Tag: investments

Hsuan Lee, the VP of Engineering of COBINHOOD, the first zero trading fee exchange in the world, and as of January this year - came to Webit.Festival 2018 in Sofia and discussed the topic of blockchain implementation and future.

The DApps Era is coming

Back in 1991, many of you remember when the websites obsession was huge - the largest companies began with it. The transition towards search engines like Google and Yahoo was more or less smooth until they became viral. The appearance of sharing platforms appeared naturally - youtube, myspace, blogspots, etc. Some of the platforms disrupted and stayed, others disappeared and many, many more appeared. A couple of years ago Messenger,whatsapp and instagram, to name a few - everybody talked about these and while they’re widely used today, the hype over them disappeared. In 2017 - 2018  the most talked about technology advancements are the crypto-blockchain platforms. We are, very naturally, transitioning towards DApps era - or post apps era, role of apps is increasing and becoming more important rather than steady. All of this transition may seem ‘natural’, however, appearance and longevity process is way more difficult. Geoffrey A. Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” theory applies to basically any sphere. Hsuan explained the technology adoption cycle in the following way: The innovators are about 2,5 % of all the population. The heart of all high tech startups is a product that spawned from a small group of passionate scientists.

The early adopters take up about 13,5 %.

This is the ‘chasm’ to which companies pay little attention to once a company is over hyped by the success of market entry. This is the worst place to be, characterized by low scalability, high transaction latency and high transaction fees. The early (34%) and late (34%) majority are the largest part and the most secure phases in a company's development. There are, however, cases when the company fails - the ‘laggards’ as Hsuan calls them - are about 16% of all. Blockchain adoption by companies will be as difficult process as the transition from appearance of apps to their everyday viral usage. It will happen, however.

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Missed the 2018 edition of Webit.Festival Europe? Don’t miss the 2019! Get your super early bird 2in1 tickets – 2 for the price of 1 here!

Hristo Hristov is the CEO of NetInfo and Official Representative and Chairman of IAB. He joined Webit.Festival Europe 2018 to share some insights on the future of Blockchain in digital media and advertising.

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The crypto market exploded over the last three years. A lot of industries started looking at blockchain as a technology, as to whether it can solve some of their biggest challenges.

Let's look at blockchain:

Blockchain as a technology is still at its infancy. We're still at the hype cycle and blockchain is sitting right next to autonomous vehicles which I don't see happening in the next two or three years and Event-triggered marketing. So as a technology, blockchain might grow into something big like the internet or even bigger, but it might also fade away into some narrow use cases.

How can Blockchain improve the Digital Media and advertising landscape?

There are some use cases which are rather obvious:  * Fraud detection and prevention  * User Identity  * Buying and selling inventory, etc

Centralization vs. Decentralization

Trust a third party or to use a decentralized approach?

Decentralization PROs

* Durability, reliability and longevity - Due to the decentralized networks, blockchain does not have a central point of failure and is better able to withstand malicious attacks. * Process integrity - Users can trust that transactions will be executed exactly as the protocol commands removing the need for a trusted third party. * High quality data - Blockchain data is complete, consistent, timely, accurate and widely available. * Transparency and immutability - Changes to public blockchain are publicly viewable by all parties creating transparency. All transactions are immutable, which means they cannot be altered or deleted.

Decentralization CONs

* Trusted 3rd parties - it's not Central vs Decentralized. The advertising ecosystem is based on trusted third parties. These 3rd parties are innovation drivers. * It's too slow - Digital advertising is real-time. RTB standard requires service response in 100ms.

There are several examples which already use blockchain in addressing some of digital advertising's biggest challenges.

adChain tries to create a token curated registry of publishers in order to verify and simplify the buying. And papyrus is a decentralized programmatic value management platform aimed to radically improve programmatic advertising stack. All of these solutions are in the making, they are not really ready but they are evolving pretty fast. Several years ago we were talking about mobile apps, then AI, now blockchain. The hype cycles of few years ago were longer and we used to have more time to adapt to them. But now they are becoming shorter and they’re starting to overlap. It wasn’t long long ago that we were talking about programmatic buying. Now it is programmatic buying on a decentralized exchange powered by blockchain.

