Seedcamper Phil Talks Seedcamp And Global Startups

European seed fund, Seedcamp held its first Mini Seedcamp in Singapore last month. 20 startups from 7 different countries pitched, out of which, there were 3 winners. These 3 teams will be heading to London next to join the main event, Seedcamp Week, where they will get a shot at getting funding from Seedcamp of €50K (SGD 88K).

Having just closed its second of USD 4M (congrats!), Seedcamp looks for small teams with big ideas, helping them to accelerate their development and growth through in-depth mentoring. This is done through their network of Europe and US investors and entrepreneurs, and a cash investment for the team to put all of this to good use.

Currently based in London, Seedcamp associate, Philipp Moehring was here in Singapore to facilitate Mini Seedcamp Singapore. We speak to him on his experience in this city-state and on the similarities and differences amongst the different startups he has seen across the globe.

As a fund for the European startup scene

Phil: Seedcamp was founded in 2007 to kick start the European tech entrepreneurship ecosystem. Saul Klein and Reshma Sohoni started Seedcamp to prove that Europe can put its diversity, education, and drive to work on big problems. It is not about copying the Silicon Valley or US ecosystem, much rather about working a best formula to work across all geographies.

After the first few years we see some great successes within our portfolio, so it works. Seedcamp has proven its model not only because we have made great investments (we have), but also because of the whole ecosystem we have managed to build around the core investment process.

Entrepreneurs who got to meet the best investors, entrepreneurs, and industry experts and were able to spend a day of intense mentoring with them during one of our mini Seedcamp events will acknowledge this.

Also, even teams who do not go through the whole process to receive an investment often tell us how much Seedcamp has meant for their business in terms of contacts and actionable feedback.

What were you doing before Seedcamp and what got you into it?

Philipp Moehring

Phil: I was active in venture capital and entrepreneurship for a couple of years before I joined Seedcamp in the summer of 2010. I’ve always worked in small companies or start up projects, and wrote my masters’ thesis for a public private venture fund in Germany. After spending almost 3 years at a corporate venture firm in Germany, mostly looking at media and e-commerce deals, I decided I wanted to work internationally and more focused on early stage tech companies. I followed Seedcamp since its inception, so I was lucky to talk to Saul and Reshma just at the right time to bring me on board.

What did you think of Singapore startups with respect to what you’ve seen around the world/London?

Phil: We were quite impressed with the quality and diversity of teams we saw in Singapore. We do feel there’s still some way to go in the global applicability of some of the ideas. Of course, every market is different – in Europe, even neighbouring countries like France and the UK or Germany and Switzerland (I’ve lived in both) have a very different attitude to entrepreneurship. The same is to be seen in Asia.

However, I think that entrepreneurs are surprisingly similar all across the world – you just see the excitement about their own company and the willingness to go the extra mile in the really successful founders.

On Singapore being a regional entrepreneurial hub

Phil: It is very obvious that Singapore is doing its best to become the regional hub for entrepreneurial activity in South East Asia. We’ve seen teams from 7 different countries at Seedcamp Singapore, and even more different countries in the applications. It seemed to me that the regional ecosystem was best developed in Singapore (especially regarding the funding possibilities), and all parts to addressing a successful market across S.E Asia are there (finance, partnering companies, policy support).

However, I think the key lies in taking a hub approach acting as a catalyst for the neighbouring countries when looking to build truly international players out of this region. This is close to our thinking at Seedcamp: we need to establish international players with diverse local roots to really make a difference.

What are Seedcamp’s next plans for Asia?

Phil: We are continuing our efforts with the next event in Mumbai on the 4th of December. We hope to be able to attract the top talent of the region again – and with our strong partners (Mumbai Angels, Morpheus, Sherpalo Ventures, Nexus), we think it will be another success.

We encourage entrepreneurs to apply here – even if coming from further away. We will most probably also be back next year, but we are still working on our final calendar. Being a small organisation like ours (we are currently 3 full time Seedcampers, but growing to 4 by end of year) makes expansion one of the biggest challenges.

Philipp Moehring can be found on Seedcamp’s page, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and at his site (in Phil’s words, his “serious blog”).

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