PRELIMINARY PROGRAM
NOAH 2011 Program PDF Download
Kick-Off – Keynote
Marco Rodzynek, Founder, NOAH Advisors
Marco Rodzynek founded NOAH Advisors in 2009. He was previously Head of European Internet Investment Banking at Lehman Brothers and Nomura, and has over 14 years of investment banking experience covering the Internet space. Since early 1998, he has been involved in 30 announced M&A deals with a total transaction value of over $95 billion, including many high profile transactions such as the leveraged buyout of PagesJaunes, and 10 capital market transactions which raised $16 billion, including the IPOs of TomTom, Xing, Delticom and Moneysupermarket.
Today with NOAH Advisors, he has advised successfully on many high profile Internet transactions including Bigpoint, Fotolia, Softonic, EnGrande and Yatego, to name a few.
As with the Ark, “NOAH” represents new beginnings, group spirit and diversity. The NOAH Internet Conference was created by NOAH Advisors, a Pan-European internet-focused corporate finance boutique. Since its launch in 2009, the NOAH Conference has grown into the preeminent European event where Internet entrepreneurs, executives and investors gain deep insights into the latest proven concepts, network with senior executives and establish new business relationships. Known for its focus on numbers and profitable business models, the event is also about interacting with speakers, being inspired, and having fun.
Dr. Klaus Hommels, Founder, Lakestar
Klaus is one of the leading European business angels and is or has been involved in numerous successful internet investments including QXL/Tradus, Skype, Facebook, king.com, StarDoll, Xing and spotify. He invests in promising start-ups that have the potential to become major players in the internet space.Klaus started his career at Bertelsmann. He joined AOL Germany in 1995 where was as board member responsible for business development, content and advertising sales. He was also involved in the establishment of Freenet, worked for Apax Partners and was a partner of Benchmark Capital before founding his own venture capital fund Hommels Holding.
Klaus graduated with a Master’s degree in Business Administration from University of Fribourg in Switzerland and holds a PhD degree in Finance from the same university. He was named “most successful European entrepreneurial private investor of the year” in 2006 by a group comprised of IESE, INSEAD and the University of St Gallen.
Matt Brittin,Vice President, Google
Matt is Vice President of Google in Northern and Central Europe – with teams across twelve countries who help consumers and businesses make the most of the internet.
Google’s products are enjoyed by millions of people and help thousands of businesses succeed online. Businesses using the internet well are growing four times faster and exporting double compared with those who are not online.
Matt joined Google in January 2007 to lead UK Sales, becoming MD for UK and Ireland in early 2009 and taking on Eurpean responsibilities in October 2011. Before Google Matt spent much of his career in media and marketing, with particular interests in strategy, commercial development and sales performance.
Matt has an MBA from London Business School and an MA from Cambridge. He is a non-executive director of Sainsbury’s and a board trustee of charities the Media Trust and the Climate Group. Outside work he enjoys sitting down sports – in June 2011 he cycled from John O’Groats to Land’s End, raising money for charity. He has been an international dinghy sailor and rowed in the Boat Race for Cambridge and has won medals for Great Britain in the World Rowing Championships. Matt lives near the Thames with his wife and two sons.
Going Global – Players Share Insights
John Meeks, Partner, TA Associates
Jonathan W. Meeks is a Managing Director at TA Associates focusing on investments in growth companies in Europe, India and other emerging markets. He is a Director of Amann Girrbach AG, AVG Technologies, Bigpoint, eCircle, Fotolia Holdings, GlobeOp Financial Services and Radialpoint. John also served on the Boards of Creditex, Lava Trading, Monotype Imaging, Mythic Entertainment, OpenLink Financial and SmartStream Technologies, and was actively involved in TA’s investments in Datek Online Holdings, Idea Cellular and The Island ECN. Prior to joining TA in 1997, he was a Financial Analyst in the Information Services Group at Robertson Stephens. John received a BS degree, with Distinction, in Mathematics, from Yale University (1995). Founded in 1968, TA Associates is one of the largest and most experienced middle-market growth private equity firms. With more than 75 investment professionals in offices in Boston, Menlo Park, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong, TA Associates has led buyouts and minority recapitalizations of more than 400 companies globally. TA invests in profitable growth companies in the technology, financial services, business services, healthcare and consumer industries.
J.R. Smith, CEO, AVG Technologies
J.R. Smith is CEO for AVG Technologies www.avg.com. It is his job to keep the company running smoothly and efficiently. AVG owes its recent explosive growth over the past several years to J.R.’s vision and leadership. Successes include refining the corporate strategy to further enhance and focus on the “Power of Free”. J.R. also led the shift in AVG’s focus to improve product quality, acquire free customers and leverage the web as the dominant sales channel. Before joining AVG in 2007, J.R. founded and worked with a number of telecom companies. He was founder and CEO of the UK’s Dot Mobile Limited, an MVNO he launched within six months of concept and was responsible for the conceptualization, strategic direction and operations including profit and loss, proposition creation, sales channel definition, vendor selection, customer service, purchasing and logistics as well as software and system development. J.R. was also founder and CEO of Dutch firm TSG-Telecomm Solutions Group where he created all proprietary project and operational software in-house and helped the company achieve ISO 9002 compliant certification while building a team of 160 professionals, who to date have deployed over 31 mobile networks in 14 countries. Prior to this, J.R. spent 6 years at T-Mobile USA, in a variety of positions including PCS Development Manager and National Acquisition Manager. Amongst his duties, he managed contract negotiations, financial forecasting and controls, project management and the resolution of various technical and legal issues related to network deployment and operations.
Jacob, President, eBay Classifieds Group
As President of the eBay Classifieds Group, Jacob is responsible for the entire financial performance of the business including and a team of 800 people based in 23 countries. Reporting to the eBay Inc CEO, Jacob’s role focuses on pursuing an aggressive expansion strategy, including green field start-ups and multiple acquisitions. Jacob specializes in growth and has grown eBay’s classifieds business by 5X from 2006-2011 and has also been the business owner or deal lead for many acquisitions small and large with aggregate transaction values totaling close to 5 billion U.S. Dollars. Jacob has been with eBay for over nine years in roles including: President and General Manager, eBay Classifieds Group (October 2006 – present), VP of Marketplaces Strategy and Ventures, eBay Inc, VP of New Business Ventures at eBay and Senior Director of Finance at eBay Europe.
eBay’s Classifieds Group is one of eBay’s fastest growing Divisions with operations in Europe, Asia, North and South America, trading under 9 different brands. With worldwide unique visitors of more than 65 million, eBay Classifieds Group sites connect people locally to find whatever they need.
Sean Cornwell, VP International Markets, eHarmony
Sean Cornwell joined eHarmony in October 2008, and has since launched this iconic relationship brand into the UK, Australian and Brazilian markets. As VP of International, Sean is responsible for driving forward growth into new markets. eHarmony now has 3.5 million users in its organic markets (UK, Australia and Brazil) and continues its rapid international growth via its partnership with eDarling who operate in 11 markets in continental Europe. Its next international launch will be Japan. eHarmony has 250 employees worldwide.
Founded in 2000 eHarmony, Inc. is a pioneer in using relationship science to match singles seeking long-term relationships. Available in the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom and Brazil, it presents users with compatible matches based on key dimensions of personality that are scientifically proven to predict highly successful long-term relationships.
Dr. Daniel Glasner, CEO Central Europe, Groupon
Daniel Glasner has been CEO of Groupon Central Europe since June 2010. The 34-year-old is co-founder of the company CityDeal, where he acted as managing director until May 2010. Glasner studied in Austria, France and Singapore and holds a doctorate in law. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he worked for several years at McKinsey. Glasner received the “e-Star Online Excellence” people’s choice award for Groupon in 2011 and, under his m anagement, Groupon-CityDeal was named “Startup of the Year” in 2010.
Groupon is a trusted guide, helping active consumers discover underexposed local merchants. Acting as a discerning curator of the best local things to do and buy, Groupon exists to make life less boring for people. Groupon pioneered the daily deals business in 2008 and remains the leader today with operations in 45 countries. We grew to 9.625 employees as of June 30, 2011. To subscribe for the best deals in your city, visit www.groupon.com. To learn how to become a featured business, visit www.grouponworks.com.
Dr. Petra Friedmann, President, HomeAway Europe
Friedmann joined HomeAway in June 2009 to lead the European business. With years of experience in the travel industry, Petra Friedmann most-recently held the position of Chairman of the Board for Opodo France, a leading Pan-European online travel agency. During her tenure, she launched and grew Opodo.fr, which has grown to be one of the two biggest travel agencies in France. Prior to Opodo, she held leadership positions at online auction company, QXL-Ricardo, and European tour operator, Groupe Marmara, where she was pivotal in executing successful e-commerce strategies.
HomeAway, Inc., based in Austin, Texas, is the worldwide leader in online vacation rentals, with sites representing more than 625,000 paid vacation rental home listings throughout more than 145 countries. HomeAway offers an extensive selection of vacation homes that provide travelers with memorable experiences and benefits, including more room to relax and added privacy, for less than the cost of traditional hotel accommodations. The company also makes it easy for vacation rental owners and property managers to advertise their properties and manage bookings online. The HomeAway portfolio includes the leading vacation rental websites HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com in the United States; HomeAway.co.uk and OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany; Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; HomeAway.es in Spain; AlugueTemporada.com.br in Brazil; and HomeAway.com.au in Australia. In addition, HomeAway operates BedandBreakfast.com, the most comprehensive global site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties, providing travelers with another source for unique lodging alternatives to chain hotels. Nearly 900 Employees work at HomeAway.
Tomás Diago, Founder & President, Softonic
Technical Engineer in Computer Management by UAB Sabadell and Information Systems Engineer by La Salle University (Ramón Llull University). Tomás founded Softonic in 1997 from what originally was his final degree project and has become the benchmark for software worldwide.
Softonic is one the world’s top websites for the download and sale of secure software with more than 95 million unique users per month (Nielsen). Founded in Barcelona in 1997, the company now employs a staff of more than 250 employees and has offices in Barcelona, San Francisco, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Madrid. Softonic offers the largest collections of software titles analyzed, evaluated and validated by a team of expert editors in 10 different languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Dutch, and Japanese. The company currently offers over 160,000 software applications for Windows, Macintosh, and Mobile operating systems including Android & iOS.
Customer Acquisition Strategies – Leaders Discuss Economics and Trends
Marco Koots, CEO, ClickDistrict
Graduate degree in Business administration from the Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Held several positions at agencies as Universal Media, ZenithOptimedia and advertisers KLM and Martinair. All in the online space. In 2007 Marco founded ClickDistrict.
ClickDistrict is a Web-based advertising and branding company dedicated to providing cost-effective, wide reaching solutions to premium advertisers and publishers. Based in Amsterdam, the company provides high-value profiles to its advertising clients and serves their complex media ads to its network of premium publishers. ClickDistrict’s suite of advertising products enables ad campaign optimization as well as post-campaign analytics. It tracks specific audience behaviors and then categorizes viewers based on age, interest, demographics, and search terms, enabling it to serve only the most relevant ads to target audiences while also helping advertisers personalize content. Complementing these solutions, the company’s partnerships with top tier publishers and ad network optimizers ensures that is is prepared for high volumes and a strong global reach. ClickDistrict has offices in Amsterdam, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Madrid and Brussels.