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Missed the 2018 edition of Webit.Festival Europe? Don’t miss the 2019! Get your super early bird 2in1 tickets – 2 for the price of 1 here!

Only today (29 May) you can join Europe's tech and digital policy event for 2018 and have access to 10+ independent summits and 50+ meetups with 1 ticket at half price! Webit is welcoming this new era of data privacy by providing all our subscribers a special "DATA present” - 50% off from all tickets for Webit.Festival Europe 2018 only today - 29 May.

Register here and get your ticket

to join Prime Ministers, EU Commissioners and EU top policy makers, global innovators and enterprise executives, Ministers,  Mayors, investors, media and Europe's top 200 startups and scaleups - all at Webit.Festival Europe with a special discount of 50% on all tickets with code: GDPR 6000 global experts (67% senior attendance) join Webit from 110 countries.

Check who is speaking

Over 200 exhibitors and sponsors join Webit this year. A warm welcome to the group of new partners who join Webit including Microsoft, SAP, Samsung, Fox, Novartis, VISA, UBB, part of KBC Group, Superhosting . BG, VMware, FOX, Turner, Novartis, Bayer, Amgen, Generali to name a few. Special thanks to our General partner MasterCard and our strategic media partners Nova TV and NetInfo.

Happy to help.

Should you want to join as exhibitor and sponsor -  please contact us.  

Stamen Popov, the Novartis Oncology Business Unit Head for Bulgaria & Macedonia was a keynote speaker at Webit.Festival 2017. His keynote covered the topics about the “from cost to value ” conversion in healthcare and treatment.

Healthcare spending is increasing faster than than the current economic climate’s capabilities

Many countries are concerned that higher spending doesn’t lead to proportionally better outcomes. Healthcare systems waste a significant amount of resources that limits the fiscal space and hinders performance. The largest percent of wasted resources goes to over-hospitalization, over-examinations and over-prescription of pills. Waste is also created by inefficient or flawed rules, overly bureaucratic procedures and poor execution or lack of best practices, e.g. effective preventive care or patient safety, low volume for specific treatments per hospital, etc. Mr Popov made a point that the most expensive pill appears to be the one which hasn’t delivered any positive effects to the patient. The pricing in the industry has to start evolving with accordance to the fast paced changes in technology and the development of new ways of treatment. Companies should to be paid for a result delivered, not for a specific pill. A shift needs to be made in pricing, away from what has been a transactional approach to a value-based approach. That should mean focusing on the outcomes and really communicating the value of the medicines and pricing them accordingly. Care routed in outdated habits, ignoring scientific findings and motivated by something other than optimal care shouldn’t be the care of today.

Focusing on value-based care, reducing waste and directing investments to the point where greater value can be produced is critical for sustainability.

Universal health care aspirations will be hard to materialize if we don’t shift to value-based care and change policies to support this shift. This change requires collaboration with every member of the healthcare ecosystem and better public-private partnership. Healthcare systems should stimulate more effective treatment results with the help of all parties involved in the process - patients, medics, researchers, healthcare providers and pharma companies.   If you want to stay up-to-date check the Webit.Festival website for upcoming speakers and our ticket options.

