by Carolina Santos | Mar 7, 2018 | Investors, Startups
Last week we’ve announced some of the speakers coming to this year’s Lisbon Investment Summit, a list that is going to grow and is going to be released slowly like the band’s announcements from a Summer Festival.
One of the speakers is Jenny Fielding, Managing Director at Techstars, Adjunct Teacher at Columbia and also an Investor. It’s the first time she’s coming to LIS and I had the privilege to talk a little bit with her about her career, women in tech, investments and tips for startups to get acquainted with investors.
Read the whole interview below and make sure you register here for the Lisbon Investment Summit 2018, on June 6-7.
I know you’ve studied Law, how does a lawyer become a Managing Director at Techstars?
I had a rambling career which has taken me through many iterations of myself so after I went to Law School I did a brief stunt in Legal and ended up in Finance where I worked at J&P Morgan. While I was there I developed a concept for a startup, the idea was based on a need that I had personally and I ended up joining forces with two technologists and starting a company. It was the highlight of my life and the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
What are the challenges women face in tech and venture?
The framework of my life and career has never been that anything would hold me back and I never really put my career in that light of gender. However, women are subjected to bias more regularly in tech mostly because we’re minorities, the thing that you really have to look out for is the unconscious bias because it’s more endemic and we have to be very aware of as we’re building companies that don’t necessarily have gender parity.
You’re also an investor and you’ve already invested in a portuguese startup, right? How did it happen?
It’s right. They’re a great company in Lisbon called Muzzley and were pretty much pioneers of consumer IoT. I was introduced to them as they were thinking about what their international expansion would be and also what their B2B and industrial footprint would be. And the program I was running at the time was focused on industrial IoT so it was a great fit.
Do you keep in contact with the startups you’ve invested in?
Yes, 100%. Any investors commitment when they invest in a company is to be with them for life and we know the venture cycle is at least 10 years so when you make an investment it’s a long term commitment. And that’s what’s really exciting, you’re building a long relationship.
Could you give us any tips on how to build relationships to win?
Entrepreneurs think about what’s right ahead of them, they’re very tactical, it’s like “I need to raise money so I’m going to call some VC’s”, but what you really need to do is develop relationships and those relationships can take months and years to build. I definitely recommend that startups that aren’t even thinking about raising money start getting acquainted with the investor community and really start getting to know those people as people, because that’s really how we invest in the early stage, we’re looking for signals based on people and less based on product or technology. It’s never too early.
We now come across startups looking for 6 million rounds without a previous investment, which was rare a couple of years ago. Did ambition grow or the market changed?
It’s ambitious but some verticals require more capital, something like energy, for example, especially if there’s going to be a hard work component or an industrial component can definitely take more capital. But I think what we’ve seen as a successful cadence is that companies raise capital in sequence and they’re able to hit milestones. That’s one of the things we help with at Techstars and through my investing career is “how much can you do with how little?” You start with a little amount, get to the next milestone and then think about your next raise as opposed to going out to the market just trying to raise a massive number. It used to be your friends and family (money) and then series A and now we’re seeing probably three rounds in between that.
I read this article on Crunchbase that said that startups keep choosing bad names, does it have an influence?
At the end of the day if you have a great product that’s gonna win, but I think startups and founders get discouraged because they’re looking for the perfect URL. I always say: base your company on the name that really resonates with you and worry about the domain later because there’s always ways to solve through that, so find the name that really represents you, your product, your vision, what you stand for and go from there.
What are the Venture Capital investments in 2018?
I think we’ll see more on Autonomous that’s obviously tight in to AI and I don’t think that’s going away anytime soon, Healthcare is an area that’s really starting to step up and take the reins on, those are the two areas we’re going to see more of. Also, we’re hearing a lot about Spacetech, for a long time that was something that was pretty expensive, but now there’s a lot of interest in it so we’re going to see more areas around that.
What do you think about Lisbon Startup Scene?
I visited in December for the first time in quite a while and I was just blown away by what was going on there, just in terms of all the different types of companies, the different verticals, the different resources that are available, the government incentives, the capital that is coming in. It’s following a similar pattern that I saw with Berlin and it’s so exciting so I can’t wait to spend more time and really dig in the summer.
If an entrepreneur wants to reach out to you at Lisbon Investment Summit what do you recommend?
They should just contact me directly, come grab me on the panel or tweet to me on Twitter (@jefielding). I think that’s what’s so great about conferences outside my hometown, it’s a great opportunity to have some one-on-one time with people that you may not be able to get to all the time. I look forward for that.
Want to have some one-on-one time with Jenny? The make sure you register here and join us for another edition of the Lisbon Investment Summit this June 6-7.
by Carolina Santos | Feb 23, 2018 | Corporates, Investors, Startups
So many icons have talked about failure and still it’s the biggest deal there is. Johnny Cash said: “You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space”. Icons talked about it, people quoted, maybe even wrote it on Facebook and immediately forgot when they saw someone failing.
