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NeXT GENERATION ENTREPRENEUR FORUM 2007
business plan & think tank(idea) competition
“IDEA TO INVESTMENT”
presented by
International University of Monaco
SAVE THE DATE
March 1 - 3, 2007
Le Meridien Beach Plaza Hotel, Monaco
Come network with venture capitalists, angel investors, and entrepreneurs in Monaco ’s hottest venue.
Learn about the newest trends in entrepreneur funding, business plan strategies, and how to do business in Monaco .
featured speaker
Heidi Roizen, Managing Director
http://www.roizen.com/heidi/
Mobius Venture Capital
Palo Alto, California USA
To request information, reply to: info@ngefmonaco.org.
Download the 2007 "Save the Date" Press Release Here
| 21/02/07 |
Start-ups become old hat for Europeans, The New York Times Media Group |
Jacques Souquet had gone through several start-ups in Seattle, but he still was not entirely prepared for starting up a high-tech company in his native France.
Failure, for instance, is still a no-no here, creating a challenge for any new start-up. And Souquet, 58, a compact man with a gentle manner, has a lot of rules to learn. When he once had to meet a deadline, he asked his colleagues to come in on a Sunday, which they did; but Souquet got a dressing-down from his lawyer, who intoned about the legal limits on the French workweek.
Now, SuperSonic, Souquet's company, is up and running smoothly - a testimony to recent changes in France and greater Europe. Start- ups are no longer a rare species here. Many of Europe's new entrepreneurs are returning from the United States, where they learned the start-up culture in Silicon Valley and Route 128 around Boston.
After the dot-com bust, the number of European start-ups in the computer and telecommunications sectors began growing again in 2003, according to the Center for European Economic Research, in Mannheim, Germany. And venture capital is pouring into start-ups, attracting some $970 million last year, the highest level since the dot-com boom in 2000. Overall, venture capital fund-raising in Europe is more than twice the levels of 2002. In France, the number of new businesses set up last year rose 4 percent, to 233,052, from 2005, according to the Agency for the Creation of Businesses, a government body.
The number of small American businesses also grew that much, at 4.5 percent, but at 671,800, there are nearly three times as many such U.S. companies, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Souquet was able to lure 8 of his 27 employees back from the United States. And after two years, his start-up is preparing to introduce its product in 2008: a device that measures the elasticity of living tissue, to assist doctors in diagnosing and treating cancer.
Still, Aix is not Seattle. French attitudes are a bit rigid, compared with the American approach- if at once you don't succeed, try, try again. And French law, which mandates a 35-hour week, still crimps entrepreneurial flair. Indeed, Souquet's company began with a colleague's fear that France was failing to keep its scientists. Georges Charpak, the winner of the 1992 Nobel prize in physics, came to him. "He told me, 'Its dramatic,'" Souquet said. "He said his best laboratory talent was going to the United States." So two years ago, Souquet began gathering patents, including several from a Russian emigre, Armen Sarvazyan, whose own start-up, Artann Laboratories, in West Trenton, New Jersey, held vital patents for working with shear waves crucial to Souquet's device.
At his previous start-up, SonoSite in Seattle, Souquet helped develop handheld ultrasound devices that were essentially conventional technology, drastically miniaturized. Souquet's latest device "is a new concept," Sarvazyan said. "It opens an era, not only for elasticity, but for imitating the sense of touch, the feeling of a doctor," which is now often crucial in diagnosing cancer.
Souquet had broad experience in ultrasound, having worked in the United States for Varian Semiconductor, before moving to ATL Ultrasound. Together with a small group of ATL researchers, he founded SonoSite. When Charpak approached him, Souquet was head of research in the medical division of Philips, the Dutch electrical giant.
Weary from the constant travel and the layers of management of a global giant like Philips, Souquet heeded Charpak's cry for help.
SuperSonic, with headquarters in a glass-and-steel corporate park outside the southern French resort city of Aix-en-Provence, was put afloat with Souquet's own savings, plus money from French government sources. Last March, a group of venture capital funds led by Credit Agricole Private Equity pumped 10 million, or $13.1 million, into the company.
Investments like this are still only a small fraction of the amounts flowing into start-ups in the United States, but in Europe, their impact is widening. Membership in the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, set up in 2001, has grown to almost 950. Representatives of the group tell of numerous technology success stories, like that of Xavier Niel, 39, an entrepreneur based in Paris who in 2002 started Free, which now is France's No.2 Internet access engine, after Orange, the France Telecom unit.
Vectrix started up in Italy about a decade ago, but only came into its own in 2003 when Carlo Di Biagio, a former Ducati Motorcycle chief executive, became its boss. It is about to bring to market an electric-engine scooter, with a top speed of about 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, an hour, developed with help from about $50 million in venture capital.
"From the point of view of technology, this was a real innovation," said Alexia Perouse, director of life science investments at Credit Agricole, explaining why they gave the money to Souquet. Later this year, the venture capital funds will consider a second grant, of 20 million, Souquet said. In April, Souquet plans to have discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to have the devices certified. By next year he hopes to begin delivering them.
"It looks very intriguing," said Dr. Stephen Corn, who teaches at Harvard Medical School and is director of clinical innovation at Children's Hospital Boston. He called the company's work "very exciting."
Souquet has hired a marketing director, opened an office in Seattle, and has chosen the tentative design for the first product. And his company has some of the Silicon Valley feel. People sit in open carrels and dress is casual. For lunch, they sit around an open counter in the center of the building.
"It's easy in the States," he said, still bemoaning the local hardships. "You know what to do, you go to Barnes & Noble, you buy a book, 20 tips to create a start-up."
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| 14/02/07 |
Anglo Info - Riviera - What's On |
| The Next Generation Entrepreneur Forum (NGEF), Idea to Investment, will take place at Le Meridien Beach Plaza, Monaco from 1st - 3rd March. NGEF is a meeting point for young aspiring entrepreneurs from around the world and a network of potential investors, business angels, venture capitalists, and internationally renowned entrepreneurs who provide advice and funding for the most promising projects. The Forum will include conferences, debates and social events. |
| 25/01/07 |
Le Moci (France) |
| 25/12/06 |
Heidi Roizen: Investors seek advice from the young for tips on start-ups |
SAN FRANCISCO: Wanted: investment adviser — the younger the better.
In a nod to the wisdom of youth, many wealthy, highly connected and well-educated technology investors are taking counsel and investment tips from their children, summer interns and twenty-something receptionists.
These venture capital investors say there is good reason to ask young people to help them assess new technology: As the investors themselves are aging, the technology — from social networking Web sites to mobile gadgets — is designed for, used and sometimes built by, people half their age.
"Children are a secret weapon in my arsenal for making investment decisions," said Heidi Roizen, a managing director at the Silicon Valley firm Mobius Venture Capital. |
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