Despite the fears of a slowdown last year, the investment in European startups hit $12 billion mark, which has put 2016 on par with previous year’s record levels. The Old Continent already has prominent hubs for startups and innovation. But right now we can see that the well established centers, such as Berlin, Stockholm and London are stepping aside to an emerging destinations in Central and Eastern Europe. This has led to an increasing volume of smaller investment deals, which helped to offset the decline in larger rounds across the region. In 2016 Europe registered 943 deals between $1m and $10m. Right now, there is also a growing appetite for tech investment among the private equity funds. This year, Webit.Festival will again give promising startups from Europe and around the world the floor to present their ideas in front of top-level investors. The event will be held on 25-26 April in Sofia Tech Park under the patronage of the President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev, the Mayor of Sofia Yordanka Fandakova and the European Commission. We not only provide free grant for startups to get a free expo table, free festival tickets and opportunity to meet unparalleled selection of top enterprise leaders, but also a chance to win €200 000 seed investment in our Founders Games. With over 93% startup failure overall rate, the selected Webit startups for the Founders Games’s semi-finals in the past 7 years have less than 30% failure rate. Being among the Webit's Founders Games startup list is a statement of the company's credibility, innovation and potential in front of enterprise and investors as well as a great marketing opportunity. During Investments Summit you will get the chance to listen to the Partner Innovation Leader for Europe of IBM Watson Christoph Auer-Welsbach, the Vice President of IBM for Cloud and Mobile Technology Jonas Jacobi, the Global Head of Siemens Technology-to-Business Center Sven Scheuble, the CMO of AngelHack Brian Collins, the Partner at SpeedInvest Michael Schuster, the Partner at Flint Capital Sergey Gribov, the Co-founder & Managing Partner at AVentures Capital Andrey Kolodyuk, the Investment Director of 3TS Capital Partners Marius Ghenea, the Co-lead for Growth Capital & Venturing Services at Deloitte Sriram Prakash, the Investment Director of iTech Capital Alexey Telnov, the Advisor of 8VC Jon Soberg and the Partner at Hummingbird Ventures Pamir Gelenbe. Here you can see a full list of the confirmed speakers at Webit.Festival, while here you can get all the information you need about the tickets for the event.

The startup friendly Enterprise event* Webit.Festival Europe just got friendlier!

Here is another BIG € 200'000 reason for the startups to apply for Webit's Founders Games, get a free expo stand, 2 free festival tickets and win € 200'000 seed investment!

Not a startup? Great! Webit is the only enterprise event to join and to explore great business opportunities with 75% C-level executives among the attendees as well as to have a walk among the exhibiting top European startups, get inspired, take advantage from collaborating with innovators or explore talent acquisition opportunities! If you still do not have your ticket - book today! Already registered - see you in Sofia! More about the € 200'000 A group of prominent successful entrepreneurs, investors and business angels have just joined me and together we announce a € 200'000 seed investment for the winner of Webit's Founders Games Challenge. Please share with your network of entrepreneurs that If they are not among the 930+ startups who have already applied - they have 5 days to do it! For all who have applied and were selected for exhibitors and to pitch in front of the jury -  good luck! Their Founders Games just got € 200'000 more challenging and exciting! :) See you in Sofia on 19-20 April @ Webit.Festival Europe! Warm regards!  

Plamen Russev  Chairman, Webit Foundation | Global Webit Series

FOUNDERS meet FUNDERS at WEBIT.FEST’16 This year WEBIT.FESTIVAL welcomes startups from more than 40 countries, pre-seed and post-seed and startups with series A and B of investments. All of them come to Sofia to take the challenge of Founders Games 2016. Before we ring the bell of WEBIT.FESTIVAL on April 19th, you can still apply here by April 5th to join the competing startups at Founders Games’16.   Every idea is a million dollar-idea, depending on your targets, ambitions and mostly - hard work. Starbucks is just a coffee shop, Uber - just another way to travel in the city, Airbnb rents your mattress for a couple of nights, Amazon was an online book store, Spotify - another radio service, Facebook - an university messaging network, Twitter - a wall for 140 letters… Everything is just an idea, before you grow it to a successful business.  Some great examples of the "fixed and growth mindsets" theory  you can find in this piece of Brain Pickings and the article of Salman Khan The Learning Myth: Why I'll Never Tell My Son He's Smart . The difference between the two mindset concepts gives the organic meaning of an entrepreneur's mind state.   See the list of investors joining the Investors Day in Sofia Tech Park:

• Brian Norton from Ridge Road Partners, a VC fund that invests in private and public companies across developing and developed markets globally.

• Matthias Ummenhofer, Founding Partner of Mojo Capital manages the European Digital Opportunities Fund that integrates investments in European Venture Capital funds, secondaries, co-investments and direct investments in startups.

