The fund is, as the name suggest, focused on being backed by founders. This is an impressive list, with founders behind local successes like Zendesk, Unity, Tradeshift, Sitecore and Vivino being a part of it. But also founders from across the nordics, with successes such as Skype and Kahoot. And the idea is to leverage those founders as well for the startups that will be invested in:

“byFounders provides early-stage founders with unrivalled access to knowledge, expertise and insight from some of the most successful Nordic entrepreneurs. The support and operational guidance available from such a broad group is unique, and has the potential to play a major factor in the success of the next generation of startups from the region.” says Morten Primdahl, Co-Founder of Zendesk, about the process

The idea is to help out with what is needed for further growth. That can be scaling, introductions, referrals, recruiting, global expansion or raising further funding rounds. Portfolio startups are supposed to always find the advice they need in the 50-strong and growing ‘Collective’.

“byFounders Collective allows me to take part in shaping the founders of the future and highlighting the innovative and un-traditional companies that dare to think different and proves that the way to success doesn’t have to include a basement or a White Party.” says Frederikke Schmidt, founder of Roccamore

The fund will invest in a different range of startups. The strategy for investing has so far been a “7 T:s” approach: Team, TAM, Traction, Tech, Transformation, Timing, 10x.

However, raising a lot of money for investing in startups is not the easiest process.

“Having been through a challenging, exciting, at times gruelling and at the end very successful fundraising period, we can now proudly announce that we have managed to reach our goal of raising a € 100 million fund. For a first-time fund, this is exceptional.” Ida Åsle says about the process.

byFounders will be very important for our region, being a major VC player located here, that can compete with the other big Nordic funds such as Creandum and Northzone, based in Stockholm. An important player in the Greater Copenhagen eco-system for sure, but also strengthening the Nordics in total.

“It’s natural for every tech ecosystem to compare itself to Silicon Valley but the Nordics have established itself as a true birthplace for unicorns. The region can and will compete with any other place in the world when it comes to fostering and growing companies, and I believe the opportunity for large exits will only increase over time.” says Tommy Andersen who together with Eric Lagier started the fund.

byFounders has already invested in 11 startups: Corti, Peergrade, Simple Feast, Cobalt, Spiio, SafetyWing, Drugstars, Omnio, Qurasense, Tame, and Uizard.

You can read more about the process from byFounders directly, or at TechCrunch and Tech.eu as well.

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“Komfo’s social media advertising and analytics offering is world-class, and we can’t wait to bring it to our customers around the world. By the same token, we’re thrilled to provide an even broader and stronger offering to the Komfo customers.” says CEO Ulrik Bo Larsen

He emphasises that Komfo’s social advertising and analytics capabilities will greatly augment the Falcon platform – as will the employyees from Komfo that will join the Falcon.io team.

“The acquisition of Komfo consolidates Falcon.io’s position as the European market leader. The majority of Komfo staff will join Falcon.io’s Copenhagen, New York, Berlin and Budapest offices, as well as remain at Komfo’s former office in Sofia, Bulgaria, which will become a Falcon.io location.”

Falcon.io also reports on their continued growth, with their fiscal year ending with 40% revenue growth. It has also grown outside of Europe, as it reported a 45% year-over-year client growth rate in the US. It has also added many international brands and corporates to it’s client list, including Goodyear Dunlop and Time Inc, joining those it already has such as Carlsberg, Toyota, Momondo, Panasonic and Coca-Cola.

In a TechCrunch interview, Ulrik goes into further details and talks about the trend in their segment in general, as well as their position:

“When we compare ourselves to others in the space, and consider the avenues of how you can grow, everyone is talking about consolidation right now, private equity funds looking in, and so on. There is no doubt that we have the strongest metrics and more momentum than some of the others.” Ulrik says to TechCrunch.

The post Falcon.io announces growth numbers and it’s acquisition of Komfo appeared first on Øresund Startups.