Pascal Gauthier, COO, Criteo
With 10 years of experience in the digital media and advertising world, Pascal has built and managed teams in a number of successful European start-ups including Kelkoo, ultimately acquired by Yahoo. In February 2008, Pascal was recruited to Criteo as COO and Head of Europe. As COO, today Pascal oversees the global product roadmap, the sales strategy & the European operations.
About Criteo
Criteo expands the search budgets of the largest ecommerce advertisers across 20 countries with 400 employees globally. Every day Criteo generates millions of high-quality leads by serving relevant ads to people who have left clients’ websites without completing transactions. Criteo is measured purely on its post-click performance. Criteo offers a turnkey pay-per-click model including extensive real-time bidding tools, keyword level optimisation and even an in-house creative studio. For more information, please visit http://www.criteo.com
Carsten Frien, CEO & Co-Founder, Madvertise
madvertise was founded in 2008 and is one of the fastest growing mobile advertising marketplaces in Europe and market leader in the German speaking countries with headquarters in Berlin and international offices in UK, Spain, Switzerland and Italy. It connects advertisers of mobile banner campaigns with publishers of mobile apps and websites who can monetize their mobile reach effectively. The company employs 50 people.
Carsten is CEO and co-founder of madvertise. Before he was Managing Director UK for lottery company Tipp24 and held a number of executive positions at Time Warner subsidiary AOL in Hamburg and London. Before that he was responsible for business development in first Germany and later Europe for Digital Rum, one of the leading developers of mobile services. Carsten Frien read business administration at the University of Hamburg and Aarhus Business School in Denmark, founding his first two Internet start-ups while still a student.
Giuliano Stiglitz, CEO Americas, Orange Advertising Network
Giuliano is currently CEO of Orange Advertising Network Americas. He is also Commercial Director for Orange Advertising Network in Europe where he oversees digital sales of Orange properties across web, mobile and IPTV. Previous to Orange Giuliano was VP Sales Europe at Metro International where he oversaw sales across several countries in Europe.
Orange Advertising Network is one of the leading networks in sales and digital advertising in Europe and worldwide. We guarantee our clients creative and impactful solutions in our 3 main categories: Internet branding, performance and mobile. We have a wide selection of advertising sites on the Internet and mobile in the U.S. Hispanic market and throughout Latin America with 70 mi llion unique users in the region and more than 320 million unique users worldwide (over 60 countries). We operate as a transparent network to guarantee that advertisers have complete control over the sites where their ads appear. Exclusive deals with Premium content portals guarantee the correct segmentation of the audience and the experience of Orange in the Web. In the content creation and special projects we guarantee the incorporation of a creative approach.
We communicate on 3 different advertising categories: Branding, performance and mobile. In which we develop an effective and innovative strategy to give your advertising campaign an efficient approach.
Michael Kline, COO / Founder, ReachLocal
ReachLocal co-founder, Michael Kline, serves as Co-Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. Mr. Kline served as VP, Product Development at WorldWinner from 2002 to 2003. From 2001 to 2002, Mr. Kline served as a Senior Manager, Media & Entertainment, at Deloitte Consulting, and from 1999 to 2000, he served as SVP of Strategy & Product Development for AdStar.com, a provider of advertisement management solutions. Mr. Kline previously founded Recycler.com, a provider of online classified advertisements, and served as its GM from 1995 to 1998. Mr. Kline holds a B.A. in literature from Harvard College.
ReachLocal, Inc.’s (NASDAQ: RLOC) mission is to help small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) acquire, maintain and retain customers via the Internet. ReachLocal offers a comprehensive suite of online marketing solutions to SMBs through a combination of its proprietary technology platform and its direct, “feet-on-the-street” sales force of Internet Marketing Consultants and select third party agencies and resellers. ReachLocal is headquartered in Woodland Hills, CA, with over 1,500 employees in offices throughout North America, Australia, and the European Union.
Dan Ruch, Vice President, Europe, Tremor Media
Dan is tasked with further aligning the US and EU businesses, including developing new European advertising agency relationships and driving adoption of Tremor Video’s technology platforms in the European advertiser and publisher community. Dan joined Tremor Video in 2008 as director, network analytics and strategy, and was promoted to senior director, business development in April 2009. Prior to this, Dan held several director and managerial level positions at TACODA Inc. / Platform-A, AOL where he was responsible for East Coast business development until TACODA’s sale to AOL. In this role, he identified and solicited key strategic publishers to join TACODA’s network. Prior to TACODA, Dan worked in strategic media planning at GroupM’s agency Mindshare / MAXUS global, allocating spend by medium for brands such as HSBC, Lufthansa, and Church & Dwight.
Launched in 2005, Tremor Video is a digital video technology company that serves the complementary needs of the media community. Our SE2 technology offers advertisers massive reach and proven engagement with their marketing messages in 100% brand-safe environments, while our Acudeo income engine provides publishers easy access to multiple sources of revenue and the ability to manage and monetize every video impression. We continue to push the boundaries of ad formats by introducing new engagement triggers and in-stream innovations to enhance the viewer experience and maximize ad performance.
Tremor Video acquired in-stream video ad powerhouse ScanScout in November 2010. Integrating ScanScout’s unrivaled brand protection and optimization technologies into the Tremor Video portfolio enables us to provide the meaningful scale and accountability advertisers and publishers have long sought in digital video.
In addition, the Transpera mobile advertising network and platform was acquired in February 2011, rounding out Tremor Video’s robust suite of advertiser and publisher engagement opportunities.
Our headquarters are located in New York City’s Flat Iron district, with offices throughout North America and Europe. Tremoe Media currently has around 200 employees.
Philipp Justus, CEO, Zanox
Philipp Justus joined zanox, the leading European performance advertising network, in March 2010 as the new CEO. He is responsible for the strategic direction of the zanox group incorporating zanox, Digital Window and eprofessional. Previous to zanox, Philipp was general manager of eBay Germany and eBay Europe before he subsequently took over management of the eBay auction business in the USA. In 2008, he switched to the eBay subsidiary PayPal as Senior Vice President Global Markets. In 2006, he was chosen as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum.
zanox is the leading European performance advertising network. With over 650 employees across the globe, the zanox group – comprising the companies, zanox, Affiliate Window, buy.at, M4N and eprofessional – supports companies from all industries and of all sizes in the effective marketing of products and services on the internet. With zanox’s transaction-based business model, advertisers only pay for the measurable success of their online advertising activities. Over 3800 advertisers bank on the zanox global publisher network; additional monetization power for internet and mobile applications is provided by ‘zanox Web Services’ and the ‘zanox Application Store’. zanox stands for customer service with industry expertise, the highest standards of technology and security, as well as the swift and transparent payment of its partners. The zanox group has its headquarters in Berlin and has branches in Germany, England, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland, Turkey, the USA and China.
Marketplace Companies Present – Internet Network Dynamics
Moderator: Scott Collins, Partner, Summit Partners
Scott is a Managing Director with Summit Partners, a growth equity firm that invests in exceptional companies. Scott joined Summit Partners in 1996. Prior to Summit, he worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Company and served in a variety of U.S. Federal Government positions, including at the White House and Department of Justice. Scott manages the firm’s London office, which he founded in 2001. During his 15 years with Summit Partners, Scott has served as a director of many companies. He is currently a director of Actix, Acturis Limited, AVAST Software, Bigpoint, Multifonds (IGEFI Group), Ogone SA/NV, vente-privee.com and Welltec International. His prior directorships include Dorn Technology Group (acquired by Policy Management Systems Corporation), Elumen Solutions (acquired by Computer Task Group), Hittite Microwave Corporation (NASDAQ: HITT), Jamba! AG (acquired by VeriSign), SafeBoot Holdings (acquired by McAfee) and Web Reservations International (acquired by Hellman & Friedman). Scott holds an AB in economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard University and a JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School. Scott is a founding trustee of the Private Equity Foundation, Europe’s leading venture philanthropy fund which works carefully with selected charities to empower young people to reach their full potential. Scott holds British and U.S. dual citizenship.
Moderator: Tim Stracke, CEO, Chrono24
Tim Stracke is a serial entrepreneur, investor and advisor to Internet companies,
In 2001 Tim founded mentasys GmbH, which became Germany’s leading online price comparison service provider and which he subsequently sold to a subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG in 2006. Today, the former mentasys is now an essential part of one of the world’s largest shopping portals, based in Silicon Valley, California. Prior to founding mentasys, Tim briefly served as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group in Buenos Aires. In 199, he founded his first VC-financed company – a marketplace for presents – at the age of 25. Since Tim’s exit from mentasys in 2008, he has taken stakes in 9 Internet companies in Europe and China, where he takes an active role as either a founding partner or active investor. Tim also advises entrepreneurs on strategy, finance and marketing/sales and is active on a variety of supervisory and executive boards.Tim holds a master degree in business engineering from the University of Karlsruhe and an MBA from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. Most recently he and another partner acquired Chrono24 GmbH, as part of a management buyout.
Chrono24.com was founded in 2003 and is the worldwide internet market platform leader for the exclusive specialized luxury watch trade sector. More than 600 professional dealers, as well as thousands private clients, utilize the platform to transact successful sales of a wide selection of high-end, brand-name luxury watches, such as Rolex, IWC, Breitling and Audemars Piguet. Customers have access to more than 80,000 new and previously-owned timepieces, from the traditional Omega costing a few hundred Euro, to the exclusive Patek Philippe collectible in excess of a million Euro.
John Erceg, Founder and CEO, EnGrande
John Erceg is the founder and CEO of budgetplaces.com, a leading European on-line reservation business focused on the budget accommodation sector. The company behind budgetplaces.com, EnGrande S.L., was established by Erceg in 2003 to generate reservations for budget hotels and apartments in Barcelona. budgetplaces.com, the company´s flagship brand, was introduced in 2008. The company currently has over 7,000 directly contracted establishments offering rooms on budgetplaces.com and processes over €80 million of gross reservations per year. Headquartered in Barcelona with offices in New York and Dublin, budgetplaces.com employs 90 staff of 30 different nationalities. John’s experience prior to budgetplaces.com includes various marketing and finance roles in Hewlett Packard including Worldwide Market Development Manager for Hewlett Packard large format printers. John has a BBA (1991) from the University of Houston, and an MBA (1996) from IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain.
Oleg Tscheltzoff, CEO, Fotolia
As an entrepreneur, Oleg Tscheltzoff has leveraged a global vision and knowledge of international business, management and marketing to develop successful online businesses. In November 2004 Oleg co-founded Fotolia.com, the first global online social marketplace for creative digital stock images in 10 languages, where photographers and designers of all levels can store, share and monetize their photographs and illustrations. As president, he led the company from inception to its rapid rise to the world’s largest microstock photography site. Prior to Fotolia, Oleg co-founding Amen, the leading Internet hosting company in France, which was sold in 2004 to Vianetworks (NASDAC Symbol VNWIE).
