As the last couple of times the Town Hall was held at KPH Volume – a rough and atmospheric venue. Even if very cold this particular day – the room was still packed and the audience listened vividly.

“Always be sober when talking to journalists”

Both keynotes held at the event contained a lot of stories and experiences. Especially Peter Holten Mühlmanns humorist but honest and insightful talk contained many gems, on everything from how Trustpilot got started, what value PR and being on the national front-page gives you, how to recruit smart and how to manage scaling a startup from 1 to 500+.

Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen from Balderton Capital shared his past, how it came he worked at Dropbox and Uber, and his outlook of the European and especially Danish startup scene from his current position with Balderton.

Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen talking on stage

Startups and community

As previously a part of the event was focused at highlighting startups that are of interest, as well as community events. The startups presenting on stage where:

• Linkfire – Ricki Mae Melchior
• Sponsta – Philip Bock
• Peakon – Kasper Hulthin (who also just announced a large early funding)
• Vivino – Theis Søndergaard

One the community side, the following initiatives / meetups / events got some time in the spotligt:

• Codher – A tech meetup aiming at getting more women to code
• Startup Weekend – was presented by Aleksander Bordvik
• Nordic Startup Award – Kim Balle talked about the upcoming awards
• Nordic Startup Conference – the conference is to return, and date and location announced
• Startup Europe Week – a lot of things happening the week of 1-5th february
• Singularity U Copenhagen & Danske Ideer – Henrik Føhns presented the upcoming session with Singularity University in Copenhagen

You can see further details on the videos below. Apart from these initiatives, there where also mini sessions afterwards where people could go to focus on certain topics. These were: AIESEC, Nordic Growth Hackers, Capital2Grow, LEO Ventures, CPH Coworking Council, Startup Weekend. This gave rise to a lot of discussions and people getting to know each other.

Overall a really great meetup. Great work by Christoffer and the dedicated team organising this high value event. Only drawback with the entire event was that it was kind of (very) cold – but as Nick Hawtin put it on twitter:

You gotta know your event rocks, if people are willing to sit wearing coats, hats, and mittens to hear your speakers #cphftw Town Hall.

— Nicholas Hawtin (@RiskContainment) January 21, 2016

Remaining videos

Startup session

Community session

The post A packed CPHFTW Town Hall appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Sponsta gives companies a platform where they can find instagram-users that matches their brand to sponsor them, has just received an investment from the two business angels, Tommy Ahlers and Andreas Rasmussen.

The contact between Sponsta and the two business angels stems from the AngelNext initiative that both #CPHFTW and #malmostartups organises regularly. Sponsta was one of the many startups that pitched at the latest event in Copenhagen.

Tommy Ahlers was very impressed with the general level of the event, but seems to especially Sponsta stuck out:

“I saw them for AngelNext on Rainmaking Loft, where they stood out as something special. Both their very dedicated team and so the market as they move in. The market for Instagram is huge, and I do not think that goes a long time before it is booming.” says the former CEO of Podio and ZYB to Trendsonline.

Andreas Rasmussen, who is managing partner of Nodes, a London / Copenhagen-based company that develops mobile apps also sees great opportunities in Sponstas market.

“By investing in Sponsta I have invested in a market I understand, since I have owned a digital agency for 7 years. We feel especially in London there is a need for Sponstas services. The fact that they had already made the product and had customers only made the decision easier.” said Andreas to Trendsonline.

Reaching 100 million instagram users already

In June this year launched sponsta their product by advertising the event Cannes Lions in France. Sponsta currently has 160 brands signed up and more than 3 000 instagram users from around the world, which together have over 100 million followers. This is why advertising in some form of digital or traditional platforms like in billboards or the use of Vinyl floor graphics is important.

The team behind Sponsta consists of Philip Alexander Bock, Daniel Mierzwinski and Bo Winther. Phillip Alexander Bock is operating out of London, focusing on the market, while Daniel Mierzwinski and Bo Winther is in Copenhagen with a focus on the product.

The post Instagram startup Sponsta gets angel investment appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The concept had been tweaked for the second event – there were fewer startups pitching, and more focus on 1 on 1 session afterwards between startups and investors. Overall both good improvements, and it turned into a short, good and impactfull event for everyone attending.

Early stage startups

The level of the startups was solid, and covered both early startups looking for € 50 000 or less, up to some asking for for € 1 million. The event was small, but impact-full – the audience was 15 business angels and early stage VCs, including names such as Thorvald Stigsen, Anders Frankel, Rasmus Bjerngaard and Nikolaj Nyholm. With 13 startups present and the different levels, it was also good spread for the different investors.
The startups present where:

• Petreas – connecting service providers with customers.
• Startuptravels – an airbnb for entrepreneurs.
• Sharingear – renting out music equipment to bands and concerts.
• DrinksOnUs – digitalising bar services.
• Forecast.it – a project and portofolio management service
• Sensor Six – a solid team that aims to make enterprise IT better
• Kiggit – a new and more up-to-date way of making betting
• Erghis – touch less technology
• Renouve – a new take on the cosmetics market
• Form – the smart home sensor.
• Rokoko – making motion capture cheap and affordable, especially interesting with the huge interest in virtual reality such as oculus rift.
• Donkey Republic – providing bike rentals in cities that are convenient and digital connected.
• Sponsta – making content marketing and branding on Instagram easier.

After the 4 minuts pitches by each startup, the event was changed into a 1 on 1 session with investors and startups having time for deeper questions and answers. This was highly appreciated and gave the startups feedback and insights, while letting the investors get to know the startups better.

Drawing on the regions strength

Just as last time the event included startup and angels from the entire region, both Copenhagen and the Swedish side, Skåne. Overall this was an event that was short, effective and brought lots of value. Another really good example of community efforts from #malmostartups and #cphftw, and how they do a great job of moving the startup scene forwards.

The event was held in the brand new event space at Rainmaking Loft. Great atmosphere and good for the presentation, but became a little noisy during the 1 on 1s. But this will probably improve for future events.

Stay tuned to cphftw and malmostartups for info about when and where the next AngelNext will be held. And are you interested in pitching your early stage startup, or a business angel who wants get to know good startups, get in touch with Jasenko or Joel.

The post AngelNext – connecting promising startups with good business angels appeared first on Øresund Startups.