(Sleeping concierge at the hotel late last night. I hope he won’t get fired because of this posting ;-) [PS: It WASN'T at the Carlton Hotel, of course]
(What a wonderful morning –> Remo is really happy :-)
(This beach is AWESOME, and its RIGHT in the city!)
Good thing I have another 6 hours so spend at the beach before I leave to cold Switzerland.
At lunch I sat next to Giles McNamee, co-founder of McNamee Lawrence & Co, an investment banking firm based in Boston, London and San Francisco.
His tips included:
#1: Only work with people you like and trust. NEVER do a deal with people you don’t like or don’t trust.
#2: When you doing a VC-round, be prepared to give up 20-40% of the company. Given that, maximize the money you get. It’s always better to get $10 mio for 30% of your company than $1 mio.
#3: Hire a good lawyer for the paper work. Make sure the lawyer has done this before.
#4: There are at least 10 parameters to consider. The amount of money is only one parameter. Make sure you also think about all the other parameters. Be prepared for a complex negotiation.
#5: Angel/friends/fools money is a lot easier to raise than VC-money. If you need money quickly, do an angel round.
#6: Do your due diligence on your investors. Call the CEOs of their portfolio companies, call other references, find out how they work.
Very interesting company with a very cool name. I like the bubblegum thing :-).
My notes:
- Silvio Scaglia invested $13 Mio of his own money
- The burn rate is 30-40 Mio EUR per year
- Silvio Scaglia wants to generate 100 Mio EUR in revenues within maybe 3 years
- Silvio Scaglia says he is NOT competing with Joost right now: "You first have to build the pie before you can cut it. Right now we are building the pie. We build a whole new industry. So we’re rather working together with Joost than competing right now."
- Babelgum guarantees a CPM of 5 EUR for content owners.
- Babelgum has 40 employees now
- Babelgum will focus on professional content (no user generated content)
The service is in closed beta now.
Pekka Ala-Pietilä is now talking about his company Blyk:
Blyk is a pan-European free mobile operator for young people, funded by advertising. We’re launching first in the UK market in mid-2007, with other markets to follow.
Blyk wants to be profitable within 24 months. More information in the Blyk Blog.
It’s kinda cool to be an official (and only) "Technology Blogger" on the attendee list :-)
But I’m definitely not the only blogger here:
Paul is a (live-)blogging VC
ink Communications is blogging
Lars Trieloff
Peter Schüpbach announced to live-blog, too
So I’m in Cannes now. Its quite beautiful here:
According to the current issue of the Red Herring, there are 7 Swiss companies among the Red Herring 100:
Asset4
High Power Lithium
Intelligent Medical Implants
Innovative Silicon
Plazes
SpinX Technologies
Zattoo
Contratulations to you guys!
(on the left: Qype & Plazes, on the right: Where are you now? [pretty cool company I have never heard of])
I’ll keep you posted…
