Why London lacks a PayPal Mafia of its own

Why London lacks a PayPal Mafia of its own

We've all heard of the so-called "PayPal Mafia." They are a group of entrepreneurs and angel investors who were founders or early employees of online payment service PayPal. All of them went on to found their own tech companies, as well as fuel the next-generation of startups.

Open Ocean launches €100m fund for European software companies

Open Ocean launches €100m fund for European software companies

Open Ocean, the early stage venture firm originating in Helsinki, has today announced a €100m fund to accelerate the growth of Europe’s most successful software companies. 

The new fund is designed to invest in and support entrepreneurs driving disruption in emerging software sectors. With a focus on Series A, and capacity for select Series B opportunities, Open Ocean will partner with companies looking to build global franchises.  

Firestartr & Open Ocean announce collaboration

Firestartr & Open Ocean announce collaboration

 Firestartr, the London-based software and internet seed investment platform and Open Ocean, the Series A and B software venture firm originating in Helsinki responsible for the billion-dollar exit of MySQL, have today announced a partnership.

The collaboration coincides with the announcement of a new €100m fund focused on the Series A and B from Open Ocean to accelerate the growth of Europe’s most successful software companies. The fund will focus on data-led, fast-growth sectors such as enterprise SaaS, market networks, cloud infrastructure, big data/machine learning and mobile. Open Ocean’s portfolio includes companies such as Truecaller and London-based Import.io, Loopme and TapDaq.

Firestartr Spark Series 2.0

Whether you missed our Firestartr Spark Series 2.0 last Oct 14th, or are one nostalgic guest, we are proud to give you the evening's video footage.

Sponsored by Bird & Bird, the event was a great success for which we have our partners, panel speakers and guests to thank. Once again we successfully brought together the Firestartr community, made up of London's most innovative and disruptive minds. Sneak a peak below at the insightful panel talks, networking drinks and guest reviews that took place that evening.

You won't want to miss the next one... Already announcing Feb 2nd with UBS. Stay tuned.

Firestartr Spark Series #1 - Building Blocks for a Developer Driven World

Watch the third and final panel of our June 16th Firestartr Spark Series at Second Home.

We invited 2 of our portfolio company founders and CEOs, Khash Sajadi from Cloud 66 and Oliver Thylmann from Giant Swarm, to share their industry insights and expertise. Moderated by Kenneth Cukier from The Economist and Richard Muirhead from Firestartr, the panel opens a cutting-edge debate on the growing complexity of infrastructure platforms, toolkits and processes. 

Have we really entered a world where "If you can't code, you can't be chief"? Watch below to find out:

Firestartr Spark Series #1 - Automating Insight into Action

The second panel in our inaugural Firestartr Spark Series, held June 16th at Second Home, was about demystifying Big Data and the growing industry around it.

Why did Big Data analytics become such a trendy topic? Why do we need it? Our speakers Peter Ellen, Rich Waldron and David White, each respectively founders and CEOs of Big Data For Humans, tray.io and Import.io, answer these and many more insightful questions. Kenneth Cukier from The Economist and Alain Falys from Firestartr modetared the panel. 

Watch the full panel below to know how we got discussing sexy data, dinosaurs, death and more:

Firestartr Spark Series #1 - Power to the People

Opening the inaugural Firestartr Spark Series, held June 16th at Second Home, was a panel covering e-commerce and how it is revolutionizing the way consumers and businesses interact.

The panel was led by speakers Jack Tang  from Urban Massage, Chloe Macintosh from MADE.com, and Pamir Gelenbe from Tritto, who shared their experiences and industry insights as founders of each company. The Economist journalist Kenneth Cukier and Firestartr Partner Chipper Boulas appear as moderators. 

Watch the full panel below to discover the market innovations, on-demand businesses and other industry secrets discussed that evening.

Firestartr Spark Series #1 - promo

Take a sneak peak of our inaugural Spark Series event, held June 16th at Second Home London.

We wanted to bring together and showcase the Firestartr community, made of London's most innovative and disruptive minds. The result was beyond our expectations. From insightful panel talks and challenging Q&A sessions, to networking drinks that saw many great ideas, contacts and projects exchanged, we could not have been more pleased. 

Enjoy the preview, and don't miss the full panel video footage coming soon! 

 

The Startup Manifesto

Chipper Boulas, Alain Falys and Richard Muirhead, Firestartr co-founders & Partners, are among the 200+ leading startups and investors who backed the new Startup Manifesto aimed at lobbying the main UK political parties to shape policy towards a more tech-driven society. 

Other backers include major UK tech startups and investors, such as King, TransferWise, SwiftKey, Index Ventures, Techstars London and Accel Partners. Full list here. 

Firestartr leads Bitstamp audit

In November and December of 2013, Firestartr led a financial audit that required the creation of the largest single bitcoin wallet and transaction in history.In doing so, it also validated Bitstamp's internal auditing practices.

This audit was released on 6th March by Bitstamp, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges by volume. 

The audit also confirmed that Bitstamp was the entity behind the transfer of 194,933 BTC into a single bitcoin wallet back in November 2013.