Oleg is an active angel investor. He graduated with an MS from ENSIEG in Grenoble, France and an MBA from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He is fluent in French, English and Russian.
Over 1.4 million people prefer Fotolia, LLC for affordable, royalty-free images, graphics, and HD videos. With the introduction of the Infinite Collection, Fotolia became the first worldwide microstock organization to offer both crowd-sourced and professional images on one site. Founded in New York City in 2005, Fotolia spans the globe with websites in 10 languages and websites in 12 regions. With over 7,000,000 images to choose from: Find it on Fotolia. www.fotolia.com.
Noam Perski, Founder & CEO, JamesList
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Noam is the Founder and CEO of JamesList, the worlds largest online marketplace for amazing things, built on a trusted global network of 1,200 professional dealers from 44 countries listing more than 60 000 of the very best homes, yachts, jets, cars & watches for sale. With a global user base reaching nearly one million visits per month, we put amazing inventory at the fingertips of passionate buyers in the financial and recreational capitals of the world. A pioneer in the Scandinavian Internet space starting in 1996, Noam built a string of successful consulting firms that engineered ground-breaking e-commerce and online communities. In 2002 Noam joined the International AIDS Society in Geneva and served as Director for Fundraising and Communications. He raised over 20 million USD and led PR & communications for the International AIDS Conferences in 2004 and 2006, which hosted over 20 000 delegates and 3500 journalists each with participation by Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela and many others. In 2006 Noam joined Ampersand Global and led global communications and advocacy efforts for UN agencies and NGOs in health, sustainability and development.
Omid Ashtari, European Business Development, foursquare
Omid Ashtari is Director of Business Development for foursquare and is focused on expanding the European footprint through strategic partnerships. Before joining foursquare, Omid spent 7 years with Google in Dublin, London and San Francisco. During his Google tenure he held multiple positions in sales and business development, working with a broad range of clients and partners across the globe. Omid holds a bachelor’s degree in European Business Administration from Cologne Business School Germany and graduated with Honors. He is currently based in London, UK.
Foursquare is a mobile application that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. It is a friend-finder, a social city guide and a game that challenges users to experience new things, and rewards them for doing so. Foursquare lets users “check in” to a place when they’re there, tell friends where they are and track the history of where they’ve been and who they’ve been there with.
Mustafa Say, Chairman, Kariyer.net
Mr. Say is the founder of Access Turkey Capital Group (ATCG) which comprises Turkey’s first and only comprehensive alternative investment portfolio. His vision and entrepreneurial drive has been instrumental in the stellar growth of ATCG portfolio companies and his long-term outlook on investing has seen ATCG through even the most serious global downturns.
After institutionalizing his investment activities with Access Turkey Fund LLC, a hedge fund with an outstanding track record, Mr. Say founded Access Turkey Capital Group in 1999 which would later evolve to encompass the fund as well as Access Turkey Private Equity, Access Turkey Real Estate and iLab Ventures, Turkey’s first venture capital fund. Under the iLab umbrella, he has invested in and incubated many online businesses with extraordinary growth stories. Today ATCG’s investment and shared services teams total 25 professionals while portfolio companies employ over 900 people. Kariyer.net, wholly owned by ATCG, maintains a staff of 250 across 10 offices spread throughout Turkey.
Mr. Say earned his bachelor’s degree from Istanbul Technical University in Mechanical Engineering and his MBA from Columbia Business School.
Fabian Siegel, CEO, Lieferheld
Fabian Siegel founded and built Internet businesses since 1996 both in Europe and the US. Amongst these he co-founded online payment service ClickandBuy (now Deutsche Telekom) where he served as CTO, ran operations at personal search company kikin Inc and joined Lieferheld as CEO in November 2010.
Lieferheld (German for Delivery Hero) is Germany’s fastest growing online food ordering platform, featuring more than 4.000 restaurants all over Germany. Lieferheld provides local lead generation to restaurants and makes it easy to order food online or mobile. Currently Lieferheld employs 105 heroes.
Guy Halfhead
Guy joined Livebookings in July 2011, with responsibility for leading the company’s global sales division. Guy was previously Business Development Director at KickApps (the market leading social publishing solution acquired by NASDAQ listed Kit Digital), where he was responsible for driving sales, customer acquisition and strategic partnerships across EMEA. Prior to this he held several leadership positions at CTSpace and led the integration of business into the Sword Group, which is listed on Euronext. Livebookings is Europe’s largest online booking and marketing services provider for restaurants. Livebookings helps restaurants become larger, busier and more profitable by providing more than 9,000 restaurants with software and marketing services that helps restaurants to manage operations, particularly bookings and reservations, more efficiently and have significantly improved consumer demand. Livebookings delivered 1m covers to restaurants in March 2011. Ranked recently in the top 50 fastest growing digital media companies in Europe in the UK’s 2009 and 2010 Guardian Media Tech 100 and was one to watch in the 2011 Sunday Times Tech Track 100 awards.
Inaki Ecenarro, CEO, Trovit
Iñaki Ecenarro is cofounder and CEO of Trovit. Before that, he worked for Grupo Intercom, McKinsey and Company and PwC. Iñaki has a business degree and an MBA from MIT.
Trovit is the leading search engine for classifieds. Every month more than 35 million people from 34 countries look for a job, house or car on Trovit, and those quality leads are sent to the thousands of partner websites that are integrated in Trovit. The company is based in Barcelona and employs 65 professionals.
Local Champions vs. Global Gorillas – Key Players Share Lessons Learnt
Dominique Vidal, Partner, Index Ventures
Prior to joining the London office of Index Ventures as a Partner in September 2007, Dominique was the CEO of Yahoo! Europe from 2004 to 2007. He joined Yahoo! from Kelkoo, when Yahoo! acquired the company in March 2004. At Kelkoo, where he was Managing Director from 2000 to 2004, Dominique drove the company’s transformation from a small team with no revenues to Europe’s preferred shopping search engine with 400 employees and revenues of $100 million per year. Prior to Kelkoo, Dominique was a partner at Banexi Ventures in Paris, where he led investments in a number of companies including Kelkoo, Algety and In Fusio. He began his career at Schlumberger where he worked for 10 years in product marketing and business development roles in the telecom and smart card industries in France, the United States and Asia. Dominique currently sits on the boards of Adconion, Be2, Best of Media, Criteo, Keynoir and SquareSpace. Dominique has an engineering degree from Supelec.
Index Ventures is a leading venture capital firm active in technology, biotech and clean tech venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping entrepreneurial teams in the Information Technology and Life Science sectors build their companies into market defining global leaders. They invest from seed through to growth stage companies. The firm has offices in Geneva, London, San Francisco and Jersey. Index’s current portfolio includes Criteo, Boku, Lookout, Mimecast, Ozon, Path, Pentaho, Rightscale, Soundcloud, Storsimple and viagogo. Exits of note include Cloud.com (acquired by Citrix), RPX (Nasdaq : RPXC), Lovefilm (acquired by Amazon), Playfish (acquired by Electronic Arts), MySQL (acquired by Sun), Last.fm (CBS) and Skype. For more information, please visit www.indexventures.com.
Klaus Nyengaard, CEO, Just-Eat Group
Klaus started out as McKinsey consultant, but has since 1997 spend all his time building companies in the digital space. Today he spends his time either on leading the Just-Eat empire out of buzzing London, or living with his family on his farm outside of Copenhagen.
Just-Eat was founded 2001 in Denmark, and after having spend many years getting the basics right in the native market, the company has the last few years seen an aggressive international growth, which has made Just-Eat the clear world leader in the delicious industry of online takeaway ordering. Today, Just-Eat is headquartered in London and has 500+ employees spread out over 4 continents. Owners include Index Ventures, Greylock Partners, Redpoint Partners and SM Trust.
Murray Hennessy, CEO, the trainline
Murray joined thetrainline.com as CEO in 2008 and has since led a rejuvenation of the business across multiple fronts. Prior to joining Trainline, Murray was CEO of Avis Europe between 2004 and 2008 where he spearheaded the restructuring and refinancing of the organization and brought about the end of the company’s prolonged profit decline.
Prior to this Murray was the CEO of buy.com UK which was acquired by the John Lewis Partnership in 2001. Using buy.com as a platform Murray created johnlewis.com which has become a major force for John Lewis. Murray’s previous experience includes executive positions within Tricon Global restaurants and he also spent 5 years with Bain and Company as a management consultant.
thetrainline.com is the UK’s leading independent online retailer of train tickets employing over 300 people. The business sells train tickets for all train companies and routes and serves millions of UK train travellers each year.
Our goal is to help leisure and business travellers save money on train tickets whether it’s online, on the phone or increasingly on mobile. A compelling value proposition, customer led product innovation and powerful marketing have made us one of the most successful online businesses in the UK. thetrainline.com is the UK’s 6th most visited travel website, and the 25th most visited UK e-commerce site.
Dr. Stefan Groß-Selbeck, CEO, XING
Dr. Stefan Gross-Selbeck has been CEO of XING AG since January 2009. In this position he is responsible for pursuing and broadening XING’s growth strategy through the opening up of additional new business fields and the ongoing enhancement of the services on offer to members. Before he was General Manager of eBay Deutschland. Under his management, Germany became the biggest eBay market outside the US. Prior to this, he was Managing Director at ProSiebenSat1 Media AG, responsible for Branding and Finance. From 1997 to 2000 he worked as a Management Consultant for the Boston Consulting Group. He studied Law and Political Economics in Fribourg, Lausanne, Montpellier and Cologne and holds an MBA from INSEAD/Fontainebleau.
XING is the social network for business professionals. More than 11.1 million members worldwide use XING to boost their business, job, and career. XING is a platform where professionals from all kinds of different industries can meet up, find jobs, colleagues, new assignments, cooperation partners, experts and generate business ideas. Members can meet and exchange views in over 50,000 specialist groups, also getting together at networking events. The platform is operated by XING AG (over 300 employees), which was founded in Hamburg, Germany, in 2003 and has been publicly listed since 2006. In December 2010, XING acquired amiando AG, Europe’s leading provider of online event management and ticketing.
Online Gaming – Panel Discussion
Christoph Jennen
Born in 1966, Christoph Jennen received his graduate degree in business economics at the University of Regensburg, Germany. Focusing his studies on investment, financing and taxation, Jennen graduated in 1993. Following his studies, Jennen held executive positions at KPMG Deutsche Treuhandgesellschaft, Arthur Andersen, Global Sportnet and DocMorris. In October 2008, Christoph Jennen joined Gameforge AG, where he has since been serving as CFO on the executive board. Today, Gameforge employs more than 450 people, and with more than 200 million registered users, Gameforge has become the largest developer and publisher of free-to-play online games in the western hemisphere.
