” Message from Jeremy : For those new to Tech IT Easy, who could obviously not remember the initial announcement, I have invited my friend and fellow Alexandre Lucas to help me try to provide you, dear readership, with everyday better analyses on software, telecom & Internet trends. Alex’s mission statement is basically to go further into the details, from both a financial and a strategic angle. Alex, the floor is yours…”
Invited by Jeremy, I recently went to the SME Day organised by Microsoft in Brussels. Being a novice in the field of new technologies, i was impressed by the organisation and the atmosphere and tried to grasp the opportunity to network and take hold of some interesting ideas. Here is a quick overview of these two days spent at an event intimately tied to Microsoft’s “Ecosystem”:
1. Meeting with the entrepreneurs was probably the greatest pleasure. I was mostly impressed byPierre-Antoine Durgeat and Gilles Barbier of TellMeWhere ( wait for it to wait) and had a great talk with Aymeric Mollet of Excentive, both sponsored by Microsoft and looking forward to raise funds. With TellMeWhere, i will be at last able to found my own global network of fans of sushi restaurants and always know where they are thanks to a great map system! This website, a sort of a mix of Wikipedia and Mappy, just blew my out. Excentive was quite impressive for one who studied business and works in an investment bank. It offers an HR solution to corporates to manage complex variable remuneration packages. Apparently, the solution is fully compatible with other HR solutions and is a leader its niche.
2. I met some Venture Capitalists, a dominant species at the forum, and must admit that their company was rather pleasant. Jeremy introduced me to Said Sebti from Ventech, Nicolas Celier from Alven Capital and Michel de Lempdes of Credit Agricole PE. They all insisted on the lack of interesting investing opportunities, either in the field of software or hardware. Being a banker, i inquired whether there were opportunities for potential IPOs and advisory on trade-sales. Interestingly, there appears to be some possibilities for larger investment banks with IPOs but only when the market capitalisation is above €200m, which allows a >€50m float.
3. Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief of (Long Term) Strategy, explained that the challenge for the computer world will be in mastering ‘ManyCore’ processors over the next 5-10 years. From his point of view, the hardware solution exists but the software means to effectively transform processing power into powerful applications remains unsolved. According to him, the founders of a solutions which allows to use multi-core processors will be the stars of tomorrow. It would be great to have the opinion of the TechITEasy community on the question, and especially on what i think to be the key element in this field : patents & Microsft’s interest in developing such a solution or helping its players of its ecosystem to do it.
4. A presentation made by, Roger Franklin a research fellow of Library House on Venture Capital in Europe put forward an interesting idea. Trying the explain the lack of fruitfull innovation in Europe, Dr. Franklin pointed at a lack of capital for ’seed’ financing in Europe, which prevent structured projects to even reach first round financing stage. In fact, Europe doesn’t lack of capital, at least when the need is assessed at first round of financing. Again, the debate which this statement created was to see whether state intervention could be a solution, making grants available for entrepreneurs to explore their ideas and formalise the project for further financing. The study shows that Israel and the US, the most successful countries in terms of innovation, have implemented a structured public policy to do so. Tax incentives as a solution to this problem have been also mentionned by a panel member. Again, some reactions are welcome on this.
As a conclusion, I hope that Microsoft will continue cultivating its Ecosystem in the future, and that i will be invited next year!
“both sponsored by Microsoft and looking forward to raise funds”
so you know what you have to do guys (-> Alex & Jeremy)
Comment by LF — June 8, 2007 @ 23:35
Laurent, this is exactly it.
Microsoft provides technological & marketing support to the most promising startups of its European ecosystem. It’s not in Microsoft’s DNA to take equity stakes in software start ups (it happens very seldom) and we believe those who will create most value investing money vs. equity are the venture capitalists specializing in software.
Consequently, Microsoft enjoys bringing together on the one side the best startups of its ecosystem, and on the other side a bunch of smart venture capitalists.
It’s in everybody’s interest:
- the startups probably have more VCs in the place than they’ll probably ever meet in their lifetime (26 startups for 220 VCs).
- the VCs are somewhat reassured as Microsoft previously proceeded with a thorough selection (and some software architecture as well work most of the time) and can get a snapshot of Microsoft’s vision of the software industry.
- Microsoft helps its ecosystem grow hoping that one day, when these gazelles would have become gorillas, they will tell everybody the story of how Microsoft helped them become global software industry players.
Btw, I wish you could have made it there, it was just amazing.
Comment by Jeremy Fain — June 8, 2007 @ 23:47
Unfortunately, this time was a problem of compatibility of planning.
Don’t forget to invit us again for the next event. We’ll be there for sure…
Comment by LF — June 8, 2007 @ 23:52