At a recent OpenCoffee Dublin event Brian Cleland of InterTrade Ireland mooted the idea of a Seedcamp Ireland. He’d love to see it be held in Newry or Dundalk (as cross-border networking is really his thing), but is realistic enough to consider other locations.
To quote the main Seedcamp website:
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.
We might need to use a different name, but would you be interested in an informal meetup of startups and investors? Given the turn in the property market, would investors be ooking to put their money into the startup technology sector? Where would you like to see it held?
Seedcamp is a funding scheme modeled on Y-combinator. If you have an idea you apply for the scheme, go to London for a week and compete for the funding. The winners get 50K in exchange for a 10% stake and move to London for 3 months to work on their idea.
For this to work you would need to have someone who has committed to providing funding. Is this what you have in mind? “An informal meeting of startups and investors” sounds more like opencoffee or first tuesday style event.
Aidan,
Correct on all your points. After I posted , I had the thought that if you’re a *really* serious startup , you’d go for the London event. Better connections and better money.
I think what Brian had in mind (or at least the part that interested me) was the notion of getting tech and business people together. Try to get out of the ‘same old faces’ problem.
Intertrade has a Eur280,000 seedcorn competition (so they’re not afraid of big money prizes) , but I got the vibe that they currently do only one big money event (for which I’m glad as it’s also our tax money!). Hence the ‘We might need to use a different name’!
Paul
I vote for Aidan’s Y-Combinator idea, but in Newry. Largely out of regional patriotism but also for the Monty Pythonesque surealism of the idea..