Gameforge is Europe’s leading provider of online games. The company – based in Karlsruhe, Germany – currently offers 20 games in more than 50 languages and has more than 300 million registered users world-wide. Their portfolio includes two types of games: Client-based massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), including Europe’s most successful MMO, Metin2, as well as 4Story and the European version of Wizard101; and top-quality browser-based games such as the award-winning Ikariam, OGame, and the upcoming Star Trek – Infinite Space. Gameforge currently has approximately 500 employees at their headquarters in Karlsruhe. In 2010, Gameforge won the “TOP JOB – Employer of the Year” award and was named one of Germany’s best employers in 2010 by the Great Place to Work® Institute.
Moderator: Tim Merel, Managing Director, Digi-Capital
Tim Merel is Managing Director of Digi-Capital (www.digi-capital.com), the digital investment bank focused on games across Europe, North America and Asia (China, Japan and South Korea). As well as its investment banking and venture partner work, Digi-Capital publishes its 2011 Global Video Games Investment Review http://slidesha.re/dJwTaX, which focuses on the rise of online/mobile games, China and investment across sectors. Contact Tim (tim.merel@digi-capital.com).
Heiko Hubertz, Founder and Managing Director, Bigpoint
Heiko Hubertz is the founder and managing director of the Hamburg-based Bigpoint GmbH and San Francisco-based Bigpoint Inc. Founded in 2002 in Düsseldorf, Bigpoint has become the world’s largest portal for browser games and ranks among the top three gaming portals worldwide. Hubertz started Bigpoint GmbH by developing the first game, Hockey Manager, himself. Since its founding, Bigpoint has expanded to 700 employees from 35 nations who utilize cutting-edge technology to develop and operate a diverse range of browser-based games that are enjoyed worldwide by well over 200 million registered players and growing. Prior to founding Bigpoint, Hubertz leveraged new technology to pioneer new services in Europe. As the Managing Director of AASP GmbH, he created the first telephone payment system. With the merger of AASP with eops AG and Coolspot AG, the native of Schleswig-Holstein was responsible for running the most successful payment solutions company in Europe from 1999 to 2003. Over the course of his career, Hubertz has won several executive leadership awards. In 2009, he received the Stevie® International Business Award as the “Executive of the Year in Europe.” In 2007, he received second place as Internet Businessman of the Year. Bigpoint has also received many industry awards, including the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and a Red Dot design award in 2009, among many others. As a business advisor and mentor, Hubertz is personally committed to promoting and supporting young start-up companies, such as Young Internet GmbH (panfu.de), Tipy Inc. (tipy.com), and Easybill GmbH (easybill.de).
Kai Bolik, CEO and Co-Founder, GameDuell
Kai Bolik is CEO and co-founder of GameDuell. As a serial entrepreneur, he contributes the strategic vision and management experience that has made GameDuell one of the best monetizing and one of the largest cross-platform social games communities worldwide. In operation since 2003, the company grew profitably from zero to more than 70 million registered users. Popular titles like Bubble Popp and Jungle Jewels are played across GameDuell branded sites, social networks and mobile platforms like Android and iOS. More than 200 employees in Berlin, Asia and San Francisco are accompanying GameDuell on its journey into the future.
Kai holds an MS in computer science from the City University of New York, a diploma in Telecommunications from the Technical University of Berlin and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Dan Kelly, F2P Gaming Enthusiast
Dan is a leading executive and fifteen-year veteran of the online gaming and consumer media industries. Dan is currently serving as a consultant and advisor to Gameforge, the leading European publisher of free-to-play online games, where he assists the company in a variety of strategic and operational initiatives. As the past CEO of Bleacher Report, Dan oversaw the development of the company’s unique editorial model, which allows it to cover hundreds of teams, athletes, and events each day — far surpassing the capabilities of traditional publishers. Reaching 20 Million unique readers each month, Bleacher Report is one of the largest destinations on the web, and one of the five largest properties in the sports category. As the founding CEO of Sparter, a pioneering company in the virtual goods and online games space, Dan and his team developed and operated a unique peer-to-peer platform for the global trading of virtual currencies from online games and virtual worlds. Sparter’s ground-breaking system made it possible for gamers of different languages, currency units and payment systems to safely and easily trade with each other. Dan was previously senior vice president of business development for THQ where, as a member of the company’s executive management team, he was responsible for building out the company’s portfolio of original titles and expanding the internal studio network. A few of the key franchises published by THQ as a result of Dan’s leadership include Company of Heroes, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, Supreme Commander, Full Spectrum Warrior, Destroy All Humans!, Juiced, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Frontlines: Fuel of War, Titan Quest, and Stuntman; studios added include Relic Entertainment, Juice Games, Kaos Studios, Vigil Games, and Paradigm Entertainment. Before joining THQ, Dan was an executive with The Walt Disney Company where he held several management positions in the consumer products division. As head of business development and licensing for Disney Interactive, Dan was responsible for negotiating the ground-breaking relationship with Square-Enix for the production of the hugely successful Kingdom Hearts and for broadening the unit’s revenue base through development of library properties. He also served as president of marketing and distribution for the award-winning television production company Cartoon Pizza, a spin-off from The Walt Disney Company. Dan holds a Bachelor of Science with a double major in Economics and Engineering Science from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Business Administration with a double major in Finance and Marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He resides in the Heidelberg, Germany, with his wife and three daughters.
Alexey Kostarev, CEO and Co-founder, i-Jet Media
In 2001, after graduating from the Urals State Technical University in Russia, Alexey Kostarev founded an Internet providing company, Medialt. In 2005, he sold it, and co-founded i-Jet Media as a browser-based game developer. In 2009-2010, Alexey transformed the company’s business model to technology-based distribution of independent developers’ social games. Alexey is a finalist of the Mashable Awards in the Entrepreneur of the Year category, the IT Person of the Year in Russia, and winner of the Communication for Future award presented in Davos (Switzerland).
i-Jet Media is one of the world’s largest distribution networks and publishers of social games. Nowadays, 70+ million users play applications created by 40+ developers and published by i-Jet Media on 30+ social networks across the world. In August 2011, the company presented a new all-inclusive platform for social games, i-Jet Connect. Employees: 100.
Riccardo Zacconi, CEO, King.com
Riccardo Zacconi is the CEO and co-founder of King.com, the world’s leading cross-platform social games developer. With over 20 years of experience in strategic management, consulting and e-commerce, Zacconi brings exceptional knowledge and expertise to both the social and casual games domains. In his role as CEO and co-founder, he has led the creation of more than 200 games in 14 languages, with over 800 million games played per month through the company’s premier destination site, King.com (www.king.com), as well as on Facebook and on mobile devices.
Prior to establishing King.com, Zacconi was vice president of sales and marketing in Europe for the successful dating service, uDate.com, and was instrumental in driving the market penetration and partnerships which led to the eventual buyout by InterActive Corporation (IAC). Before that, he was CEO for Spray Network, the online portal in Hamburg, with presence in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. In this role, Zacconi demonstrated his understanding for developing solid company strategy, intelligent plans for sustainable growth and strategic partnerships, which led to the successful sale of Spray Network to Lycos for $764 million. The foundations of Zacconi’s career can be found in mergers and acquisitions for both LEK partnership and Boston Consulting Group in Germany.
King.com is a worldwide leader in cross-platform casual games with over 30 million unique visitors and more than 900 million games played per month globally. King.com offers more than 200 exclusive games in 14 languages across the globe through its premier destination, King.com (www.king.com), on mobile devices, and on Facebook, where it is the 6th largest Facebook games developer. King.com is the exclusive provider of online games for leading global portals, websites and media companies. King.com has offices in London, Hamburg, Stockholm, Milan and Los Angeles. For more information, please visit www.king.com.
Peter Driessen, CEO, Spil Games
Spil Games’ (www.spilgames.com)mission is to unite the world in play through a localized global network of online social-gaming platforms tailored to girls (GirlsgoGames.co.uk), teens (Agame.com), and families (Games.co.uk). These platforms, offered in up to 19 languages, entertain 130 million unique visitors each month. Spil has a collection of 4,000+ online games developed both internally and through partnerships. These casual, social games encourage players to connect and challenge themselves and each other while sharing their creativity. Additionally, Spil Games is present on the world’s leading social networks and on mobile devices through browser-based versions of the company’s social-gaming platforms.
As Spil’s CEO and co-founder, Peter Driessen focuses on human-resources management, strategy, and mergers and acquisitions. His goal for the company has always been to assemble an experienced and passionate team that is in tune with the wants and needs of today’s consumers, and to leverage that experience and passion to develop the world’s favorite online playground.
Jan Miczaika, Head of Operations, Wooga
Jan Miczaika is Head of Operations at wooga, the world’s third largest provider of social games. He oversees a number of areas including Marketing, HR, Customer Care, Localization and Community Management. Additionally Jan is a non-executive board member of Hitmeister, an e-commerce marketplace he co-founded in 2004. Previously Jan worked and interned at a number of startups and venture capitalists. Jan studied Business Management in Marburg, Leipzig (HHL), Kuala Lumpur and Vallendar (WHU).
Founded in 2009, wooga’s free-to-play games are enjoyed by almost forty million active players per month – 70% of which are women. wooga creates high quality games for Facebook and (soon) iOS, with a focus on emotional characters, usability, and superb localization in nine languages.
wooga´s games generate revenue by selling virtual goods: Monster World players, for example, have bought more than thirty million magic wands – making wooga the biggest supplier of magic equipment in the world.
Google Power (SEO/SEM) – The Google Dependency Question
Ed Stevenson, MD Europe, Marin Software
Mayer Reich, CEO & Co-Founder, Rankabove
RankAbove was created in April 2007 to develop a SaaS search platform that could give actionable data to those that directly affect website changes including SEO pros; IT Managers and marketing professionals. Drive makes day-to-day work tasks easier to manage and accomplishes faster and more accurate results. Better search results have led to significant growth to RankAbove’s client’s online visits and increases in the organizations bottom line! RankAbove has a growing roster of A-list clients including several Fortune 500 companies and some of the top brands in the world in the fields of media, travel and finance.
RankAbove has succeeded in creating an emergent and dynamic organization with committed high level professionals all who are experts in their own fields of SEO. RankAbove has offices in New York and Israel and currently employs 16 people.
Marcus Tober, CEO, Searchmetrics
Searchmetrics are the leading experts in Search Analytics. It offers a unique SaaS product with deep insights and competitive data into SEO, SEM and Social. Customers are e.g. Siemens, BILD, Symantec, ZEISS, Crate&Barrel and ProSieben/Sat.1. The company is based in Berlin with offices in New York, London and Paris. The number of employees is about 90.
Peter Herold, Founder, Xamine
Peter Herold is Managing Director of Munich based Xamine GmbH which he founded in 2005. The 40-year-old has a long-standing career as entrepreneur. Before he launched Xamine he led WMS Asset Management AG, founded by him in 2003. Before that he was Director Strategy Germany at Netscalibur Deutschland GmbH. From 1994 to 2001 he led Securitas Internet Systems GmbH.
