Arnbjörn Eggerz, managing director of Iceventure, will participate in this year's Web Summit.
There will be a follow-up post on the why and pros and cons, while this post is about my focus for this event: What is it, I like to discuss with participants and what are the insights for our clients I will collect as part of our business intelligence activity.
About the Web Summit and our participation
Web Summit is a rather large event with about 30.000 participants and over 1000 speakers. It grew to this dimension in about 5 years.
The sheer number of participants makes it a very interesting place to catch the sentiment of the European start-up and innovation for our clients, with the side fact of an invitation by Web Summit to do media coverage on the Money Summit. So thanks a lot to the Web Summit team for inviting me!
There are up to 21 Mini Summits -all of course interesting - out of which I decide to focus on these:
Fintech
Fintech is a sector that got more and more attention. With all the enthusiasm, we deem it however necessary to put things in a perspective. With persepctive I mean to change focus from an individual tech solution to an overall sector outlook in the current context of banking.
One perspective is the combination of Fintech innovation with ongoing sector trends in the banking crisis as explained in the Tradeshift post or the valuation of Plan B laid out by Mr. Varoufaksi.
A second important perspective is Fintech innovation versus the implosion of banking due to e.g. the Euro crisis.
A third one is the rooting of these innovations with sound macro theory under which it becomes clear that Bitcoins are great for payments, but not a genuine new currency.
For this reasons,
Interview opportunity for start-ups!
As I have been invited for media coverage and I am always curios I decided to not focus on interviews with speakers but give you - the start-ups - a voice.
Just fill in the form and tell me, why you should be interviewed or we should meet. I am not interested in product pitches alone, but also in the problem you solve and how your solution fits in our today's context.
it will be great to discuss with start-ups and see their solutions, but I am also particularly looking forward to the event "The future of money" with Max Keiser (Presenter/Economist Keiser Report United Kingdom), Amy Nauiokas (Founder Anthemis Group) and Chris Larsen (CEO and Co-founder Ripple Labs United States).
This panel discusses the following questions. "Not since the arrival of the free-floating mint has money been poised for a more dramatic leap forward. Is the future really a cashless society? Are crypto-currencies ever going to deliver on their expectations? What role do governments and central banks play in any new money ecosystem?"
Indeed, very interesting questions for our clients and for us. As a start-up tell us what are your experiences with regards to e.g. regulation and how you want to change banking as an industry.
State of European SaaS Start-ups
One sector focus of our work is Software as a Service. As our clients know from the SaaS-Seminars we judge German and European SaaS as lacking behind compared to the U.S. potentially constituting some major issues and questions for innovation and the Germany overall economy as we miss the layer for the Internet of Things. This was also the tenor of many discussions around Eurocloud, where I got an updated impression of SaaS start-ups in Germany.
In consequence, it will be interesting to see if there is progress and of course a deep screening of participants in the event and their Software as a Service solutions. Happy to discuss with start-ups and of course we will update our material and data set with the insights. In particular we want to see if SaaS gets funded and if there is a SaaS 2.0 technology out. What are the business functions you plan to take away from traditional ERP software?
State of the European Ecosystem and its innovation
We are probably moving towards the end of the current cycle. Moreover, with other major shifts appearing as we outline since years with the secular change thesis, it will be a pleasure to get new insights about the stand and health of the European start-up ecosystem and its innovation.
In particular, it is time to discuss some of the instruments like accelerators and the unique innovation coming out of Germany. If you as a speaker or participant have a strong opinion and/or insights, we should meet.
Bonus: energy storage and Internet of Things
I know the event is called Web Summit and the focus in internet/web. Still there might be startups around that have a great idea about energy storage or related software. If so, get in contact!
I will of course also screen for start-ups and innovation fitting into the German industrial landscape that might be of interest for our SME client's business development or portfolio.
Looking forward to meet you in Dublin ... and fill in the form above
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