The selection process is set to begin on May 1st, with the final decisions being made in the beginning of June. Similar to their latest round, winning teams will receive 30.000-50.000 ? for 15% of equity.
In the previous round the teams selected are:
- TaxiBeat, a team of three from Athens, uses the mobile technology to connect taxi drivers and passengers by enabling taxi drivers to advertise their location and availability to nearby passengers who are searching for a taxi using their smartphone.
- GourmetOrigins.com, a team of two from London and Barcelona, is an online platform that aims to address the increasing consumer demand for unique foods and food related experiences.
GourmetOrigins.com aspires to become the point of reference for premium food items and their delivery across Europe.
- Kamibu, a team of seven from Athens, is the company behind Virtual Life (working name), a revolutionary browser-based 3D MMORPG for gamers with a PC or smartphone. Gamers may engage simultaneously online and in real-life through short quests like going to the movies or planting trees in the park, provoking real-life and online interactions.
All teams will receive, next to seed funding, extensive support from the Openfund executives and advisors on all things start-up, enabling them to launch great products within the next few months. We are thrilled to have already started working together with these teams, and we look forward to leverage on their vision, commitment and talent to make three successful companies happen.
The idea and vision behind the Openfund originated out of the Open Coffee Greece story. Open Coffee as a movement began originally on February 27, 2007, by the British investor Saul Klein.
The need and vision of setting such an event seemed to be rather distant for Greece, when in June 2007, a small group of people interested in technological entrepreneurship gathered for the first time at a bookstore?s humble caf�, responding to a call by George Tziralis. The investors were absent; however the inertia quickly gave in to enthusiasm, as the compatible start-up-related interests sparked. People got to know each other, ideas were exchanged, next to experiences and business cards, along with the promise for this pleasant experiment to repeat itself soon.
Since then many milestones have been reached, placing the Greek Open Coffee among the top of similar events around the world. Today, two years after the first timid attempt, Open Coffee can report more than 40 meetings in 6 cities around Greece, with almost a hundred and fifty of guest speakers and many hundreds (a few thousands in total) participants.
However, in Greece there is virtually no business angels? network, no mature incubators, a few local companies that could buy-out smaller companies and a very low activity of universities and public research institutions on making seed capital investments in their researchers? new ventures.
The system is broken, and it?s clear that the bottleneck is early stage entrepreneurship. But, if what keeps entrepreneurs and investors apart is seed capital funding, there exists a solution. If economies of scale and significant traction are the main reasons for the lack of a network of capable advisors, there is a remedy. If what keeps community interest from maturing into actual entrepreneurial activity is a tangible roadmap to start-up, there is a plan.
And this is where the Openfund comes into the picture.
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Paz Vega Michelle Behennah Dania Ramirez Heidi Montag Amber Heard
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