“Autobutler has a unique digital business within a conservative industry. With its strong management they belong to entrepreneurs who has torn down the walls and created success in a competitive market. As ‘born global’ Autobutler now stands in front of its international break-through doing partnerships with some of the world’s largest online-companies in Sweden, Germany and the UK. We need strong entrepreneurs to create our future innovation. There were plenty of relevant companies this year but the most outstanding example were Autobutler”.

The award committee looks at several factors:

• Entrepreneurial spirit: sets very high standards for self and business and demonstrates strong leadership skills and an unflinching desire and determination to be successful.
• Financial performance: this is reflected in the strength of the organization’s financial performance
• Strategic direction: creates and turns business visions into business realities. Builds and rebuilds the teams’ commitment to the common goals. Demonstrates the ability to produce new products, innovate product use and differentiate themselves from their competitors.
• Global (or community) impact: the entrepreneur’s global impact can be measured with either revenue, operational, or influential presence in international markets.
• Innovation: entrepreneur pioneers a new approach in product, culture or processes.
• Personal integrity/influence: living their values has earned great respect from staff, competitors, customers, advisers, family and the wider community.

“The award shows our potential and we believe strongly that this will be yet another step towards our plans of becoming the largest European digital marketplace for car repairs” says Peter Zigler, co-founder at Autobutler.

Autobutler has received numerous awards, among others the “Best B2C Company”, “Best Start-Up Company” in 2012 and “the Best B2B Company”. The EY award is so far the most prestigious award.

“Garage business has long conservative traditions – attracting customers very much the same way as 20 years ago. We have proved that it is possible to attract customers via digital media – and we expect to revolutionize the workshop experience for car-owners everywhere. We see it as an honour to be called the best company 2014 in the start-up category” says Peter.

Check out online sites regarding garage-related concerns, Get More Information here!

Autobutler has a business modell that simplifies the process of finding quality garages. More than 140 000 customers have used the service to get offers on car repairs. The startup, started in 2010 by Christian Legêne and Peter Zigler, last year received an initial funding of € 4 M from Creandum and earlier this year raised € 5.8 M in a round led by Index Ventures. Today the company runs market places from offices in Denmark, Sweden, Germany and UK.

Sitecore and MovieStarPlanet winners as well

It was not just Autobutler that won awards at the show. Other startups that got important recognition was Sitecore, that won the globalization award. And MovieStarPlanet got the award for innovation. You can read more about these two over at the official site – Sitecore, MovieStarPlanet.

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A goal and more structure

The first half of the event was focused on giving the participants a chance to speak out and an update on the structure of the initiative.
It was presented that Jasenko Hadzic and Lærke Ullerup will form the operational team, with Jasenko being the official Managing Director. Jasenko is, as previsouly stated, known in the community, and Lærke has a past at TEDxCPH and has been involved in the #cphftw initiative since its initial phase.

Also, it’s goals of #cphftw were presented. These are:

• To make Denmark the most attractive startup hub in Europe
• To increase relations amongst community leaders and entrepreneurs in the ecosystem
• To to increase international exposure, benefiting the Denmark and the Danish economy

How to do it

But it is not just about what the goals are, even more important are how to do it. Here some concrete actions were announced:

Connecting the ecosystem

A couple of initiatives were presented about how to move things forward. Amongst other through dedicated meet ups for C-level employees at startups. People who often have a huge experience and can share information with others. But also with founders dinners and a mailing list for entrepreneurs.

Making the ecosystem visible

This mainly through an online platform, over at cphftw.dk, which should make it easy to get an overview of what happens, and also highlight interesting stories. Also, making the eco-system visible to media to a larger extend.

Connecting Copenhagen to the world

8 exclusive investors dinners with all major Nothern European VCs. Also, actively working with other hubs such as Stockholm, Helsinki and Berlin to drive learning across borders.

Also, all founding startups were announced as well, having pledged over 500 000 DKK to the initiative so far – it should be noted that at the event it was mentioned that the number was 400.000 DKK, but the sign-ups have been flying in ever since the evening.

