Where:
AYA, Drinx & Talx
Hardstrasse 260 (Steinfelsplatz)
8005 Zürich
www.aya-bar.ch

Who:
Entrepreneurs & Investors (everybody is invited)

More information:
XING Event page

Where:
AYA, Drinx & Talx
Hardstrasse 260 (Steinfelsplatz)
8005 Zürich
www.aya-bar.ch

Who:
Entrepreneurs & Investors (everybody is invited)

More information:
XING Event page

Next Venture Cocktail will take place on Thursday, 28th June from 7pm at Pier West.

Important Links:
# Venture Cocktail website
# Event-details on XING

See you there!

(Farley and Elizabeth)

Here is the invitation to the next Venture Cocktail:

Dear Friends,

The first Venture Cocktail was a huge success! The energy was extremely positive and all signs say the interest is there. VCs, Investors and Entrepreneurs alike seemed to enjoy the evening immensely. Thanks again to all who made it great. As promised, the next event will be the last Thursday of this month. So, the 31^st it is! Same place, same time.

May 31st, 7PM – 9 or so.

AYA, Drinx & Talx
Heinrichstrasse 269 (Steinfelsplatz)
8004 Zürich

Tram: Escherwyss

Train: Hardbrücke

Elizabeth’s phone: +41 78 784 59 35

Email: eperry@perry-productions.com

We will try again to be outside. If the weather doesn’t permit, however, we’ll go upstairs. Hope all of you can make it.

This time, please bring your business cards, as we will use them to play a game!

In other news: we are building a web site for this event. Coming soon: www.venturecocktail.com.  The site will talk of our events and the people that make them happen. Like the event itself, it will grow as we do. We will have a links page where we will list attendees’/members’ web sites. Very excited about this!

About Venture Cocktail

The idea for Venture Cocktail was born, like many great ideas, out of an informal chat. We observed, as many of you probably have, as we sat in the lobby of the hotel hosting Red Herring’s Venture Market Europe – a conference celebrating top tech startups and financiers – that some of the most exciting business gets done over chats like these – over coffee or drinks. That day in Cannes, my friends Prodosh and Remo suggested that I, with a background in media and public relations, should launch an event which brings together international entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators on a regular basis, to exchange ideas – to create an informal environment where people with common interests could gather for inspiring conversation. Though this is not a new idea, the setting is.

And what better place than Zurich, where the appetite for innovation is clear. While global companies such as Google, IBM, eBay and others settle in to create a critical mass for technology, the Banhofstrasse provides the financial resources for innovation. My role is simply to offer the glue to put the pieces together.

My plan is to meet at least every last Thursday of the month at a designated place in Zurich. Red Herring Magazine’s Farley Duvall will be there as our first supporter, as will blogger Remo Uherek (http://www.remo.fm – Remo about Entrepreneurship), Prodosh Banerjee, local technology entrepreneur, and photographer Olivier Pages. No fees, no sponsors, and people will buy their own drinks. This will be an organic event which will grow as we do!

So, whether you’re an Investor, an Entrepreneur, an Innovator or simply Interested, join us for cocktails and conversation.

For more information on our next event, please call Elizabeth on

+41 78 784 59 35

Unfortulately, this time I won’t make it again (I’ll be in Copenhagen at reboot9.0). But I’m sure there will be photos :-).

The idea for Venture Cocktail was born, like many great ideas, out of an informal chat. We observed, as many of you probably have, as we sat in the lobby of the hotel hosting Red Herring’s Venture Market Europe – a conference celebrating top tech startups and financiers – that some of the most exciting business gets done over chats like these – over coffee or drinks. That day in Cannes, my friends Prodosh and Remo suggested that I, with a background in media and public relations, should launch an event which brings together international entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators on a regular basis, to exchange ideas – to create an informal environment where people with common interests could gather for inspiring conversation. Though this is not a new idea, the setting is.

And what better place than Zurich, where the appetite for innovation is clear. While global companies such as Google, IBM, eBay and others settle in to create a critical mass for technology, the Bahnhofstrasse provides the financial resources for innovation. My role is simply to offer the glue to put the pieces together.

My plan is to meet at least every last Thursday of the month at a designated place in Zurich. Red Herring Magazine’s Farley Duvall will be there as our first supporter, as will blogger Remo Uherek (http://www.remo.fm – Remo about Entrepreneurship), and Prodosh Banerjee, local technology entrepreneur. No fees, no sponsors, and people will buy their own drinks. This will be an organic event which will grow as we do!

So, whether you’re an Investor, an Entrepreneur, an Innovator or simply Interested, join us for cocktails and conversation this Thursday, May 3^rd at:

AYA, Drinx & Talx
Heinrichstrasse 269 (Steinfelsplatz)
8004 Zürich

Tram Stop: Escherwyss

And please feel free to call me on my cell with any questions or directions:

Elizabeth Perry
+41 78 784 59 35

I am very excited about this event. There is definitively a lot of potential for such things, especially in Zurich.

Unfortunately I will not make it to this first event. Due to a time conflict I’ll be in Hamburg at the Next07. But next time, I’ll definitively come! Don’t forget to make pictures and movies of the first event and don’t forget to blog about it!

Update:
The event takes place from 7-9 pm

Link: sevenload.com

Plazes has raised €2.7 mio early this year and is growing very fast. A cool thing about Plazes is that they want to digitize walk-in customers in offline settings and create what Felix calls the "PageRank of the real world". E.g. you can see how many people went to a certain restaurant or checked-in in a certain hotel. This opens cool opportunities for behaviorial targeting or related stuff.

More links:
Techcrunch coverage
Alarm Clock coverage
Peter Schüpbach’s coverage (he’s an investor)

(via Loïc Le Meur)

More to come… (I’ve shot some, too)

Alex, please don’t do that!

Some Reasons:
#1: Farley Duvall is doing a great job there
#2: There were 7 Swiss companies among this years Red Herring 100.
#3: There is a good reason why Google is investing a lot of resources in Zurich
#4: Switzerland is a good test market for expanding Red Herring 100 companies
#5: Entrepreneurship is getting rapidly more popular in Switzerland because of initiatives like venturelab (a great partner for Red Herring)
#6: We’re going to organize a regular Red Herring roundtable for Swiss entrepreneurs in Zurich (some Swiss entrepreneurs, Farley and Elizabeth had the idea yesterday evening)

I’m sure there are another GOOD reasons to not close down this office!

Alex, please think about it!

(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.

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.