Xamine’s worldwide available SaaS solution provides agencies and enterprises with a high-end decisive instrument for reduction of everyday labour for set-up, optimization and controlling of paid search-campaigns. Xamine covers 47 countries worldwide and examines 24/7 more than 75 million adverts, monitors 48 millions domain-names and over 1.4 billion searchesults on Google, Bing / Yahoo.
Besides, Xamine co-operates with internationally leading data suppliers and provides all important KPI’s for professional and effective of SEA campaigns in a unitary system.
Making Money with Apps – Business Models that Work
Moderator: Zita Saurel, Principal, Hellman & Friedman
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Ms. Saurel is a Principal at Hellman & Friedman in the London office. She is a Director of Web Reservations International, and was active in the Firm’s investments in Gartmore Investment Management Limited, IRIS Software Group Limited, The Nielsen Company and SSP Holdings plc. Prior to joining the Firm in 2005, Ms. Saurel worked at Investcorp in London and the Leveraged Finance department of Lehman Brothers in London. Ms. Saurel graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University where she was a Krogh Scholar and elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She is fluent in English, French and Spanish.
Hellman & Friedman LLC, founded in 1984, is a private equity investment firm well respected for its distinctive investment philosophy and approach. Our offices are located in San Francisco, London, and New York. We raised our first institutional private equity fund in 1987. During our 24-year investing history, we have raised over $25 billion of committed capital and have invested in over 75 companies. We are currently investing our seventh fund, Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners VII, L.P. (HFCP VII), with over $8.9 billion of committed capital. Our objective is to invest long-term equity capital to support the strategic and financial objectives of outstanding management teams operating businesses with defensible positions in growing markets. Over our lifetime, we have distinguished ourselves as a flexible source of capital and a value-added partner.
Adam Boyden, President, Conduit
Adam Boyden is responsible for strategic direction, marketing and business development for Conduit. Conduit is the fastest-growing network of web and mobile app publishers with over 260,000 members and their 230 million end-users, with over 230 employees. The Conduit Network empowers publishers – from global brands to independent developers – to create, exchange and distribute apps, and to collaborate through business partnerships. Conduit-powered apps enhance engagement, retention and monetization beyond the boundaries of the publisher’s website.
Before joining Conduit, Boyden was an executive at Xfire (acquired by MTVN for $110 million), Co-Founder and CEO of Autodaq (now OpenLane) acquired by KAR for $210 million, and founder of China Consultancy. Adam is a contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine, iMediaConnection, MarketingProfs, and MediaPost.
Matthias Henze, CEO, Jimdo
Matthias studied business at the University of Kiel (Germany) and the University of Gothenburg (Sweden). Straight out of college, he moved to an old farmhouse in the Northern German countryside with Christian and Fridtjof (co-founders), where they founded their first company together. Out of that venture, the three friends launched Jimdo in 2007, as a free and very easy-to-use website creator.
Since then, Jimdo has been used to create and host over 4 million websites, and has expanded to 11 languages, with offices in Hamburg, Germany, as well as San Francisco, Tokyo and Shanghai. Over 70 team members from over 15 countries help to make Jimdo great.
Johann Völkers, CEO myTaxi Spain, myTaxi
Johann Völkers is the co-founder and CEO of myTaxi Spain, founded 2009 in Germany. The young entrepreneur graduated with a degree in International Business Administration at the La Salle University in Barcelona. Besides his position in the advisory board of “myTaxi”, he is now managing the companies’ expansion into the Spanish market.
Just a few clicks on the smartphone and the closest taxi is on it’s way. The integrated map shows the taxi driver approaching the clients’s position, and a few moments later the taxi arrives.
“myTaxi” is the innovative taxi service, that makes the conventional taxi dispatch services unnecessary. This simple application is revolutionizing the whole industry a nd has now cracked the national borders, ready for a global take-off. With 45 employees, approximately 5.000 registered taxis and more than 300.000 downloads, “myTaxi” is Europe’s first mover and market leader.
Andrej Nabergoj, Founder, Iddiction
Born in Slovenia, Andrej Nabergoj co-founded and led internet start-ups in the U.S., Europe and Japan, including Httpool, a leading emerging markets online advertising network, and Noovo Games, a developer of social games.
Based in Palo Alto, Andrej was the founding CEO of Outfit7, best known as the creator of Talking Tom. Outfit7 was one of the world’s leading and fastest growing mobile entertainment companies with over 160 million downloads on iOS and Android devices.
Andrej recently started of Iddiction, a stealth mobile application start-up.
Andrej also serves as chairman for YES, a charitable association of young leaders in Eastern Europe and was an advisor to USAID. Andrej is an active TEDster and was co-curator of TEDx Silicon Valley. In 2009, the World Economic Forum in Davos named Andrej a Young Global Leader.
Sebastian Funke, Co-Founder & CEO, sMeet Communications
Sebastian Funke is Co-Founder and CEO of sMeet, Europe’s largest 3D interactive Social Game. At sMeet he coordinates the strategic and operational marketing as well as the business development including all partnerships worldwide. Furthermore, he is responsible for all financial and legal matters. Since taking over as CEO in the beginning of 2009 he was building up the team to over 110 employees, bringing Smeet to over 15 countries and grewing Smeet’s user basis to over 10 million users worldwide.
Before founding Smeet he was founder and Co-CEO of a German based online and media entertainment company and was working for multinational companies such as JPMorgan, London and McKinsey & Company, Berlin. Sebastian holds an MBA from the reknown WHU – Koblenz, Germany as well as from the Universidad Comercial in Bilbao, Spain.
Smeet combines the best of social gaming on Facebook (high retention and virality) with the best of social interaction of a 3D world (synchronous interaction and high monetization) on one platform with multiple entry points: Users can enter the Smeet gaming world through the Smeet application on Facebook, Smeet’s own destination site or one of Smeet’s gaming worlds integrated on partner websites. All of Smeet’s gaming worlds are connected, so that users can easily access all worlds with the same account and same avatar. Posting and requesting functionalities to Facebook are available in all gaming worlds.
Alessandra Silvestri, Director, Velti
Velti is a leading global provider of mobile marketing and advertising solutions for brands, advertising agencies, mobile operators, and media companies. The Velti mGage™ platform enables our customers to plan, manage, and optimize mobile advertising and marketing campaigns in over 50 countries worldwide, reaching more than 3.7 billion customers. Thirteen of the twenty largest mobile operators worldwide have run campaigns with Velti. In 2010, over 825 brands, advertising agencies, mobile operators, and media companies used Velti’s platform to conduct over 2,700 campaigns. Velti is a publicly-held corporation based in Jersey, with over 800 employees worldwide. Velti began trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol VELT. For more information visit www.velti.com
Uri Levine, Founder and President, Waze
Even though I have two decade of experience in the mobile and application space, including senior position in market leaders (at the time), when I’m thinking of my career – nothing compares to waze, to found and build from scratch the most amazing company I’ve ever seen and to be a part, a leading part of the revolution – from my perspective it doesn’t matter what I’ve done before anymore.
What if every driver on the road will tell the rest of the drivers what’s going on – right now, right here? What if we can collect all that information – and tell every drivers which route should be taken right now? What if we can shave 5 minutes of your daily commute? Waze can – waze is the network of drivers which harness the drivers’ wisdom into one huge knowledge base the livemap which is generate by the drivers and it is for the drivers and deliver that to all the drivers who are using the free waze application on their smartphones. In that sense every driver is gathering information for the rest of the drivers to fight together the big common enemy – traffic jams.
Stéphane Le Viet, CEO, Work4 Labs
Stéphane Le Viet is the CEO and Co-founder of Work4 Labs (www.work4labs.com), the company behind Facebook’s #1 recruiting solution, Work for Us. Having co-founded two other tech businesses and taught at Sciences Po, Stéphane brings over ten years of startup experience and HR technology expertise to the company. Stéphane earned his MA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and his BS/MS in Electrical Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique.
Work4 Labs’ core product, Work for Us, enables companies to post, socially distribute, and advertise jobs on their Facebook fan pages. Over 9,000 companies around the world use Work4 Labs products, including Accenture, Intel, L’Oréal, PwC, Gap, Hard Rock Cafe, and Oracle. Work4 Labs was founded in 2010 and currently has 25 employees located in offic es in San Francisco and Paris.
Online Travel – Panel Discussion
Moderator: Harry Nelis, Partner, Accel Partners
Harry joined Accel in 2004 and invests in both early and late-stage internet and software companies. He led Accel’s investments in, among others, Check24, an online price comparison service for consumer financial products in Germany; Gameforge, a developer and publisher of MMOGs; Kayak, an online search service for consumer travel; and Showroomprive, an online private sales club. Before joining Accel, Harry was at Perry Capital, a $10bn hedge fund, where he invested in public communications, media and technology companies. Prior to this, he was at Goldman Sachs, where he advised businesses on corporate finance and M&A transactions. Harry spent the first decade of his career in Silicon Valley, where he founded E-motion, a venture-backed software company. He started his career at Hewlett-Packard, where he held various engineering positions. He is an active member of the World Economic Forum and serves on the Selection Committee of the WEF Technology Pioneers Programme. Harry holds an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and a PhD and MS in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.
Malte Siewert, Founder / CFO, Trivago
Malte is a co-founder of trivago and responsible for the areas of Sales, Finance, and Business Development. Prior to trivago he worked at HSBC and Merrill Lynch, where he advised numerous M&A and Capital Market transactions. Malte studied in Greifswald, Washington, and Leipzig. He holds an MBA from the Leipzig Graduate School of Management.
trivago is the largest hotel price comparison and information website worldwide. Every month, 15 million users trust trivago as their starting point for travel research. trivago helps users find their ideal hotel and book it for the lowest possible rate. The international team of more than 120 people is located in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Hugo Burge, CEO, Cheapflights
Hugo Burge became Executive Chairman of Cheapflights Media in 2009. In May 2011, Hugo also became Chief Executive Officer of the group. Hugo co-led Cheapflights’ original management buy-in with David Soskin in March 2000 and has helped grow the company from a three-person attic operation in London into an international leader in travel search. Hugo has held a variety of roles including leading the 2003 launch of Cheapflights US which has become the company’s largest business. In March 2011 he led the acquisition of the much praised Danish meta-search site Momondo.com. Prior to joining Cheapflights, Hugo was an entrepreneur with a background in property investment. Hugo has a passion for travel and holds a Degree in Geography from Cambridge University, and is a member of the Royal Geographical Society. In 2007, together with David Soskin, Hugo co-launched the internet investment fund HOWZAT Media whose investments include trivago, AlexandAlexa and academia.edu. In 2008, Hugo won Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in the Travel Industry Hall of Fame.