It was also mentioned that the all startups have the chance of becoming founding members of #cphftw, were the goal is to get 80+ on board until end the week. If you want your startup to join in and forever be known as one of the founding members, reach out to Jasenko directly.

What is happening in Copenhagen

Besides those great news about the initiative itself, the second part was all about startups and events happening in Copenhagen.

It was set up as quick series of mini-presentations. A chance for all assembled to know about some impress startups or happenings. here were a lot of quick presentations and announcement. 6 startups were presented, as well as over 10 different initiatives from the community.

For outsiders, one of the most interesting parts were all the different initiatives that are going on.

Community initiatives and events

Here multiple places, initiatives and events were presented. All very interesting in their own, but too much to cover in depth. Amongst them were:

• Jacob Bøtter told the story about Prototype, and it’s strange mixture of co-working and coffeeshop
• Michael Tiberg talked about Foo Café, how he managed to host over 300 tech events last year in Malmö, and about opening a Foo Café in Copenhagen.
• CIID, the Copenhagen Institute of Interactive Design – Alie Rose, talked about bringing together people from all over the world to work on interaction and development projects. A great pool for talent.
• Lars Buch from StartupBootcamp came and brought a lot of energy – enforcing that we need to celebrate the people who are doing this.
• Lean Startup Circle was presented, and that they will host multiple events in the fall, using their 950+ strong meet-up group to bring great minds together, and above all focus on actual learnings and testing.
• Michael Reibel Boesen presented Elevate, which is kind of a job fair for getting students exposed to startups. A great initiative.
• Camilla Ley Valentin from Queue-it talked about her involvement with the danish goverment in the enklereregler.dk initiative – making regulations easier. She highlighted that everyone should send in their growth barriers before the October 3rd, and she would present them to the government.
• Henrik Føhns from Harddisken, the program from Danish Public Radio 1, was on stage and talked about his job of distributing the future more evenly – using one hour of public radio a week for interviews and the tech scene.
• Morten Elk from SimpleSite presented his initiative: Nordic Growth Hackers meet-ups. The events will focus in real learnings – 6 cases with growth hacking will be presented. The first meet-up is in october at Founders House.

Startup presentations

6 startups got 3 minutes each. The startups were from different levels – from really successful ones to smaller ones that recently have had successes.

Sitecore

“Before Sitecore I started multiple non-profits. Although I never intended them to be non-profit…”

Was one of the quotes from Lars Fløe Nielsen who presented his company. A company that might be the ‘biggest unknown startup’ in Copenhagen. Having had organic growth to over 800 employees and hundreds of millions in revenue, it surely is a very impressive company he has build.

Shipbeat

“A startup is about a team”

Was one of the widsoms Kenneth Svenningsen from Shipbeat shared. The logistics as a service startup has recently closed an impressive seed-round.

“I didn’t want to do this. But my past experience from Rocket Internet in Sydney and Miinto I realisted there was no good solution for this”

Kenneth said about his startup idea.

Crowdcurity

Jacob Hansen from Crowdcurity talked about how they are solving security problems for companies.

“We are Backed by 1000 of security researchers world wide. “

Apart from their journey so far with boost.vc and 500 startups, he also mentioned current progress:

“The bitcoin marked is currently one of our focus areas, we get a lot of interest from companies active there.”

Komfo

Michael talked about Komfo and how they are now competing against Adobe social, Meltwater and a lot of the same competitors as Lars from Sitecore mentioned previously. Komfo and Sitecore also have a long relationship already.

“We wanted an organic growth, and took Sitecore as a strategic investor instead of venture capital.”

Realm (former tightDB)

Brian Munkholm presented his startup. They are currently 16 employees, half of them in Silicon Valley.
Their service: a very fast database tool. He mentioned that they are proud that it was released one month ago, already 1700 stars on GitHub.

Conferize

Jesper Vestergaard introduced the startup, and their ambition to make conferences more digital and forming a community around them. They have just released their new product.

“We 12 people working at conferize right now. Looking for more”

Jesper he hinted. He also made a pledge: If you have a free event in Copenhagen you can use the Conferize without any costs.