• Runa Capital’s Dmitry Chikhachev and Alexander Vidiborsky join the festival on April 19th. The fund provides early-stage funding for cloud computing services, hosted services, virtualization tools, complex software, and IT solutions for fintech, education, healthcare, and public services. The company is now on the run to raise $200 million for Runa Capital II, focusing on investments in USA, the European Union, Israel and Eastern Europe.

• Cem Sertoglu from EarlyBird Investments, a venture capital firm that invests across multiple stages,  ranging from early-stage to expansionary and growth stages with investment sizes between €200k and €20M. The fund manages around US$1 billion, as the firm is one of the largest European venture and growth capital investors and the largest outside of the UK, with offices in Berlin, Munich and Istanbul. The VC's Healthcare Tech Fund is oriented towards funding innovative medical technology companies, while the Earlybird Digital East Fund is focused on providing early stage equity capital to high-potential technology companies in Turkey and Central & Eastern Europe. The key interest areas of the fund are Consumer Internet, Enterprise Software and Tech-Enabled Services.

• Ondrej Bartos is co-founder and partner at Credo Ventures. He seeks entrepreneurs in Central and Eastern Europe who have a vision that extends beyond our regional borders to create global companies.Credo’s team of investors focuses on early stage companies in CEE across the information technology, internet, mobile and healthcare markets. In April 2015, Credo’s second fund, Credo Stage 2, was founded while raising €34M in the first closing.

• Paul Dowling Co-founder & CEO of Dreamstake and Co-founder of HoxTech Angels, who is working with the 1,000 plus early-stage startups on the platform to obtain funding from VCs and angel investors.

• Gleb Davidyuk Managing Partner of iTech Capital, with a portfolio of equity injections up to US$10 million per deal in IT companies operating in Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and USA. The average deal size is US$5 million.

• Maciek Sadowski Founder & CEO of Startup Hub Poland. He manages StartVenture@Poland - a seed fund for technological projects at the early stages of development, which invests up to €50K in one round. The fund operates in  strategic partnership with Giza Polish Ventures – a Polish-Israeli venture capital fund.

• Bartek Gola Managing Partner, SpeedUp Group, which includes a number of venture funds investing in enterprises in an early stage of development (seed, pre-revenue, early growth). Depending on individual needs, potential for growth and project maturity, SpeedUp invests from $30K up to $2M.

• Alexander Turkot Founder and Managing Partner of Maxfield Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in global seed, early  and growth stage technology companies. Maxfield Capital is currently considering investment opportunities in Europe, USA and Israel.

• Marcin Hejka is a vice president at Intel Capital and managing director for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Intel Corporation. He is responsible for leading Intel Capital’s investment activity in the region, which also encompasses Russia. Intel Capital has invested nearly US$11.6 billion in over 1,400 companies in 57 countries. The VC fund has 26 offices around the world. Countries include Belgium, Brazil, China, India,Germany, Ireland, Japan, Israel, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, UK, USA.

The rest of the investors and accelerators joining WEBIT.FEST’16 include Hub:raum, Startupbootcamp, H-farm Italy, Starburst, Techstars, Speedinvest, Seedinvest, Seedcamp and others. Tickets prices increase with 30% from April 1st, so hurry up and book your access to the festival. 

