Why Investors think you should start your company now

The second day of STARTsummit started with “Capital on Stage”. Four investors explained what kind of start-ups they are looking for and what they can do for young companies. Thanks to the selection of the four panellists it became clear how different investors are. The four panellists were: Luise Gruner, co-founder of Axel Springer Plug & Play, Daniel Kolliver, CEO of Mutschler Ventures, Florian Schweitzer, Partner of b-to-v Partners, and business angel Magne Orgland.

Axel Springer Plug & Play is an accelerator running a three month-long program twice a year in which the accelerator provides start-ups with office space in the heart of Berlin, coaching, workshops, networking on a global scale, 25.000 euros, events and more. The organisation is looking for pre-seed media-related start-ups with a prototype or a market proven business model.

Mutschler Ventures is a typical family office. It acts discreetly, for example it has no website. CEO Daniel Kolliver stressed that companies in which Mutschler invest can profit from a close relationship with the investor. To have a family office on stage before an audience of start-up founders is very unusual but very important. Family offices are very active investors in Switzerland but sometimes overlooked by founders because they are usually not present at start-up conferences etc.

B-to-v is both venture capital firm and a leading investor network. The company invests typically 1 to 5 million and is looking like all VCs for start-ups with high growth potential and a good and honest team.

Magne Orgland is a typical business angel. He invests his own money. He wants a payback but also wants to help the companies and he is only investing in start-ups with social or ecological goals. One company he invested in is the cleantech company Climeworks. Orgland is usually investing together with other business angels. A typical investment sum for him is CHF100’000.

The panel made clear how different investors are. Every start-up hast to identify the best kind of investor for his project and to approach the selected investors in the right way.

After the panel Christian Nagel of Earlybird Venture Capital took the stage. The conclusion of his talk was that now is a very good time to start a business. He gave several reasons for that:

• Cloud Computing has lowered the entry barriers for new start-ups.
• Smart phones are a huge and quickly growing platform for new businesses
• Technology adaption has never been so fast
• US Venture Capitalists have discovered Europe and are investing in European start-ups for the first time.

Nagel also described the business model of a VC and explained why Earlybird invests only in start-ups having the potential for an exit of over EUR100 million. Usually those start-ups are addressing large markets of more than EUR1 bn, have a strong competitive position and have a high margin. Of course the most important factor again is the team and the ability of the founders to grow the team quickly.

Morten Lund made the audience dance
After the lunch break it was Morten Lund’s term. He is not only famous for his investment in Skype but also for his bankruptcy in 2009. He didn’t give up and built up a portfolio of new companies that are in his own words “very boring”. They are start-ups active in the business services or financial services field. One example is Tradeshift, the biggest electronic invoicing company in the world.

There was a remarkable contrast between the “boring” companies and the amazing talk of Morten Lund. It started with a dance – not of the speaker but of the audience. “I want to get your out of your comfort zone”, Lund said. However most of the participants really had fun and danced even on the chairs.

However Morten Lund shared also some insights worth mentioning. For example he told the story of Itembase, another successful start-up in his portfolio. He stressed that the founder didn’t have a concrete idea when he started but just a vision. Morten Lund’s advice to the audience was not to waste time for finding the coolest business idea in the world but to start and to be open for changes. The best way to get to a really working business idea is in his view to share the idea and to listen to other people.