Back in 2013, Ekaterina Walter, a contributor for Forbes wrote that “it seems that failure tends to be more public than success.” And she is right, it’s not a matter of perception, when people are successful they’re untouchable, people don’t speak a lot about them out of respect, but when everything goes south people become an easy target, the backlash is totally out of proportion. It looks like everyone who never tried feels free to criticize, to say they’d do better – again, they never tried -, they laugh at their misfortune, but it’s actually hiding something deeper. Their fear of trying.
No one is to blame for this reactions and everyone is to blame for this reactions. For centuries society has condemned failure, if you fail at school you’re no good, you’re not intelligent enough, you’re not going far. Teachers say it, parents say it, friends say it and enemies say it. It’s still a part of our culture, a demanding culture averse to flaws.
According to Marco Ermidas, anthropologist working at Beta-i, “society in general has an extreme difficulty in dealing with what’s negative or isn’t pretty enough, the flaw is always pointed out”, adding that “the future expectations and the need to be an overachiever also helps adding pressure”.
The biggest problem with failure is that not everybody reacts to failure the same way and it can actually take a toll on people. The embarrassment caused by it can lead to depression. But of course no one thinks about that when they’re comfortably sitting on their couches playing judge.
Also, when asked about how society saw women’s failure, Marco said that “it makes a difference to be a woman, men are more easily forgiven and society believes it’s almost certain they’ll succeed again in the future, while women do not have that benefit of the doubt, it’s harder to forgive a woman’s failure”.
The same can be applied to startups. People look at startups as a trend led by a group of entitled kids who have nothing better to do with money so decide to have a startup and not happy get money from the government that could be used on other things. What follows? Backlash.
How to overcome failure?
Even if you don’t fail, but you happen to be on the same business that someone failed recently, you’re going to be a failure, because people will make a general assumption by inferring from a specific case. So, you too should be prepared.
Marco believes that failure is like grieve, you have to go through all different stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Because losing something you’re very fond of is exactly the same as breaking up, for example. You’ve been through break-ups and you know that it takes time.
Never, not even for a second, blame yourself. Something might have failed but that doesn’t make a loser out of you. It’s not a death sentence it’s a bump in the road.
And finally but not less important: face failure, embrace it, admit it, speak about it. Better yet, make fun of it and learn from it. If you need inspiration to do it – let’s hope you never have to – read this farewell post from a startup.
by tombento | Feb 14, 2018 | Investors, Startups
I am really pumped about 2018. Last December, we made the decision to spend as much time as we could talking to past attendees, speakers and investors to get a clear feeling of what #LIS meant for them. We then went back to the drawing board and re-imagined the experiences we would provide in 2018. This is a collection of those thoughts and what you can expect from #LIS18.
- Less Is More
There’s always immense pressure to put out the most content possible, to have a full room at all times and to deploy a non-stop experience. But this year we’re going to remove that pressure (which is mostly self imposed) by simply trimming down and focusing on what makes #LIS unique: an intimate, chilled and sunny space for entrepreneurs and investors to connect.
- Women
If the lack of women in tech is evident, we believe the same can be said for the lack of women in the investment scene. That’s why we’re following Slush’s lead and decided to commit to a better, stronger and clearer representation of women on stage. If a panel on blockchain doesn’t have a woman in it, it’s because we’re not doing our jobs right, not because they don’t exist.
- On Stage: More Time, Less People
Most interesting topics cannot be addressed in a 25 minute, 5 person panel. We’re scaling back the number of panelists and increasing the time for discussion up to 45 minutes. We’ll also have more keynotes with follow up live interviews and Q&A from the audience. Quality, not quantity. That’s what we’re looking for.
- Power to the Moderators
As Willy Braun from Daphni points out in this great article, having engaging and committed moderators is key for a great event. We’re putting a great emphasis on this in 2018, aiming to give moderators as much power and support as they need to run a great conversation on stage.
- Drivers
To deliver a strong experience at #LIS in 2018, we’re helping investors, startups and key partners with curated matchmaking, we’re helping startups figure out how to pitch both on stage and one on one during the event, and we’re hosting a series of side events, such as The Investors Academy, The Speakers Dinner, The Founders Getaway and the Midnight Conference (more on these soon), designed to make these worlds collide.
#LIS was founded on this idea of a space where people can engage, connect and learn without the burden of FOMO or the need to act inconspicuously (or as it’s more commonly known: never show your badge). That’s what we’ve achieved these past years. And that’s what we’re looking to take one step further.