Turkey and Middle East are the two most attractive e-commerce markets for new seeding. 1. Hepsiburada.com – owned by Dogan Online together with dozen of other e-commerce websites, part of Dogan Sirketler Grubu Holding AS (DOHOL), Hepsiburada.com keeps its place of the largest ecommerce company in Turkey. Back in 2011, the turkish e-comm landscape faced an annual rise of 57 percent to 500 million TRY turnover, opening the market for more payers and moreover – investors. For the past few years, rumors have been spreading around Hepsiburada.com and its strategy, pointing to an acquisition or huge rounds of funding by global e-commerce giants and investing groups. So far, Dogan Online hasn't sold its most profitable website and according to the shared into the public space by its executives, the largest stake of the received investments are planned to be used for supporting the e-market of Turkey itself by new investments. It seems in 2014, Hepsiburada.com is still a top priority for Dogan Online and its future development strategy. With the time advancing very fast for the digital ecosystem around Bosphorus, the Turkish market is getting even more attractive with a population of 77 million, expanding urban population, internet and mobile and high credit-card penetration. The giants have opened the eyes of other investors with Amazon taking a delicious stake in Ciceksepeti – Turkish e-comm company based in Istanbul that delivers flowers and gifts across the country. Following this funding, Hummingbird Ventures made an investment in CicekSepeti in January 2011. In 2011, another e-comm monster – eBay acquired more than 90% of Turkey’s leading online marketplace GittiGidiyor. The deal follows eBay’s acquisition of a minority stake in the company in 2007 and previously raised capital from iLab Ventures. The fact that Turkey is also attractive to investors looking to use its market, supporting further expansion either into the Middle East or deeper in Central Asia, brings more attention and more funding for Turkish e-commerce startups. Markafoni – already owned by South African media company Naspers. Markafoni was founded in 2008 and was the first Turkish internet company going global (Australia, Ukraine, South Korea, Greece and Poland). With all other brands in the group (Zizigo, Enmoda, Misspera), Markafoni became the biggest Online Fashion company in Turkey and MENA. Back in 2010 the Turkish private shopping club, raised £4.7 million investment from Trayas. Then, in 2011 Naspers valued the Markafoni at $200 million and bought 71% stake. It was one of the biggest foreign commitments to an industry that Deloitte & Touche said could help drive Turkish acquisitions in 2012. A year later Markafoni group bought 75 percent of enmoda.com, founded in 2011 by Doğuş Media Group, who introduced Vogue and GQ magazines to Turkey. Nowadays when Naspers has bought the rest of the shares, Marcafoni's co-founder and CEO Sina Afra left the group in the end of may 2014 and head for new entrepreneurial endeavours. Since 1st of June, e-commerce specialist Ilker Baydar has replaced Afra on the helm of Markafoni group. The pulse of the digital ecosystem in Turkey beats faster with each and every following investment round from local or global VCs and angel investors. And, it is not the Turkish market only, but the surrounding landscape of all the emerging markets across Eastern Europe, Middle East and North Africa. In fact, Naspers have showed a significant relocation of assets from its African e-businesses to investments like the one in Markafoni in Turkey or the $150 million two-rounds investment in Souq.com – the biggest e-comm player in Middle East. The whole Naspers Group is closely watched by analysts and market observers, so they could predict what could be the trends for further share-buys, except e-commerce. The fashion retail has opened the door for other e-shopping stores and marketplaces, so the digital trade is already profitable for some other industry fields – food delivery, tickets + travel and accommodation. The success story of the US Arbnb has pushed others to go digital in hotel booking and the recent expansion of Foodpanda in Eastern Europe and Middle East is bringing the food orders to next level of customer service and satisfaction. The transportation is also an attractive sector, since Uber and Blablacar took their businesses globally. There is something in common between each and every of the above companies and it is their need for quality investment and marketing resources. This is the major reason to give the beginning of the Webit Ambassadors Foundation - a non-for-profit foundation aiming at helping the entrepreneurial and digital ecosystem by education, creating better business opportunities and providing marketing and business platform of the Global Webit Congress to the best startups from EMEA and Asia for free. Situated in Tukey, on the cross roads between Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia we are confident to to create the 1 Million EUR Marketing Grant for startups to give them a special market advantage and to boost the business and the opportunities to success. Applications for the Founders Games are still opened till 15th of July and you could spread the word among your network of entrepreneurs, startups and investors helping them to conquer the world through the Global Webit Congress platform. On 1st and 2nd of October, Istanbul Turkey, Halic Congress Center startups meet investors, over 300 accredited media and the CEOs, CMOs and CTOs of the world's largest and most innovative companies along with the biggest global and regional advertisers. See you all there! For more details: Yanita Karailieva – Head of Business Development GWC yanita@eacad.eu +359 888 606 719