Archive for October, 2009

Finance for Mobile and Internet Businesses event

Thursday, October 15th, 2009
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Innovation & GrowthToday we are at the Finance for Mobile and Internet Businesses event, that we organized together with the South East England Development Agency for promising start-ups and investors. This is just one of the examples of how we develop our cooperation with the local organizations that are helping start-ups grow.

Some of the main topics in our presentation today are:

  • Developing Global Internet Businesses – Challenges and opportunities
  • Web and mobile businesses: new retail business
  • Go-to-market
  • Challenges of funding market
  • Web and mobile services funding
  • Grow VC platform for Experts and funding – The first global concept
  • Grow VC Local Partner examples
  • Investment policy and our market position
  • Would you like to manage VC money?

Full presentation below

Finance for Mobile and
Internet Businesses
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It is year 1851 in mobile apps

Saturday, October 10th, 2009
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We had an interesting panel in Mobile Apps Conference in CTIA in this week. We talked about business models and funding for mobile apps business. I was there with some great mobile entrepreneurs and Tarang Shah from Softbank Capital. Tarang pointed out that most of mobile apps companies are not really relevant for traditional VC’s. VC’s focus more on those companies that can make something disruptive. It was nice to see a common understanding that new funding models, like Grow VC, are needed in this space.

CTIA San DiegoMike Merrill from SmartPhone Technologies had a good comparison. This year for mobile apps is like 1851 in California, two years after the gold rush. Mike wanted to remind that not so many gold miners made big money, but there were many other people like Levi Trauss and Wells Fargon founders that created then a great business. We can also say it was an important time for the development of California. Now we live similar times in mobile.

Only the market can decide, which mobile apps companies are successful. You must make an app, launch it, and improve it. And you must be capital effective. It also makes sense take funding step by step. It is the only way avoid too high dilution.

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Mobile Application Stores: Strategy and Deployment

Thursday, October 8th, 2009
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Our Chairman Jouko Ahvenainen will be giving a presenatation today at CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2009 conference in San Diego, under Mobile Application Stores: Strategy and Deployment section.

Some of the topics include:

  • Why Grow VC is interested in Mobile Apps business?
  • Mobile Apps Business Segments
  • Mobile Apps –new retail business
  • Mobile Apps Funding
  • and some hints of our upcoming features…

Download presentation

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First service investment platform in the world: invest sweat equity globally

Sunday, October 4th, 2009
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Grow VC launched the service investment concept in this week. Grow VC is first global platform for service investment or “sweat equity” opportunities – so experts and investors can invest in startups using man-hours in addition to dollars, and startups can offer partial ownership in return. In practice it means that a startup can look, for example, a lawyer or PR professional and offer ownership to him or her. And experts can offer they services for ownership.

Sweat equity is nothing new. It has been typical for startups to attract people to do some work and also for board and advisor roles and offer them company shares. - What is new and unique is to have a global place to find the most suitable experts for a company and the best companies for each expert. If I set up a company in the UK, I might need an expert in the US and India. I can now enter my company details to the Grow VC services and indicate that I look for an expert with a specified profile in the US and India, and offer them 1% ownership. And experts can find globally companies that look for their services.

This is important for early phase companies and especially important in the current economic downturn. It is also important to have an open match-making service for this, otherwise companies and experts know only opportunities from their own networks. And it doesn’t always mean optimal fit, if you just take someone you happen to know. Web and mobile companies are very global nowadays, and they must find the best resources globally.

All you need to do to get started, is to register for free at Grow VC service.

This new feature is one important step for Grow VC to become the leading investment platform for startups globally. We continuously innovate new models for investments and funding. And in near future we can publish more new concepts. We also like to get your feedback and ideas. We are very interested to know, what kind of services could better help you to make investments or find funding.

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