If you want to reach out, feel free to write me back at tomas.bento@beta-i.pt
Ps. If you’re wondering about joining us, our Early Bird flies away on February 18th.
by pedrorochavieira | Feb 10, 2018 | Corporates, Investors, Startups
It is with great satisfaction that I tell you that Beta-i and Couture are announcing their merger today, a big step to reinforce our leadership in innovation. Couture is an innovation boutique, managed by Diogo Teixeira and Alisson Ávila, who are joining the board and also joining forces with Beta-i. Besides Diogo and Alisson, there are two other new members on the board, Assunção Loureiro, founder and former Country Manager of Fox Networks Group Portugal and André Rabanea, co-founder of Torke.
I’ll continue to be the CEO, same as always, Assunção Loureiro the COO, and the other partners are Ricardo Marvão, Manuel Tânger, Tiago Pinto, Diogo Teixeira, Alisson Ávila and André Rabanea.
For the past eight years Beta-i has had an important role in building the innovation ecosystem in Portugal, it has been a pioneer in developing new methodologies and has contributed largely in positioning Lisbon has one of the main hubs in Europe. We believe we have been successful in doing so.
Couture, on the other hand, is also in business for eight years, helping important portuguese and international brands grow based on innovation strategies, co-creation and cooperation, all of this due to a deep knowledge of the companies.
Beta-i’s brand will remain focused on Building the Innovation Ecosystem and leading the transformation of a new culture of humanized digital innovation.
We live in an era where digital transformation challenges are getting bigger and bigger and that is affecting most industries and organizations, and our ecosystem is a more matured phase.
The merge between Beta-i and Couture together with André Rabanea and Assunção Loureiro, happened because we shared similar visions, values and ambitions and because we all understand the need to diversify our offer, to consolidate our operations and to prepare for scale in this new global market.
What is changing? We’re growing and that means now we are a one-stop-shop for innovation with 6 different areas (instead of the 5 we had previously): Acceleration, Events, Consulting, Open Innovation, Education and Investment.
We are going to be more than 50 people at the office, all working towards the same goal, all feeding the innovation ecosystem and for that working with startups, corporates and investors. Keep in mind: there may be more of us now, but we’re still the same, and even closer to the ecosystem.
by Carolina Santos | Feb 8, 2018 | Corporates, Investors, Startups
Saying 2018 is going to be a good year for technology is overrated because every single year is good for it and is good for tech events. But in a world full of bigger and smaller events spread all over it’s always good to have a guideline and to know which ones would benefit you somehow – there’s many more than these ones.
These 10 events are listed in order of dates, not of size or importance, because all of them are equally important and I wish you can attend all of them (I wish I could, to network, of course).
- 4YFN – February 26-28 – Barcelona, Spain
4YFN is the startup business platform of Mobile World Capital Barcelona that enables startups, investors, corporations and public institutions to discover, create and launch new ventures together. Of course it has everything normally attached to this kind of event like networking activities, hackathons, workshops, congresses and open innovation programs.
This event is focused on startups, investors and corporates. Startups can expect a boost in their network and business opportunities. Investors can count on connecting with other investors from different markets and getting in contact with new startups. Corporates may expect help innovating and also meeting new startups which can help their business.
2. SXSW – March 9-18 – Houston, Texas
No presentation is needed for South by Southwest. For those who have been living in a cave, SXSW aims to help creative people achieve their goals. It’s a conference, it’s a festival, all rolled into one with features sessions, showcases, screenings, exhibitions and a lot of opportunities to network.
SXSW claims it’s the living proof that the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and people come together. It’s a matter of going there and seeing with your own eyes.
3. Wolves Summit – April 10-11 – Warsow, Poland
Innovation meeting business and capital, this is the best definition for Wolves Summit. The conference is dedicated to startups, investors, entrepreneurs, corporates and SMBs. On the way of its seventh edition the event is focused on inspiring, educating and guess what? Networking.
The goal is to create growth opportunities for emerging firms and investment, of course. Connections, innovative solutions, matchmaking tools, meet potential business partners and numerous specialists are all part of this event.
- Pioneers – May 24-25 – Wien, Austria
The most promising tech startups meet the world’s top investors and executives at the most amazing venue ever: the Hofburg Imperial Palace. Business meetings, inspiring innovations, founders stories and industry insights all come together in this event.
It’s a great place for startups to create meaningful business relationships with corporates, investors and tech innovators. It’s a win-win for everyone involved. Pioneers has unparalleled access access to European-wide tech leaders.
- Latitude 59 – May 24-25 – Tallinn, Estonia
This event gathers the Baltic, CEE and the Nordic tech ecosystem. They provide opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors and leaders to learn, connect and network.
Which translated would be something like exploring different startup themes, network with like-minded people, join their investor-startup matchmaking and exchange futuristic ideas. Why Estonia? Because it has most startups per capita in Europe (bet you didn’t know this) and it’s the only functional digital society in the world.