Podio

The last one is not a startup anymore, since their exit to Citrix in 2012. However, Kasper Hulthin talked about their journey 2009-2012. But also talked about how they have worked to get Citrix to make the Podio office a hub for their development, and getting the company to make it’s presence in the region stronger. An effort that was applauded to!

The presentations were all quick, and gave a sense of some of the interesting startups in Copenhagen. They also showed a clear trend – it’s the b2b sector startups that this region rocks at building.

Conclusions

Apart from all this there were even more short presentations and speeches. It was, in total, a really packed event with a lot of information shared. After all the presentations the bar, staffed by employees from the startup 23, was open and a lot of new connections made. A lot of suggestions and ideas also spread thru twitter on the #cphftw hashtag, were already new plans for sharing more knowledge were taking shape.

The post #Cphftw Town Hall #3 – packed with people and announcements appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Sitecore: the iPhone of the Web content Management Industry

Born in Copenhagen at the start of the 21st century, Sitecore is now recognized as Denmark’s top information technology company. The firm offers web content management and portal software, allowing organizations to create exciting website experiences. Businesses using their products enjoy growing success in their online realm, which Sitecore allows them to maintain and monitor.

While global headquarters remain in Sitecore’s home-city of Copenhagen, the rest of the firm’s 500 or so employees span across 11 other major offices worldwide – Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, Australia and USA host a few of these – putting Sitecore on the map in the literal sense as well as figuratively. With over 3000 customers, including the big-brand names of Nestle, Siemens and Toshiba, the firm enjoys a diverse client base which also includes governments and public institutions.

The Beginning

The company was first founded in 2002 by five technical colleagues, headed by current CEO Michael Seifert. Seifert started coding at the early age of 11, and by age 15 had already started his first IT company. Amidst studying and graduating, Seifert collaborated in writing one of the earliest forms of multi-player gaming, DIKU MUD, which quickly became a massive online hit and paved the way for similar role-playing games like World of Warcraft.  With a Master’s degree in Computer Science and Human Computer Interaction under his belt, Michael left Copenhagen University to tackle advanced technical work within a number of Silicon Valley startups in Northern America.

It was while working as the president of a multimillion dollar custom software development company that the idea behind Sitecore first sparked. The goal was to develop a Microsoft-centric product which could both create and manage websites, thus transforming online experiences beyond that provided by current technology. With the help of four other tech-enthusiasts, Seifert initiated Sitecore, which would eventually take the market by storm.

Early Investment

Even the best ideas need money to drive them forward. In 2003 Sitecore received a multimillion cash injection from 13 private investors connected to investment organisation MVI Danmark, part of Merchant Venture Investments. These private investments were disbursed in accelerating the firm’s growth within Denmark as well as introducing Sitecore’s product to a number of North European countries.

Funding for the Future

The firm is mostly self-funded and has succeeded in making returns on its private investment from substantial profit margins. In late 2011, Sitecore received a large boost in investment from California-based private equity Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV). Finances were put towards increasing investment in R&D, enhancing marketing and sales as well as expanding the firm’s global outreach by opening new offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore. Seifert recognized continuing product innovation as a vital element in earning the firm the deserved recognition from the industry.  The mission thereon was to continue along the road of growth.

And so they did; in 2010 the firm celebrated rapidly rising annual revenues with a Year-over-Year growth of 40%. In 2013 Sitecore made profits of just over USD30 million (167,652,000 DKK ), quite an improvement on their 2012 turnover of  under USD20 million (100,013,000 DKK).

In August 2012, Sitecore invested in Komfo, a social media marketing platform provider, integrating this with their own CEP to grant marketers insight and control of the customer experience within Facebook and other social networking sites.

All of the software and services offered by the firm, including their Sitecore Experience Platform (CEP), Web Content Management (WCM) and their Digital Marketing System (DMS), are built on .NET framework. Seifert believes that freedom from ‘hybrid technologies’ avoids unnecessary expenses and complexities, allowing them to supply products which are hassle-free and accessible to all. 