The trusted partner in flights search and travel inspiration, Cheapflights Media is a global Internet media network that has been delivering great deals since 1996. Headquartered in London with offices in Boston and Toronto, Cheapflights Media serves advertisers and consumers through its international portfolio of Web sites and services. Packed with travel guides, tips and the latest news and information, the Cheapflights sites are online shopping comparison engines that make it easy for consumers with flexible schedules to research, compare and save on domestic and international trips. With brand-name deals on airline tickets from hundreds of travel partners and airlines and a team of travel experts hand picking the best offerings, Cheapflights offers visitors an independent mix of deals and travel inspiration they can’t find anywhere else. With over 100 million international visitors in 2010, Our advertising partners made estimated sales though Cheapflights’ websites of US$2.6 Billion globally in 2010. There are currently Cheapflights-branded sites for the U.K., U.S., Canada, Germany, Australia & New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain.
Serge Faguet, Co-founder and CEO, Ostrovok.ru
Serge is responsible for building the team, supply base and investor base of Ostrovok.ru, the leading online hotel booking company for Russian speakers.
Ostrovok.ru is staffed by a team of engineers from Yandex, hotel experts from Booking.com, and marketing experts from leading Russian ecommerce companies. The company is backed by Accel Partners, General Catalyst Partners, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, and a number of leading online travel investors.
Serge began his career at the head office of Google in California and was youngest in his MBA class at Stanford GSB. Before returning to Russia was founder and CEO of video communications company TokBox where together with his partner he raised $14 million from top VC Sequoia Capital and the founders/top managers of YouTube, Google, PayPal and Cisco.
Friedrich von Scanzoni , COO, HolidayCheck
In former life a lawyer, Friedrich von Scanzoni joined in the Corporate Development of Bertelsmann in 2000. 2003 he became Director European Business Development at Lycos Europe.
2006 he joint as Head of Corporate Development Tomorrow Focus AG, a leading German online company and investor and part of the Hubert Burda Media Group. In this function he was e.g. managing the acquisition of HolidayCheck and Elitepartner. In 2008 he became Managing Director of HolidayCheck International and is now driving the international expansion of this local champion.
HolidayCheck is a hotel review plattform and online travel agency, that provides user generated reviews and other relevant travel content. With over 18 mio. visits per month it is marketing leading in Germany, Austria and Swiss and now successfull expanding into other European markets.
Axel Schmiegelow, Chairman, itravel
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Axel Schmiegelow is a serial entrepreneur and new media expert from Europe – focused on the web, social media, and software. Axel has co-founded several game-changing startups from Europe, including the IPTV platform sevenload, the social travel company itravel, travel retail software company webtravel, and the first online bookmarking service, oneview. His investment company, dw capital, was also the co-founding angel investor in Europe’s leading online review company Qype and a number of other innovative startups. MIT is a shareholder in dw capital. In addition, he is also a Chairman representative of several tech and media associations in Germany and is on the Broadcasting Council of WDR Group, Germany’s public television network. Axel has more than 15 years of experience as a consultant, agency executive and serial entrepreneur. He is known for his enthusiastic and entrepreneurial spirit combined with a business-savvy, venture capitalist understanding and attitude. He is considered an expert in marketing, social media and entrepreneurship, and is a regular keynote speaker at leading industry events. Axel studied Law with a scholarship from the elite German National Academic Foundation at Sorbonne University in Paris and the University of Cologne, and completed an executive entrepreneurship program at MIT in 2000.
RJ Friedlander, CEO, Reviewpro
RJ Friedlander is the founder and CEO of ReviewPro. The company helps hoteliers to increase guest satisfaction and increase revenue by proactively managing their online reputation. The company gathers more than 100 million reviews — in 14 languages – from thousands of sources, including over 70 of the most relevant online travel agencies, review sites as well as leading social media Websites. With thousands of hotels in 45 countries using the ReviewPro solution, they are the world leaders in their space. Prior to Reviewpro, Friedlander worked for 17 years in the Internet and technology sector in Europe, the US and Asia. He spent the 10 years as a senior executive in Grupo Planeta, one of Spain’s largest media companies, overseeing the group’s Digital Media Division. In addition to running the day-to-day business of ReviewPro, he is an advisor and private investor in several other Internet and technology companies.
ReviewPro was started with the idea that if hotels could listen and respond to what customers are saying about them online, they could improve guest experience and drive revenue growth. Founded in early 2008, ReviewPro launched the Standard Version (beta) in April 2009 and the Advanced Version (beta) of our product in September of that same year. We initiated our sales activity that same month and since then, we have grown to more than 1,500 clients. This rapid growth was achieved by delivering measurable results and helping our clients profit from the social web.
Nina Pogossova, Co-Founder and CEO, Travelmenu
Travelmenu is the only Russian Online Travel Agency, where the Russian consumer can book and search in all three major travel categories — 277,000 hotels globally, 500 airlines and over 4,000 packages from leading tour operators. Addressing the mid-market, Travelmenu offers a Lowest Price Guarantee to its customers in all of its hotel and packages product. Customers can transact securely and conveniently online via credit cards or in Russia popular e-payment methods but also by cash via its network of 2,700 offline travel agency partners. Travelmenu raised Series A financing by leading Russian technology investors, Runa Capital and Almaz Capital Partners. The company has currently approx. 50 employees located in Russia and the Ukraine and is rapidly growing to become the leading online travel brand in the CIS region.
Roman Bach, CMO, 9Flats
9flats.com is an innovative online marketplace that connects people who want to rent out a spare room, flat or igloo with people who want to stay in more personal accommodation than a hotel when they travel. We have over 45,000 members now and 25,000 hosts in over 45 countries around the world. Through us, you can find short-term stays in anything from a luxury apartment in the centre of a city, to a treehouse in a forest. In short, something that suits every taste and budget. And, importantly, this is all done in a safe way, with secure payment.
Roman Bach is building Internet Projects since 15 years and has been successfully working for different Bertelsmann companies before starting his own businesses. Roman joined 9flats as CMO at an early stage and is focused on forming 9flats into the leading European brand in social rental of private accommodation.
Finance Panel – How Internet Investing Is Changing
Jörg Mohaupt, Partner, Access Industries
Mr. Mohaupt has been associated with Access Industries since May 2007, in the
TMT sector. Mr. Mohaupt was a managing director of Providence Equity Partners and a member of the London-based team responsible for Providence’s European investment activities. Before joining Providence, in 2004, he was an executive director at Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers in their TMT groups and co-founded and managed Continuum Group Limited, a communications services venture business. Mr. Mohaupt serves on the boards of Perform Group Plc., AINMT, Rebate Networks, Mendeley Research Networks, Icon Entertainment International, Tory Burch LLC and Acision B.V.
Access Industries was founded by Len Blavatnik in 1986 as a privately held, US based industrial group with long term holdings spanning Natural Resources, Chemicals, Media, Telecommunications and Real Estate worldwide. There are approximately 110 people working for Access Industries throughout New York, London and Moscow.
Michael Marcovici, Founder, DDF
Michael Marcovici’s expertise in online business stretches back as far as to 1991 when the internet still worked without WWW and domains. He is also the founder of the Austria Letter, a financial experts magazine, and was a private equity fund manager for 5 years. A couple of years later, Michael operated as the biggest ebay powerseller worldwide. Michael became involved with domains in 2002 when he started to register valuable domains and started to buy and sell domains. In 2005 he intensified his involvement in domains by buying more domains, especially in ccTLD´s such as Austria and Germany. Besides domaining and investing After 2006 Michael became increasingly involved in online businesses and especially domaining and increased the value of his portfolio. He also founded marshallindex.com in 2008 and domainsindex.com in 2009. In 2010 Michael founded the Domain Developers Fund, currently the only public investment fund for domain names (ddf.lu)
The Domain Developers Fund is the worlds premier fund for domain names, the real estate of the internet. It is an open fund and it enables for the first time to take part in this exiting new business. The DDF, funded in 2010, invests both in existing as well as newly registered Domains. Income is generated from current advertising revenue and from the sale of domains. Twenty years after the launch of the World Wide Web, there remain many opportunities awaiting exploitation. Some locations in the address space of the Web are very expensive in today’s market. “toys.com” sold for 5.5 million USD, “property.com” for 8 million USD. Domain names have become a decisive success factor: the right domain name can save thousands or even millions in online advertising expenditures over time in branding, SEM and SEO. Just as real estate prices increase as top locations are snapped up, so it is for the values of premium domain names.
Lars Hinrichs, Founder, Hack Fwd
Lars Hinrichs (34) is the founder of HackFwd, a serial entrepreneur and investor. One of his first efforts, politik-digital.de, was an award-winning platform for politics and new media he launched at 22. Following that early success, his next venture, a respected new media consulting firm, went bust — but not without first paying rich dividends in learning. Lars applied those learnings to his third major effort, XING, a highly successful business networking platform. As Founder and CEO, Lars oversaw its 2006 IPO, making XING the world’s first Web 2.0 company to go public. He then successfully steered it for two years post IPO. He also became active in investing in and helping secure funding for.
His most recent startup, HackFwd, is an innovative pre-seed investment company that supports Europe’s most passionate geeks in launching the world’s most exciting tech startups. When he’s not working to promote European tech innovation, Lars can be found advising on the Global Leaders of World Economic Forum, the Young Global Leaders, and helping Germany with their digital strategy as part of the UNICEF council. HackFwd is a pre-seed investment company designed to enable great people to launch great ideas. HackFwd´s start-up and support process accelerates the route to beta, profitability, and success.
Jean-David Chamboredon, Founder, ISAI
Since January 2010 Jean-David is the CEO and co-founder of ISAI (see www.isai.fr), the French internet entrepreneurs’ fund founded by several key entrepreneurs such as Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet (Priceminister.com), Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux (The Phone House, Virgin Mobile France) and Stéphane Treppoz (Sarenza.com). ISAI has 35+m€ under management. Jean-David was previously head of the TMT business for 3i Group plc in Paris. He has more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry. Jean-David started his career at Cap Gemini, where he worked for 14 years on system integration. Laterly, he was in charge of Internet related business for Cap Gemini’s Telecom & Media global market unit, founding the Cap Gemini Telemedia Lab in Silicon Valley. He then joined the venture capital industry in 2000, first as CTO of Europatweb and then as a partner at Viventures. He focuses primarily on Internet and Software plays in France and Europe and has served on many start-up boards in France, Sweden and the US. Key deals include Okyz (acquired by Adobe), Netonomy Inc (acquired by Comverse), Screentonic (acquired by Microsoft), Highdeal (acquired by SAP), Priceminister.com (acquired by Rakuten) and Seloger.com (listed on Euronext). He’s also invested in successful still private internet companies like Fastbooking and Twenga. He currently serves on the board of Covoiturage.fr, Instantluxe.com, CommerceGuys & Boticca.com. Jean-David has a strong network and numerous connections in the internet and software community, both in Europe and in Silicon Valley. He attended Ecole Polytechnique.
Edward Shenderovich, Managing Director, Kite Ventures
Prior to founding Kite Ventures, Edward was one of the founding executives and Head of Strategic Development at SUP, a Moscow-based online media company, which runs LiveJournal.com, Gazeta.ru, and other leading Russian media brands. Edward is also a co-founder of Ixtens, a multichannel commerce enabler behind some of the world’s top retailers. Edward started his career at Silicon Valley Bank as the Industry Analyst in Communications and Online Services.
