Every community needs it’s own Jonathan from Spotify, to bring you the latest updates and news – and that’s me. I thought I’d take a moment to introduce myself to all you avid followers of this here Grow VC Blog. At the start of this post, I vow to keep it clear of any “I like long walks on the beach..” – phrases. Here’s hoping I won’t have to eat my hat.

So “Hi There”, I’m Markus. Like any strictly formal introduction, I’ll stick a funny looking picture of myself to this post. I’m a passionate and driven individual who’s proud to be a part of something as game-changing as Grow VC. I’ve studied at two universities, Helsinki University of Technology and Hanken School of Economics, and could argue that I’ve learned a thing or two. I’m particularly fascinated about the subject of Entrepreneurship, both on a practical, real-life level, as well as on a theoretical level.

Personally, I believe there is a mismatch between what we say we want to achieve as large collective societies and what we are actually doing. Having experienced the world as an entrepreneur, I am dedicated to change the way we see entrepreneurship, but also to give entrepreneurship the spotlight in the economy it deserves. One could spend days discussing the cultural differences in entrepreneurship. Having lived in three different countries, Finland, Sweden and the US, I dare go out on a limb and argue that entrepreneurship is in no way glorified enough, in my experience, despite the often broad mentality gap between the Nordic countries and the US. In addition, I’m involved in developing the entrepreneurship scene, both on a global and local plateau – active Vice Chairman of Hanken Entrepreneurship Society – doing what I can to inspire and motivate others to broaden their own mental horizons. It starts with small nudges..

Funny-Looking Picture: Birthday Cake Edition

I believe we are on the cusp of change with the Grow VC community, bringing some efficient models and practices to the funding market. Now it’s time to light that spark within the community, get that snowball rolling and gathering momentum. I know there are many others like us, that believe in this change. I thank all of you, but encourage you to further stretch your reach and help others get inspired!

Here’s wishing you a great day!
Markus

Markus LinkedIN
Markus in the funding community

Today I got a question about “International angel investing. Can it work?” – from Giandomenico that posted it in LinkedIn.

In his question he’s pondering about the angel investing in international level. The main point in the question is to compare it to more local investing and in what situations would international angel investing work.

My idea is that an international angel investment is frequently a co-investment with a local (and trusted) angel investor. Otherwise, international angel investment can happen if the amount of invested money is very small and limited for the investor and if both the investor and the entrepreneur are good at communicating through email and throughsoftwares like Skype, webex etc. But these are particular cases.

I think this is a very good question so I wanted to spend some time thinking about it, to answer properly. Here’s my answer to he’s question:

I think you pretty much got this right.

I also think it’s not so much of local or international than it is who knows who. Typically angel investments are referrals within a network. That network can be friends, friends of friends or some professional network and ultimately a professional angel investing network.

It just happens to be that there are more locally focused networks, since building any kind of international network in past have been much more difficult and costly.

So my answer for situation today, is that international angel investing happens where there are angels that have personal networks of friends that are internationally spread out.

How do I think this will change in the future?

1. Now that there are so much more effective tools that enable people to join networks that are international and find new friends online, this will start to increase.

2. When the next generation of angel investors grow from people commonly using facebook in their daily activities today, it’s very simple for them to also feel comfortable making investment decisions with their online (angel investing) friends, if they trust their opinions in other matters in their life as well.

3. When the costs related per investment comes down with more effective tools online and at the same time there is bigger pool of deal flow, that will enable new options.

Crowdfunding can also be fundingcrowd

If the concept for crowdfunding in fund raising side means;

- instead of looking for few people with plenty of money, choosing to find plenty of people with small money

Then for investing that can be translated to;

- instead of putting plenty of money to few startups, choosing to put little money to many startups.

From investors point of view this is a balance between how much they want to distribute their risk.

These are the reasons we are building Grow VC, to help enable this development for international angel investing. More deal flow to choose from, social network of like minded people to make new international friends, bring down the cost per deal and smaller investment to more startups.

We also believe, that in future by enabling more efficient tools it also makes sense to do smaller rounds more often to make it easier for startup to be agile and also limit the risk by investing into “momentum” and milestones based funding – milestone by milestone.

This all have possibility to make stuff more “real”, when the focus is more in the near future, rather than 3 years with hockey stick plan.

Last July my co-founder Jouko also wrote about this topic with the topic “invest globally or locally“. What’s your thoughts on this topic and how do you see this developing in the future?

Happy Chinese New Year!

The Year of the Tiger will bring far reaching changes for everyone. New inventions and incredible technological advances have a good chance of occurring. For all of the Chinese horoscope signs, this year is one to be active – seizing opportunities and making the most of our personal and very individual talents. Everything happens quickly and dramatically in a Tiger year – blink and you could miss an important chance of a lifetime!

This is the last day for claiming your free “premium account” for 2010 valued up to $1,200, that includes one or many of the following:

• active startup profile (+ entrepreneur role)
• expert role
• funder role

Steps to claim your free “premium account” for 2010:

1. Register
2. After registration, complete your profile
3. Go to the Subscription & Role page
4. Select your subscription type
5. Click “apply for subscription”

Tell a friend
Small things that you do can create great opportunities for you and people you care for. Let your friends know there’s only 1 day left to get their own free Grow VC premium subscription for 2010. You can even use your affiliate link if you like. More details about the affiliate model

Good luck for the year of the Tiger!

Related articles by Zemanta

• What’s Waiting for China in the Year of the Tiger? (seekingalpha.com)
• The Year of the Tiger Roars in (trueslant.com)

Grow VC Partners group will be for the partner members when Grow VC service will be launched.  We may also be looking for some suitable certified partners that could be involved with Grow VC before the launch and/or cooperating in higher level with us.

Partners in Grow VC will be people and companies that offer various services for new start-up companies, like: consults, advisers, accountants, board members, insurance companies, web hosts, etc. If you like the idea that next Google, Facebook or Apple, would become a reality because of you, then this group is for you. There will
be many levels of partnership opportunities with Grow VC.

Also. This week we are looking to invite limited test users to our proto site, to test our service and give us feedback before our closed beta launch in June. Test users will be invited from our supporting sites members, LinkedIn groups, friendfeed room and from members that have joined via friend connect at our site.

Our other groups can be find via www.growvc.com

Startup Group is for all Start-ups, the future “Rock Stars” of the web, that are looking for early funding for their Start-up via Grow VC service – to be launched in June.

What type of Startups are we looking for:

- business model itself needs to be web or mobile based
- aimed to be international right from the start
- good and passionate team behind it
- need for initial funding less than one million euro
- can be B2B, B2C, related to any industry
- competitive edge heavily connected to being web based service/business model.
- growth potential 5x+
- clear competitive edge and opportunity within aimed market.

By the end of this month we are looking to invite limited test users to our proto site, to test our service and give us feedback before our closed beta launch in June. Test users will be invited from our supporting sites members, LinkedIn groups, friendfeed room and from members that have joined via friend connect at our site.

Our other groups can be find via www.growvc.com