring support as well as the cash, will be announced on this blog on Friday.

Continue reading "Seedcamp reaches its closing stages"

Martin Varsavsky, the Argentinian founder of Fon, the world’s largest wifi network, loves Europe so much that he has made Spain his home. But he finds himself a pariah in his adopted country.

"A lot of people in Europe think entrepreneurs are thieves," he told participants at Seedcamp today, having dropped in on the week’s events between flights from Madrid to Beijing.

Mr Varsavsky, who attracts 300,000 a month to his blog on entrepreneurship, is no Eurobashing American. He tried living in the US, he admitted today, but said he didn’t like it, and criticised those in the US who still believe Europe as an expensive museum.

This is probably why his words should be taken seriously by those that believe Europe is somehow superior to demonise those who seek to create wealth.

Continue reading "Selling entrepreneurship to Europeans"

The great and the good of Europe’s internet industry came to London today to give their blessing to Seedcamp, a week-long course to give fledgling businesses a fighting chance to make it big.

Niklas Zennstrom, co-founder of Skype, the global internet telephony business, Marc Samwer, founder of Alando, the German online marketplace now sold to eBay, and Charlie Muirhead, co-founder of Orchestream, the internet security business, shared the opening panel debate about getting started in business.

Seedcamp itself is a start-up venture with big aspirations. Saul Klein, its founder, told us that he has funding to run repeat its London incubator event several times over the next few years and said he would like to stage Seedcamps in other European cities.

You can see our video from the first day, including interviews with Zennstrom, Klein, and several Seedcamp finalists, here.

A debate has already started on the web about whether this is the right way to stimulate entrepreneurship in Europe, a continent more famous for long holidays than dynamic new businesses. Should not other things be done to change the cultural attitudes that prevent risk taking in the EU?

Continue reading "A new Eurovision?"