Philipp Freise, Head of European Media, KKR
Philipp Freise, Director, has been with KKR since 2001 and heads KKR’s European Media Industry team. Freise led KKR’s investment in BMG Rights Management, and played a significant role in various other KKR media (SBS Broadcasting, ProSiebenSat.1) and German transactions (Demag, Zumtobel, MTU Aero Engines, Duales System Deutschland – Der Grüne Punkt, A.T.U.). Freise currently serves on the board of directors of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG and BMG Rights Management. Freise was a scholar of the German National Scholarship foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) and graduated top of his class at WHU Koblenz, EDHEC Lille and University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business. He later worked at McKinsey & Company in Vienna, Frankfurt and New York, and subsequently co-founded Berlin-based investment firm Venturepark, which was sponsored by Bertelsmann, Goldman Sachs and DaimlerChrysler, among others. In 2009, Freise was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
Founded in 1976 and led by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, KKR is a leading global investment firm with $61.9 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2011. With offices around the world, KKR manages assets through a variety of investment funds and accounts covering multiple asset classes. KKR seeks to create value by bringing operational expertise to its portfolio companies and through active oversight and monitoring of its investments. KKR complements its investment expertise and strengthens interactions with investors through its client relationships and capital markets platform. KKR is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: KKR). For additional information, please visit KKR’s website at www.kkr.com.
Tomasz Czechowicz, Founder, MCI
Graduated from Wroclaw University of Technology, Warsaw School of Economics and University of Minnesota. Founded the MCI Group, of the most dynamic private equity groups in the CEE Region, managing a diversified portfolio of alternative assets. Current operations of MCI cover three basic private equity strategies: venture capital, buy-out & expansion, real estate & infrastructure. MCI manages 7 funds. The value of MCI’s AUM reaches above 823 M PLN. The MCI Group has so far closed 44 investment projects, 19 full exits and 6 partial exit transactions. MCI’s focus is at private equity investments in the CEE Region. In the period between 01.01.1999 and 30.06 2011 MCI Management SA generated net IRR at the level of 23,5 % (average net IRR of the whole MCI Management SA portfolio in the period 01.01.1999 –30.06.2011 – the sum of full and partial exits and book valuation of the portfolio as on 31.03.2011).
Richard Muirhead, Chariman, Fanatix
Richard is Chairman of London based Fanatix the leader in how to get the most out of live sports and music, Interim CEO of New York-based Oriel, a pioneer in handmade food and wine from around the world and a principal with Archimedia. He is also working with a team of investors and government bodies to unlock more risk capital in the UK. Richard is an advisor to Envolven Software (Tel Aviv) and a number of charitable endeavours.
He was a founder, Chairman & CEO of Tideway Systems which tackled the fundamental challenge of making change in distributed applications, more important than even in today’s versatile and sustainable “cloud” architectures.
From 2001 – 2002 he was Entrepreneur-In-Residence at the inception of Accel Partner’s London Office.
In 1996 he was co-founder and SVP of Orchestream which listed on the LSE in 2000 with a peak market capitalization of £1.0 billion. Today, its product is marketed by Oracle under Oracle communications IP Service Activator brand and automates service providers including AT&T, Telstra and Vodafone.
From 1994 Richard was a strategy consultant at Monitor, setting up the Moscow office and executing a wide range of projects in France, Portugal, Holland, Germany, Serbia, Poland, Czech Republic and Russia.
E-Commerce Business Models – Generalists vs. Specialists
Lucas Carné, Founder & CEO, Privalia
Lucas Carné (Barcelona, 1971) founded, together with José-Manuel Villanueva, a company that other private online sales clubs now look up to: Privalia. A Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from the Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyers Industrials de Barcelona (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – UPC) , he subsequently completed his education at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and with an MBA from IESE Business School (Universidad de Navarra). Prior to founding Privalia, he developed his professional career at Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm, where he rose to become a Senior Manager in the company. A clear and concise man, his greatest virtue lies in his ideas: he has so many of them, and he expresses them with crystal clarity. A strategist who saw the future of fashion and, five years later, he has led his company to the premier position in each of the countries where it operates.
Privalia is a private sales club which organises the sale of leading name products at exceptional prices exclusively for club members. Established in Barcelona in 2006, at present it has over 9 million members worldwide and is the leader in Spain, Italy, Brazil and Mexico. The Group grew its income by 141% in 2010 and employs 940 people, who work at offices in Barcelona, Milan, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, and Frankfurt, where it recently acquired leading German Internet retailer Dress for Less.
Sonali de Rycker, Partner, Accel Partners
Sonali is a General Partner at Accel Partners, a leading global venture firm. Sonali has been active in the European venture business for 12 years focusing on investments in the consumer internet and digital media sectors. Sonali is responsible for investments KupiVIP, Wonga, Seatwave.com, StylistPick and Spotify. Prior to Accel, Sonali was a Partner at Atlas Venture in London where she invested primarily in internet and software as a service businesses. While at Atlas Venture she led investments in Moo, Globoforce, Skinstore (acquired by Drugstore.com) and Seatwave (where she was the founding investor). She was also a board member at Magicalia (acquired by Exponent Private Equity) and Moreover (acquired by Verisign). Sonali started her career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in New York City where she was actively involved in M&A and financings for a number of clients including many high growth technology businesses. While at Goldman Sachs Sonali co-founded the Business Development Group, a new business unit within the investment banking division successfully set up to exclusively source and execute on acquisitions of smaller, fast growing businesses for the Fortune 50. Sonali attended Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania where she received a full merit based scholarship and graduated magna cum laude in Economics with Honours. Sonali holds an M.B.A from Harvard Business School. Sonali was born and raised in Mumbai, India.
Quentin Griffiths, MD, Achica
Quentin set up online fashion phenomenon ASOS.com with Nick Robertson in 2000 and sat on the board with specific responsibility for marketing. The business listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 2001 and he left in 2005 once the business achieved profitability. ASOS currently has a £1.4bn valuation on AIM (Sept 2011).The experience at ASOS enabled him to invest and advise in a few other online retail ventures, particularly YourSchoolUniform.com, a business that sells school branded clothing direct to parents over the web. In 2009 he sold the business to Otto (global mail order business).After a few years of non-exec roles, Quentin was ready to get involved in an executive position again and set up ACHICA.com with Will Cooper (ex-CEO of TradeDoubler) in 2009. ACHICA gained immediate traction, experiencing strong month-on-month sales growth and is expected to breakeven within 2 years of trading.
QG’s background is in marketing. Prior to his involvement with online retail heran a product placement agency working for blue chip clients like Ford, Mars, Coca-Cola and Carlsberg Tetley.
Launched in February 2010, ACHICA is an online private members club primarily focusing on the Home & Garden retail sector. Members can indulge in an array of private sales each open for 48 hours. Your one-stop destination for chic and desirable luxury lifestyle brands, ACHICA offers coveted, 100% genuine brands at breathtaking prices, topped off with a sprinkling of ACHICA Exclusives that are only available to our members and can’t be found anywhere else. ACHICA’s buyers take time and care in cherry-picking each individual item to ensure that only the most stylish designer products appear in our sales. Shopping categories include Furniture & Lighting, Bed & Bath, Kitchen & Dining, Fashion Accessories, Garden Furniture & Accessories, and the recently launched Art & Objects and Food & Drink. Our sales take place three times a week, on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The promotions start at 7am every day – make sure you get to the sale bright and early to avoid any disappointment, because when something’s gone, it’s gone. Members receive emails prior to the opening of sales, with teasing previews and details of what will be on offer.
Oskar Hartmann, CEO, Kupi VIP
KupiVIP.ru – Russia’s leading online shopping club that organizes new sales events every day with a great selection of fashion brands at best prices. For brands and suppliers, KupiVIP.ru offers a complementary and controllable distribution channel. Located in Moscow with a team of approximately 750 employees, KupiVIP.ru executes over 400 sales events per month. The company is committed to delivering excellent customer services and has its own call centre, fulfillment facilities and a KupiVIP.ru-branded courier service for Moscow. KupiVIP.ru aims for successful long-term relationships with brand holders in Russia and CIS and solves basic inefficiency problems of the fashion industry.
Ian Brotherston, CEO, Qype
Ian Joined Qype in May 2010 and has 20 years’ experience in the technology, media and telecoms industries and internet sector. Previously MD of Qa Business Services, he has fulfilled a number of senior executive positions for AT&T and British Telecom, where he was Director for International Development, working in Europe and Asia. Ian was also Commercial Director of Red Bee Media, the technology spin-off from the BBC and CEO of the French Video portal Dailymotion. Ian also enjoys spending time in Italy where he and his family have restored a barn in the Tuscan countryside, and cheering Aston Villa on. Beneath the family-man exterior though, is a daredevil – Ian once threw himself off one of the world’s highest bungee points – a staggering 400 foot drop over the churning waters of Victoria Falls!
Qype is Europe’s leading consumer reviews site and has revolutionised the way consumers research and choose goods and services. It’s the place to find and share independent, trusted reviews on everything from restaurants to shops, hairdressers to plumbers in over 166,000 cities and towns worldwide. Qype’s free app gives consumers instant, on the go access to reviews wherever and whenever they wish. The site attracts up to 22 million monthly visits, with a new review appearing every 34 seconds. The company now employs over 150 people from 17 different nationalities in four countries: Germany (Hamburg), France (Paris), Spain (Madrid) and the UK (London), and continues to expand. Qype is local and international; helping consumers make informed decisions every day at home and abroad. To join the Qype community visit www.qype.co.uk or to download the Qype app visit www.qype.co.uk/go-mobile
Florian Seubert, CFO & Founder, zooplus AG
Florian Seubert, 37, is CFO and founder of zooplus AG, a dynamically growing online pet supplies online with annual sales of around € 250 mm and a dominant market position across all major European markets. The company has recently announced its plans to double sales no later than 2014 on the back of industry-beating profitability levels. Before setting up zooplus in 1999, Florian was an Investment Banker with JPMorgan International. He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. In addition to his current position, Florian is an active private investor in the European online space.
Online Classified Pricing – NOAH Study and Panel
Dr. Christian Göttsch, CEO & Founder, Experteer
Christian is founder and CEO of Experteer, Europe’s high-end job and recruitment market place. He founded the company to address a growing demand in senior and executive level careers – an uncaptured place in the Internet. He started out in the Internet since the very early stages of the industry. He held various leadership roles at players like Microsoft, Bertelsmann, AOL, CompuServe, when they were at the forefront of the competition. Christian studied business in Munich, St.Gallen and Berkeley and holds a PhD in ‘Business Strategy in the Online Industry’.
Experteer established itself as a European leader in high end careers. The company operates websites in ten European markets and offers a unique consumer premium service targeted at the high-end job market. Senior level professionals with high end career ambitions find 50.000 jobs starting at €60k from the open job market and get confidential access to the “hidden job market” through a discrete network with over 10.000 selected headhunters. With superior recruitment solutions for companies, agencies and headhunters Experteer provides access to 3 Million senior level professional and executives. Experteer managed to monetize both the B2C and the B2B side of the market in a unique freemium business model.