Patent makes Perfect

Sitecore currently has 17 on-file applications. In the past year, two patents were awarded, the most recent being the Sitecore Human Experience Analytics U.S. patent. Filing patents has allowed the firm to protect and strengthen their market position, providing them with the best opportunity to gain profits from their inventions.  As Sitecore is often developing and launching new and updated products, patenting has been a significant method by which to ensure that their advancements are recognized as Sitecore’s own intellectual property.

With their name on the sticker, Sitecore has gained widespread attention for their entrepreneurial spirit, awarded ‘Leader in 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management‘ and featured in KMWorld’s 100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management, amongst numerous other prestigious awards.

Not the End

As of yet, the company has not made their IPO, but, according to a lot of online speculation, this might be happening quite soon.

What was once a spark is now a raging fire: it is undeniable that Sitecore’s progress from startup to big-league player has been immense. With strategic planning, focused determination and an insightful understanding of the CMS and WCM industry, Sitecore has succeeded in securing a strong place in the market. As said by Alan Pelz-Sharpe of the 451 Research Group, “Based on Sitecore’s current performance, one would not want to bet against it.”

Our bets are all for Sitecore’s continued global growth and success, and their latest deal with L’Oreal suggests that the company is a sure bet.

The post The Success Stories You Probably Haven’t Heard of: Sitecore appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The event was marked by a great spirit and community feeling, and will probably be looked at as an important day for the Copenhagen and Denmarks startup community.

The day was filled with great advice and stories. Here is a summary of some of the things that where said and wisdom that was shared.

Opening and part 1: new startups

Opening keynote by Morten Lund, the famous investor. Morten opened with a personal and charismatic keynote. His biggest advice – “find profiten” – focus on where the money is found!

After the opening Lars Buch from Startupbootcamp MobilityXL presented 8 different up-and-coming startups: Click-a-taxi, Iconfinder, Vivino, Rushfiles, Atosho, Graduateland, Queue-it and Autouncle.
They all got 10 minutes to talk about their business, their funding and their challenges. Very interesting and fast-paced. There could be done individual blogposts for each of the presentations, but suffice to say – all of these startups are definitly worth keeping an eye on!

Part 2: startups

This part was opened by minister Morten Østergaard, who talked about the innovationstrategy. He emphasised that we have among the highest money spent on R&D in Denmark, but are mediocre at creating jobs from it. He realized the need for this to change.

After this was a long but inspiring session with alot of established startups on stage, most of whom where in an internationallization phase. Alot of great advice where given and stories told. I is not possible to get everything in one post, but here are some highlights:

Peter Mühlmann from Trustpilot talked about his rating-startup, it’s ambitions and struggles, as well as the experience of opening an New York office. Best quote:

“Starting a startup is like playing WoW – you kill monsters and collect gold”

Jens Karstoft from zmags, who also talked about their US expansion, and that moving the HQ to the US when you already had 25 employess in your HQ in Denmark was something he would not recommend others to do. Either move it when you are still alot smaller, or set up an regional office in the US instead of HQ, was his lessons to the crowd. He also talked their tougher period 2011-2012, when they hired and american CEO and raised alot of money, but i did not have the desired effect on the revenue or growth. The CEO had to go after 9 month – an expensive lesson he said.
Key points from Jens:

– “get it right” vs “grow it fast”
– don’t take chances if hiring a CEO
– the right team is everything. Focus on values!
– it’s never easy – remember to have fun

Henrik Lottrup from LanguageWire talked about their grows since they started in 2000 to todays turnover of 142 Mdkk (€19M), and their expansion to worldwide costumers and offices all over Europe.

Bengt Sundstrøm founder of Lauritz went on stage after that, talking about his journey and their marked segment. His main poits was – if you are online, focus on mobile! A whooping 42% of their bids where now placed from mobile devices!

