The founders of Bebo and Lastminute.com are to take part in this year’s Seedcamp initiative, a week long mentoring and networking event for start-ups.
The annual event, now in its second year, will select 20 companies from a list of entries who’ll receive advice and support during the week in September from the founders from some of Europe’s most successful technology startups.
Five of the companies will then be selected to receive funding and ongoing Seedcamp support.
As well as Bebo’s Michael Birch and Lastminute.com’s Brent Hoberman, Seedcamp 2008 will also see Last.fm’s Martin Stiksel and Skype’s Niklas Zennström taking part.
Saul Klein,
venture partner at Index Ventures
and founder of Seedcamp, said:
“Europe has the necessary ingredients to build the world's next generation of leading technology companies; talent, capital, ideas, and examples of success; but what it lacks is the tradition of entrepreneurialism.
“Seedcamp helps first time entrepreneurs get the validation and make the connections they need to build global businesses. We want to encourage them to think big, and getting the chance to work with the founders from companies like Skype, Last.fm, Bebo and MySQL will help them do that.”
Seedcamp Week 2008 will take place at University College London. Teams from around Europe can apply on the Seedcamp website (http://application.seedcamp.com/) until August 10.
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2008