SmartCamp is an exclusive networking and mentoring event for entrepreneurs with global ambitions. The program is dedicated to great entrepreneurs who believe that technology can make our world a better place. It provides access to world-class advisors plus a direct route to seed and venture capital.
Five finalists will be invited to attend an intensive 1 day event session on October15th. This event will be held in the Dublin City Council “My Dublin” Conference Centre located at the Civic Offices on Wood Quay, Dublin.
Each company will meet and have informal discussions with groups of experienced entrepreneurs, international VC’s and executives from large corporations. A total of 25 mentors will be split into teams of 5, meeting each company seperately for a 45 minute roundtable.
An overall winner will be chosen and announced at the closing of the event.
Partners involved with Smartcamp include Seedcamp and the NDRC
At the end of the week Seedcamp make a funding decision to invest up to €50K each in 5 teams for a small equity stake (5%-10%) which enables the teams to move to London for at least three months. The goal of this 3-month period is to help grow and nurture the teams by providing the same level of intensity and in-depth focus on developing the product and business.
No doubt we’ll see loads of Irish folks involved in Seedcamp 2009 – Apply Now
Seedcamp is holding an event in London on 20th April aimed at Irish and UK start-ups, called Mini Seedcamp London. It will be bringing together 20 of the best seed stage web tech startups with experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and developers from all over Europe to participate in a day of intense mentoring, panel discussions and presentations.
Applications are open now and the closing date is midnight on April 6th. All the details, including how to enter, can be found here.
A call out to Web2Ireland community – the LeWeb’08: StartUp Competition is a great opportunity for folks to connect with the web community in Europe [Le Web is one of the top events globally - so here is your chance].
SeedCamp is helping to select the companies – and facilitating the competition during the conference – 30 companies will be selected from the applications submitted and will demonstrate in front of a panel of expert judges. The winners of this competition will then have a chance to present their companies on the LeWeb main stage during a special session on December 10.
Many of us were absolutely gutted when the SeedCamp finalists were announced and there was no sign of Decisions for Heroes (D4H). Anyone who has been following what Robin Blandford has been doing with D4H knows what an amazing idea it is.
According to 11850 It is a collaborative rescue team management tool to record and analyze rescue operations.
It looks like the judges re-considered their decision. Perhaps they realised that the ideas around D4H can be re-used to build many highly valuable logistics-centered systems where the value is in the data.
In any case, that means we now now have an Irish entry in SeedCamp. Well done Robin! Hopefully we’ll have even more Irish finalists next year.
Given the energy and activity around incubation programmes like Genesis and EnterpriseStart, is it time to consider doing a SeedCamp-style programme here specifically for webapps?
In a previous post Conor wrote about applying for Seedcamp. From the poll it seems a good number of people would like a little help filling out the application form (including myself) and some are available to lend a hand from their own experience of applying last year.
A room has been arranged in Oriel House Hotel in Ballincollig, Cork for Thursday August 7th starting at around 9am.
It will be quite informal, the aim it to get practical advise from each other on answering some of the questions on the form to highlight your business or idea as best as possible.
I’ll have print outs of the questions with me on the day. Anyone who’d like the them before hand, heres a link to the the Seedcamp application PDF.
Gordon Murray of eWrite has come up with a brilliant suggestion for SeedCamp. He thinks we should crowdsource some of the applications. Of course, this exercise will also help those who want to apply for SeedCorn and other similar competitions.
There are plenty of people who have experience in filling out application forms for the likes of Incubation Programmes, EI Grants, the SeedCorn competition etc. Why not use that expertise to help those applying to SeedCamp who may never have dealt with this sort of thing before?
So yet another call for interest. If there are sufficient numbers in Cork then Gordon will arrange a meeting room in the Oriel House Hotel in Ballincollig for a morning. Those who want to apply and those who want to help can come together, figure out a strong message for each applicant and hopefully help them do better in the process.
If it works well, there is no reason this can’t be repeated in Dublin and elsewhere.
Usual story, fill out the poll (this one is for Cork only!) and ideally leave a comment or mail Gordon (gordon AT ewrite DOT ie) with some info about yourself. This is a very short term thing so the poll will close on Friday.
Are you in a small startup? Thinking of doing one? No access to capital? Possibly lacking some business experience? But dammit you want to build something!
Or maybe your employer, the bank, hedge fund or insurance company is going through meltdown and you think – time to move.
Seedcamp is where Europe’s top young founders can come together in one place. From securing funding to developing the right network, young entrepreneurs in Europe face challenges in building globally competitive technology businesses. Through the provision of seed capital and a world class network of mentors, we want to provide a catalyst for Europe’s next generation of entrepreneurs.
The process is simple; you apply here, those shortlisted go to London for Seedcamp Week and then the best of the best are then picked to be part of Seedcamp.
I don’t know how many Irish companies applied last year but your continental European peers are jumping all over this. At the very least it is worth a look. Some great thoughts on the topic from Saul Klein.
11th of September 2009 by Fergus Burns
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