1. OPENFUND
Α Microfund targeting Emerging tech and
the Web in Greece and Southeastern Europe
www.theopenfund.com
2. The Vision
Create an ecosystem that will promote high tech entrepreneurship
(business + technology) and will yield high returns to all participants
Entrepreneurs
Network of Advisors
Executive
Board
Investors
3. The First step
Invest and foster the most promising startups
Open call for proposals
Selection of the best ideas or prototypes
(up to 5 for every round)
Fund and incubate the most promising
(20k-30k€)
Provide advice and guidance until the exit
5. Executive Board Team
Managing Directors
• Georgios Kasselakis, Entrepreneur, Organizer Thessaloniki Open Coffee
– Operations
• George Tziralis, Co-Founder & CEO, AskMarkets, Principal Organizer of Athens
Open Coffee
– Overall Management / Operations
Board Members
• Apostolos Apostolakis, Co-founder and CFO, e-shop.gr, Athens
• Dimitris Athanasiadis, Entrepreneur, Co-Organizer of Athens Open Coffee
– Operations
• Onic Palandjian, Investment Director at Capital Connect Venture Managers SA,
Athens
• Sokratis Papafloratos, Co-founder and CEO, trustedplaces.com, London
• Spiros Xanthos, Co-founder and VP of Engineering, Pattern Insight, Mountain
View CA
• Teresa Farmaki, Head of Private Equity & Operating CEO, Piraeus Bank &
Pireaus-TANEO clean tech fund
6. Advisors (so far)
A strong network of advisors has been formed
(and growing) to help the funded companies
• Startup advisors
– Tasso Argyros, Co-Founder & CTO, Aster Data Systems
• Raised more than $25 million of funding in 3 years
– Apostolos Apostolakis, Co-Founder & CFO e-shop.gr
• Grew e-shop.gr to more than 120 millions of revenue
– Sokratis Papafloratos, Co-founder and CEO, trustedplaces.com, London
– Andy McLoughlin, Co-founder and Product Director, Huddle.com
– Spiros Xanthos, Co-Founder & VP of Engineering, Pattern Insight
• Turned university technology to a successful startup
• Technology advisors
– Haris Ermopoulos, Software Engineer for Google File System
– Panos Ipeirotis, Associate Professor CS at Stern Biz School NYU
– Georgios Kasselakis, Entrepreneur, Organizer Thessaloniki Open Coffee
– Patrick Malone, CTO Microsoft Hellas
• MS is also a sponsor
7. Advisors (so far)
• Investor Community
– Franceso Benincasa, Director at Ultimate Holdings
• Networking in the UK
– Aristos Doxiadis, Managing Director Notos Associates
– Onic Paladjian, Director at Capital Connect Ventures
• Founded several successful startups in the past himself
– Sakis Georgiadis, Investment Director, Gartmore Private Equity Fund
of Funds
• Sales and management
– John R. Lovitt, Investor, former SVP at IBM/Rational
• Interested in investing
– Yiannis Methodios, Ex-CEO (Greece), Accenture
– George Saliaris Fasseas, Country Manager (Greece), Google
– Christos Tsangos, CEO (Greece) Microsoft
– Ioannis Vasilaras, Ex-CEO, Infote
• Accounting and legal
– Andreas Akavalos, Ex-CEO (Greece), PriceWaterhouseCoopers
8. Advisors (so far)
• PR, Marketing, New Media
– Petros Katsampouris, CEO, Vivechrom
– George Tziralis, Organizer of Open Coffee Greece
• Grew Open Coffee GR from 0 to more than 300 people per event
10. Necessary Preconditions Exist
• Education
– 1.7% of the population holding Masters’ degrees &
PhDs (among the highest in Europe)
– Highest per capita number (in Europe) of people
who study abroad (and want to return to Greece)
• Community & Entrepreneurial Momentum
– Open Coffee attracts ~300 participants per month
in two cities. Proportional count for 4 more cities.
