Early phase funding is a difficult for many startup companies. VC’s are not typically interested in early phase companies. Many startups are immediately international, but many investors are still local. Crowd-funding is a new emerging funding model. It offers more flexibility for startup funding, and especially helps companies in early phase and also companies that are not suitable for traditional VC funding. Silicon Valley is the best startup ecosystem. The vision is a Virtual Silicon Valley, where all relevant parties (entrepreneurs, investors, etc) can work together around the world. It means that all best people and companies together can create new global success stories Jan van Dijk described the network society thus, “networks cause a comprehensive restructuring of society at large – they are breaking old models of organisation. In a network society, the network becomes a basic unit of organization at all levels, in a mass media society, the basic units are the large collective ‘masses’”. From a VC perspective The Go4Venture monthly report in March 2010 stated that “professional venture capital funds have become less relevant to the financing of innovation for the time being”. Crowd-funding view is you can build with money, or like the Dutch Polder model, you can build with people. We need more equal opportunities, where entrepreneurs and private investors unite to accelerate innovation in more global, transparent, collaborative, and effective environment.
Jouko is serial-entrepreneur, co-founder of Grow VC, the first global peer-to-peer micro-funding service for startups, and Enreach Group Inc., online audience targeting company. He also co-founded Xtract, the world first social network analytics company. His background is an investor and entrepreneur across the US, Europe and Asia and is active at a senior level with many web and mobile enterprises.
With more than 15 years experience in international business management and having been close to many VC deals in past, ranging from 150k USD to 15M USD, Jouko is passionate about the challenges in finding and supporting the next great venture. Starting his first software company at the age of 16, Jouko then held progressively senior positions at diverse technology firms including Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Powerwave Technologies Inc., Nokia, and Sonera. He is a pioneer in the field of social media marketing, and played a significant role in developing the first social marketing intelligence solutions for mobile and media companies.
Jouko is on the boards of various start-up companies and is a co-founder or seed investor at seven companies. Jouko is a certified advisor for NasdaqOMX Stockholm and Helsinki early phase company lists. Jouko regularly speaks at marketing, start-up funding, mobile and web 2.0 conferences including Mobile World Congress, CTIA, Next Conference, Singapore Infocomm Industry Forum and Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Conference around Europe, Asia, and the US. He is also a co-author of the Social Media Marketing book (Futuretext, London, Feb 2009).