Ditlev Bredahl from OnApp, who told his story of starting a hosting company, in times when Amazon Cloud Services grows at an anual rate of 70%. But he has managed an ambitious journey since the start of OnApp in 2011, already having 135 employees and recieved $20M in VC funding. He talked about his past at UK2group which he sold in 2011.
What we all will remember his talk for is however the unique touch of only using LEGO Star Wars pictures in the presentations – something that also made his main point quite clear: Amazon = the dark side

Thorvald Stigsen from Momondo was the last one in this session. He talked about how they have become a big player in a crowded field – travel recommendations and bookings. He talked about the start as founder in 2006 until he sold it in 2011. Main points where branding and how to position yourself as an underdog, with words of wisdom:

“Rebel is the new mainstream”

The final part: successful entrepreneurs

Mikkel Svane from Zendesk talked (via video) about their journey. He mentioned an important tip: It is difficult for US investors to do background check on foreign entrepreneurs (visit sites like https://www.sterlingcheck.co.uk/ for additional guidance). This is problematic, as investors want to make sure they know you before investing. His lesson was that is it important to build and show a good track record in order to get investments from the US.

Lars Nielsen from Sitecore presented, as the only one doing it in english, about their journey from a tool (CMS) to solving their costumers problems.
He also shared two of his greatest wisdoms:

1. people are key. When companies grow they tend to hire bosses who hire people they can control. Don’t do that. Higher people that are smarter then you, that themselves hire people who are smarter then them. Even if that turns you into the company fool
2. stick to core values (in their case – be cool, have fun )

Klaus Nyengaard from JustEat, shared amongst other things his thoughts on scaling – how to go from a small local startup to 1000+ employees and being the worlds largest direct food delivery company. A remarkable feat, especially considering that this marked segment is alot harder to scale then a software service. He also talked about his concept of entreprofessionals – the best kind of employees. As one of the main sponsors with the event he also pleased the crowd by announcing that their will be a Tech BBQ in 2014 as well!

The closing keynote was from Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, from Podio, who wrapped up by an inspiring speech about how we should get this regions startup community kick-started. A perfect ending for an inspiring day.

This was a great event, that really got some of the most important players together. Even if it was noticeble that it was the first time the event was held, the keynotes and presenters are what made the day great. Good work being done by Trendsonline and Daniel Laursen.

As a final note we would like to end with Navid Ostadian Binai‘s Tweet, which is the only real thing that we definitly would like to see improved for next years Tech BBQ:

Great start to #TechBBQ, but a shame it’s in Danish. Hope it’ll be in English next year so we can attract a much more international crowd.

— Navid Ostadian-Binai (@navidob) May 7, 2013

Something that was also echoed by both Lars Buch and Lars Nielsen on stage.

Full list of startups and entrepreneurs presenting where:

1. The first part was new startups

• Click a Taxi, Søren Halskov Nissen
• Iconfinder, Martin LeBlanc
• Vivino, Heine Zachariassen
• Rushfiles, Morten Klank
• Atosho, Anders Ibsen
• Graduateland – Patrick Lund
• Queue-it – Camilla Ley Valentin
• AutoUncle – Johan Frederik Schjødt

2. Startups that have gotten a good amount of investements and some traction internationally

• TrustPilot – Peter Mühlmann
• Zmags – Jens Karstoft
• LanguageWire – Henrik Lottrup
• Lauritz.com – Bengt Sundstrøm
• OnApp – Ditlev Bredahl
• Momondo – Thorvald Stigsen

3. Success stories and veteran entrepreneurs, who told their stories and their advice to the younger people in the crowd.

• Sitecore – Lars Nielsen<
• Just-Eat – Klaus Nyengaard
• Podio – Thomas Madsen-Mygdal

If you want to read more, trendsonline has an extensive reporting on the event:

• Velkommen til Tech BBQ 2013
• Tech BBQ – del 2: Startups
• Tech BBQ – del 3: Keynote og vækstvirksomheder
• Tech BBQ: En god eksponering
• Tech BBQ: Minister vil i dialog med de danske iværksættere

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