– “Innovation 2006” competition from Otenet
attracted 2700 participants
11. Τίτλος άξονα
0,00%
1,00%
2,00%
3,00%
4,00%
6,00%
7,00%
5,00%
Lithuania
Latvia
Greece
Finland
United States
Poland
Slovenia
Estonia
Iceland
Sweden
Norway
Hungary
Denmark
Ireland
Spain
Romania
United Kingdom
Belgium
Slovakia
Netherlands
Source: Eurostat
Portugal
France
Italy
Turkey
Czech Republic
Bulgaria
% population in Higher & Highest Education
Japan
Untapped Potential
Croatia
Austria
Germany
Switzerland
Cyprus
FYROM
Albania
Malta
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg (Grand-…
12. Availability of Funding
Seed stage funding is nonexistent today in Greece and SE Europe
Greece
Availability
Western Europe
Seed funding Public companies Buyout
13. Distribution of Funding
Stage Greece (‘07) Europe (‘07)
Early 0 €3.35 B
↓ 1.2x
Development €52 M €3.9 B
↓ 2x ↓ 2.5x
VC €102 M €10 B
↓52x ↓ 6x
Buyout €5.4 B €60 B
Source: Private Equity Activity Survey 2008, European PE and VC Association
14. Privileged access to the startup ecosystem in Greece
• More than 40 events
– Held hands with every single related event in Greece
• 2500+ total attendants
• 132 presentations
• 0 budget
• Guest speakers, including:
– J. Calacanis (Blogs inc)
– K. Mitsotakis (Former VC, Member of the Greek parliament)
– A. Diamantopoulou (EU Commissioner, Shadow minister of
Development)
– V. Makios (Corallia, semiconductor companies incubator)
– 10s more
16. Structure
Connect entrepreneurs and investors, provide all that is
needed to start, grow and sell successful ventures
OPENFUND
Executive Board
Entrepreneurs
Investors
Network of Advisors
17. Find the Best Entrepreneurs
• We have almost set-up from scratch an
entrepreneurial ecosystem (open coffee)
• Now we are looking for the best and brightest,
to set-up the most capable of teams and
invest themselves exclusively for 4 months
• To build and launch disrupting products
• The idea is just a start, team and execution is
of paramount importance
18. The Selection Process
• Three rounds of selection:
1. Online submission
2. In person interview
3. Presentation day (investors participate)
• Stake in up to 5 ventures / round
• 20-30K€ per investment for 20% equity
• Iterating, 4 month stages
19. Benefits for Entrepreneurs
• Mentoring & networking
– Leverage advice & connections from the best in the field,
tech & business
• Funding
– Seed capital to cover all operational expenses for the 4-
month quot;incubationquot; period
• Smooth Start
– Create the company for them at no cost
– Handle all the legal / accounting issues, provide advise
• Grow
– Take direct advantage of the network to grow and raise
more money as needed
20. Targeted business models
We bring expertise on these models on board,
we are open to others too
• subscriptions (fixed/variable), freemium
• license, SaaS, white label
• marketplaces, ecommerce and open calls
• advertising, content re-purpose & affiliate sales
• hybrids of the above (micropayments, affiliate
advertising etc)
22. Benefits for Investors
Access to the best opportunities in SE Europe
• Open Coffee Greece is the ultimate
destination for new startups
• Micro funds (YCombinator, Techstarts, etc.),
have been very successful
– Nevertheless, closest to Greece is Seedcamp,
based in the UK
23. Benefits for Investors
Effortless diversification of the investments
• The OpenFund organizes everything (processes,
paperwork etc)
• Investors are involved as much (or as little) as
they want with the funded companies
– They do participate in the selection
• Diversify by participating in every company of a
round
• Extensive network of advisors and investors
multiplies chances for successful exit
24. Benefits for Investors
Social Impact and Extensive Promotion Opportunities
• Promote entrepreneurship in Greece & SE
Europe
– Funding and advising is what’s missing
– Access to a portfolio with the most promising
ventures in the region
• Open Coffee has been recognized by the media
for promoting entrepreneurship
– High profile successful entrepreneurs, executives
and politicians participated and want to help
25. Investment Approach: Funding 2.0
Evolution of technology:
Open Source, AWS, AppEngine, Azure,
Cloud Matrix, Ruby on Rails…
4-strong team of great individuals is enough to
create a disrupting product
Invest in on-line services Iterate and Improve
Aim for the global market