- Arctic 15 – May 30-31 – Helsinki, Finland
The event focus on industries and technologies from a wide range of topics such as Talent and Digital Health, Smart Cities and Virtual Reality. There’s a pre-event matchmaking to optimize the network, a Deal Room for one-on-one meetings and the already famous Pitch Competition.
Every year there’s between 1500 and 2000 attendees with more than 300 investors, 450 startups and 150 corporates. Smaller events are the perfect place to get to know who you really want and create lasting connections with those people, ones that can actually change the course of things.
- Lisbon Investment Summit – June 6-7 – Lisbon, Portugal
LIS, as it is known, is Europe’s surprisingly informal and slightly unexpected startup conference. The event gathers seasoned investors, daring entrepreneurs and innovative executives for a two-day casual, sunny and action-packed event.
With the motto #nobullshit the event attracts more than 200 investors, 750 startups, 400 corporates, 100 speakers and 2000 attendees work together towards creating unique networking opportunities and real investment.
- South Summit – September 3-5 – Madrid, Spain
South Summit connects the most innovative entrepreneurs with the most important investors in the world and the corporations seeking to improve their global competitiveness through innovation.
Grab the opportunity to attend keynote talks and debates with worldwide innovation leaders, meet with the largest business angels and VC firms and do some business and networking (what else?). Shape the future thinking outside the box in Madrid.
- Web Summit – November 5-8 – Lisbon, Portugal
There’s no introduction or explanation needed when it comes to Web Summit. For the third year in a row the largest conference in the world is held in Lisbon. The attendees range from Fortune 500 companies to smaller tech companies in a mix of CEOs and founders of tech startups.
We can’t predict how many people will be attending the conference this year, it’s too soon, but if it continues to grow like previous years it will sure have more than 60,000 attendees. It is important to say that Web Summit also runs events around the world, events that you shouldn’t miss as well such as RISE Conference in Hong Kong (July 9-12) and Collision in New Orleans (April 30 – May 3).
- Slush – December 4-5 – Helsinki, Finland
We’ve already wrote about Slush when Rodrigo Zwetsch attended the event last year. If you go to Slush know that it happens during the sh*ttiest weather season of the year. The conference, considered by some one of the best kept secrets, is proud of celebrating entrepreneurship.
The event has grown immensely from a 300 person assembly to more than 17,000 attendees, 2,300 startups, 1,100 investors and 600 journalists. Slush is a collision of a festival and a conference and it’s not a business, it’s a community of people who love what they do. The core of the event is to facilitate founder and investor meetings and to build a world-wide startup community. And we are sure that networking is also on their minds.
by Carolina Santos | Feb 6, 2018 | Corporates, Investors, Startups
First let’s start by explaining what is Regtech. A quick visit to Wikipedia will give you a kind of complex definition on Regulatory Technology it says it’s a new field within the financial services industry which uses information technology to enhance regulatory processes with the goal to tackle various regulatory problems, since it’s focused on regulatory monitoring, reporting and compliance benefiting the finance industry. This will make regulatory processes more transparent, consistent and standardized.
What this definition actually means is that regulatory technology helps banks meet regulatory requirements via technology and its exponential growth is mainly due to two reasons: the rapid development of FinTech, that has already proven its disruptive impact on financial services and the constant changes of financial regulation.
Regtech is here to produce efficient, cost-effective and innovative responses to regulatory demands. Until now financial institutions fought to keep up with new rules as well as understanding them, not to mention this was all done manually.
When Regtech first appeared in 2015 it was considered “a sub-set of Fintech”, now it has taken its own space and it’s rapidly separating itself from fintech. It is understandable why, banks don’t want to repeat the same mistakes from the past, the ones that took the financial system to collapse and some banks to bankruptcy, now, more than ever is important to manage risks, maintain the capital and create a more transparent financial sector.
According to International Banker “there are seven distinct areas within compliance and regulatory reporting that have the potential to be improved by regtech and those are: risk-data aggregation; modelling, scenario analysis and forecasting; real-time monitoring of payments transactions; identification of clients and legal persons; monitoring a financial institution’s internal culture and behaviour; trading in financial markets and identifying new regulations”.
All of the above are possible because of data analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence. For example, Sybenetix, that was acquired by Nasdaq on September 2017, made behavioural analytics software to monitor individuals in financial institutions, looking out for things like unusual behaviour or suspicious activity that could be a sign of misconduct.
Some people believe regtech firms will start small but they’ll quickly grow and reach leading players in the market – Sybenetix is definitely a good example – this even before it reaches the masses, because when it does it’s a matter of months or a few years until it’s spread all over firm’s business strategies.
Regtech can be the next big thing, it matters and it’s extremely important and also won’t compromise Fintech place in the industry. Time will tell. But one thing is for sure is what we’re seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg which means it’s a great business to invest in as well as a great business for a successful startup if you happen to have the skills.
