Seedcamp, the commercial incubator program for ambitious start-up entrepreneurs has announced its European Program for 2010. In 2010 Seedcamp will organize mentor programs, Mini Seedcamps, in Zagreb, Prague, Barcelona, Paris, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen and Berlin, culminating into the final Seedcamp Week in London.

Entrepreneurs in the program are able to obtain first class advice from legal, strategy and marketing mentors and connections with investors, while the top teams will receive seed funding. Successful Seedcamp companies are Basekit, Zemanta, MyBuilder and Ubervu.

Seedcamp is a commercial fund with a social mind and a for profit purpose, however, it mainly relies on its 1000 unpaid advisors who provide the mentoring for free. Nonetheless, the model works extremely well.

Investors in Seedfund are Nesta and Eden Ventures. The NextWomen spoke with Katy Turner, associate at Eden Ventures, 'European Technology Forum's 'Early Stage Investor of the Year 2007 'about the benefit of Seedcamp, female founders and investment criteria.

What is the benefit for entrepreneurs of the Seedcamp Program?

That’s very clear: the access to the network of advisers and investors.

The money aspect is the least important aspect for an entrepreneur. The most value comes from the Seedcamp week itself and from the ongoing relationships that you build there.

Also, Seedcamp is a great PR platform for entrepreneurs to market one’s start-up company and product, and lastly, for entrepreneurs it’s invaluable that you get together with other entrepreneurs who all go through the same challenges.

What is the benefit for the investors involved in the Seedcamp program?

We appreciate very much that we are able to cultivate a great network with all those incredible advisers through Seedcamp. Also, the visibility that we get by investing through Seedcamp is invaluable. We invested in Basekit (alongside Nesta) and Ubervu, directly as a consequence of the deal flow coming through Seedcamp. It’s really a great source to identify investor ready companies.

We are also involved in the judging process of all the companies submitting to Seedcamp and realistically we wouldn’t have known about a lot of these companies, hadn’t it be for Seedcamp.

Of course there is the top 20 finalists in Seedcamp, but a lot of the companies who don’t make it to the top 20 are still very interesting to keep track off and we look to them for direct investments.

What are the characteristics of a Seedcamp company?

These are technology driven and minded companies. They have strong ideas about technology and that aspect drives the business and the business model. Most of the time the entrepreneurs of Seedcamp companies are also pretty savvy commercially. However, the realisation about how to market the business and to gain customers comes often later.

The value of the Seedcamp circle is the focus on the marketing, sales and business development. Many advisors know how to take the product to market and to drive traction. Solving of a problem is one thing but reaching customers is the ultimate goal, whether it is B2B or B2C.

The seed funding of the program is really meant to get the product of the ground and to get the team ready and to technically figure it out. Once that is done, most companies need some sort of series A funding of around 250K, which we, as Eden Ventures, prefer to be involved in as well.

And if Seedcamp gives a stamp of approval to a company by an initial investment, then it’s easier to secure a follow up investment.

Any female founders Eden has invested in or came across?

We have invested in Tribold, of which Catherine Mitchell is the CTO, she has the combination of understanding it technically and have a good marketing eye.

Then we have also invested in Ambient Industries, a mobile application, of which Janet Sale is the Founder and CTO. She knows that you have to get strong on technical things to build a good product.

And there is Alicia Navarro of Skimlinks; she became really strong technically.

A lot of these women are constantly educating themselves.

If a company wants to grow, it needs to flip from a technical led company to a marketing organisation and these women have both features.

And what about women on the investors’ side?

My role at Eden is to stimulate deal flow, to perform market analysis and to support the deal and eventually to work with the portfolio. To invest in a sustainable way, we have created investment criteria in which we grade the team, the technology, the focus on software and mobile applications and the problem that the company and product solves.

Because we have had two female partners in Eden, I think our approach has always been a bit different because we look very much to the human side of the business, the dynamics of the team and the personality of the founders. Of course, we make our required spreadsheet analysis, but we think that the most important is the people you invest in, and the team that the founder is able to create. A focus only on the technology is not enough.

For more information:

Eden Ventures
Nesta
Seedcamp 2010 Program