Andrea Piccioni, Chairman, Real Web SA.
Founded RealWeb in 2005 to seed high potential internet businesses proven in other geographies. Previously CEO at eBay Italy from 2002 till 2005, leading the transformation from the start-up phase to an established profitable subsidiary. As General Manager or Marketing Manager at FMCG companies (Procter&Gamble, ReckittBenckiser) between 1998-2001 and 1990-1994 in different regions (Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America). At Boston Consulting Group (1994-1997) as a Consultant with assignments in Italy, France, Germany.
Real Web SA, Luxembourg- Holding company that has developed and maintains controlling stakes in leading classified and financial online markeplaces in Italy, Spain, Poland. In real estate online business manages Immobiliare.it in Italy -the coleading vertical classified site – and Oferty.net in Poland; in financial sector thru Facile/Assicurazione.it in Italy – the leading insurance broker player – and Seguros.es in Spain.
Burak Ertas, CEO, Sahibinden
Burak Ertas joined sahibinden.com in December 2009 for driving the company growth to the next level. Prior to sahibinden.com Ertas worked at Turkcell, Turkey’s #1 mobile operator with 34+ million subscribers. As the Division Head of Consumer Value Added Services, he was responsible of marketing + product management for all non-voice consumer services, company web sites and Internet projects. Before Turkcell, he worked at Telenity as the VP, Product Development and Engineering, a leading VAS technology provider headquartered in US. Ertas holds a BSc.EE and a MBA.
Founded in 2001, sahibinden.com is the leading classifieds and online shopping platform in Turkey with more than 2.4 million active listings, 20+ million monthly UVs and 2 billion PVs. With a team of 180 people, sahibinden.com is enjoying a fast paced growth even after 10 years.
Roland Tripard, CEO/ President of the Board, Groupe SeLoger.com
Roland joined SeLoger in 2008. Prior to that, Roland has had a 10 years’ experience as an internet entrepreneur in the fields of online IT distribution (“WStore”, founded in 1998 and acquired by US based Systemax in 2008). Roland has also worked for The Boston Consulting Group and Procter & Gamble.
Roland is 40 year-old and holds an MBA from HEC.
290 employees
Nathan Coe, Group Director, New Business, Trader Media Group
Nathan joined TMG in 2007 originally as the Managing Director of Strategy & Business Transformation, working with the executive team to realign and execute the strategy to transform the business into the leading online player it is today. As Group Director of New Business Nathan is responsible TMG’s new growth initiatives and customer facing applications, including Digital Marketing Solutions and our fast growing Mobile business. Prior to TMG Nathan led Corporate Development at Sensis (Yellow Pages in Australia) and was part of the Mergers & Acquisitions team at Telstra Corporation (Australia’s leading telecommunications provider).
The Auto Trader branded website and magazines form the core part of Trader Media Group’s business; AutoTrader.co.uk is the UK’s leading motoring website with monthly unique users of up to 10 million per month. Meanwhile, the Auto Trader magazines have an average weekly circulation of circa 89,000 copies across the UK and Ireland. This strong position means TMG operates the number one UK marketplace for motorists and offers unrivalled response to customers’ advertisements. The group monetises its consumer usage – web, mobile and print – principally through the sale of classified advertising to its dealer customers. It has 1,500 FTE’s and operates primarily in the UK, with a branch located in the Republic of Ireland and subsidiary companies in Ireland, South Africa and Italy.
George Hadjigeorgiou, CEO, XE.gr / GoldenGroup
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George is the founder and CEO of GoldenGroup – the leading lifestyle flash-sales company in Southeastern Europe with operations in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. While founding GoldenGroup. George has also been a board member and COO of XE which under his vision and leadership has been transformed from a print classifieds business into the leader in online classifieds in Greece. Prior to that, George was General Manager of Communication and Community Products for Yahoo! in Europe. George joined Yahoo! in April 2004 as a senior member of the Corporate Development team in Europe. Earlier in his career, George worked as a strategy consultant for Accenture and was a co-founder of quaris.com – an online B2B marketplace for goods/services in the Energy industry. George graduated first in his class (Summa Cum Laude) from Tufts University with a Double Major in Mechanical Engineering and Economics and later received an MSc in Mechanical Engineering (with highest honours) from MIT.
XE is a leader in online marketplaces in Southeastern Europe, operating in classifieds, e-commerce and group-buying, It operates xe.gr the largest online classifieds company in Greece and GoldenGroup, the leading flash-sales company in Southeastern Europe. GoldenGroup is dedicated to providing more than 1m members with access to a better lifestyle by accessing products and services and discovering brands at promotional prices. GoldenGroup includes sales for daily experiences (GoldenDeals), travel in the Mediterranean (GoldenTraveller) and soon products for men, women, and home (GoldenBrands).
Traditional Media Media Goes Online – Panel Discussion
Wil Stephens, VP Sales, Boxee
The idea for Boxee was born when founding friends Avner, Gidon, Idan, Tom, and Roee, came up with the idea for boxee in 2004 when they began using Xbox Media Center, open source software for the original Xbox that allowed people to play digital media on their TVs. They became members of XBMC’s open source community and in 2007 imagined a way to take the platform even further. Since 2007, Mr. Ronen and a team of 11 others have worked to extend the base code for XBMC with online sources like hulu and Netflix as well as social networking in boxee.
Dr. Jens Müffelmann, Head of Electronic Media, Axel Springer AG
Dr. Jens Müffelmann joined Axel Springer in 1997. In 1999 he became Head of Corporate Strategy and Development and held several managing director positions in Axel Springer portfolio companies. In 2004 he was appointed as Head of Electronic Media being responsible for the internet, television and radio portfolio at Axel Springer.
Axel Springer was founded in 1946 and has grown to a company with over 11,000 employees active in 35 countries. Axel Springer has over 240 newspapers and magazines and is by far Germany’s largest publisher. Axel Springer has been transforming in the last decade to a leading multimedia company in Europe with more than 140 online offerings as well as holdings in television and radio stations. The digital media activities now account for 30% of total revenues with an EBITDA-margin above 15%.
Wil Stephens, VP International Business Development, Boxee
Shawn Colo, Founder, Demand Media
Shawn Colo co-founded Demand Media in April, 2006 and is presently the EVP, Corporate Development where he leads the company’s mergers and acquisitions activities as well as strategic corporate partnerships. Since the company’s inception, Mr. Colo has led over 30 acquisitions of websites and technology companies in addition to completing over $450 million worth of equity and debt financings for Demand. Prior to founding Demand Media, Mr. Colo was a principal with Spectrum Equity Investors, a $4 billion private equity firm. He holds a BSE in Civil Engineering and Operations Research from Princeton University. Mr. Colo also sits on the Board of Directors of KCRW, Southern California’s leading National Public Radio affiliate and a recognized tastemaker for new music from around the world.
Yenal Gokyildirim, CEO
A graduate of YTÜ Mechanical Engineering and MBA, Yenal Gokyildirim commenced his professional career at A graduate of YTÜ Mechanical Engineering and MBA, Yenal Gokyildirim commenced his professional career at Singapore Airlines and continued in 3M, Honda, DAF and Philips. In his 14 years of Phlips career finally he was the EVP of Western Europe and North America. Gokyildirim was managing the team of 1800 in 19 countries with 5 billions Euros. He was also a part of the company ‘s Global Management Team. Besides his regional duties, he was in charge of “Global Online”, “International Retail Management” ve “Global Brand Management” in Philips. Gokyildirim is currently the CEO of ‘DOGAN ONLINE’. Turkey’s leading Internet holding company. It’s company network includes leading E-commerce platforms and portal businesses which are amongst the top traffic drivers.
Dr. Christian Wegner, Head of Digital, ProSiebenSat.1
Dr. Christian Wegner came to ProSiebenSat.1 in 2004 and has since then held various management positions. As Executive Vice President (EVP) Strategy & Operations, since the beginning of 2009 he has been responsible for all issues relating to the strategic alignment of the media group. For well over a year, as Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer National he has also been responsible for optimizing all processes at the ProSiebenSat.1 TV Deutschland GmbH stations. From 2009 to 2010, Dr. Christian Wegner was a member of the management team at SevenOne Media GmbH. Previously, as EVP Operations and Technology, the 37-year old was responsible for all IT and broadcast issues in the Group. Dr. Christian Wegner joined the Production department at ProSiebenSat.1 in 2006 and shortly afterwards became head of the management team. As Chief Integration Officer he also oversaw the merger process between ProSiebenSat.1 and SBS. Previously he worked for five years as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, supporting clients in the media, private equity and financial sectors. Dr. Christian Wegner studied Business Administration in Frankfurt am Main and took his Ph.D. at Witten-Herdecke University and the Schloss Reichartshausen European Business School.
The ProSiebenSat.1 Group was founded in 2000 as the largest TV company in Germany. The company now has 28 TV channels in 12 countries and is one of Europe’s leading media companies. With the range we offer, we reach more than 67 million TV households every day, naturally including online and mobile, around the clock, everywhere in the world. Our core business is television. With SAT.1, ProSieben, kabel eins and sixx, we are the no. 1 player in the German television advertising market. We are also strongly positioned in the markets in Sweden (Kanal 5, Kanal 9), Norway (TV Norge, MAX) and Hungary (TV2, FEM3) with our Free-TV stations. In addition to classic TV business financed by advertising, our portfolio also includes numerous online offers as well as activities in related areas of business such as pay, games, commerce and music. We also ensure rigorous diversification of our business activities through the development, production and global distribution of programs. Our headquarters are in Unterföhring near Munich. ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG is a listed company and has more than 4,000 employees.
Marcus Thielking, Co-Founder & CMO, Skobbler
After looking into strategic consulting and investment banking during his studies at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Marcus became Assistant to the Board and finally Head of Corporate Development at global navigation systems specialist Navigon AG. Together with three management colleagues, he spun off skobbler GmbH in late 2008, where he is responsible for marketing and communication as well as financials.
Berlin-based skobbler (www.skobbler.com) has been independently developing map-based applications for iOS- and Android-based mobile devices since its inception.
skobbler is a prime player in location-based services developing an array of products that show what’s possible based on OpenStreetMap in many different categories. More than 1.75 million customers already use skobbler apps as their preferred mapping solutions.
NOAH Top Picks – B2B Service Providers That Add Real Value
Michael Altendorf, CEO, Adtelligence
Diplom Economist / University of Heidelberg. Co-Founder & CEO of the venture-capital funded internet startup ADTELLIGENCE GmbH. ADTELLIGENCE GmbH provides superior online ad targeting technologies and analytics platforms for social networks & agencies.
Lecturer in internet business at university of applied sciences Salzburg/Austria and at the Popacademy Baden-Württemberg, a music business school. Speaker at several internet & media events. Co-Founder of Rhein-Neckar Technology Ventures Day, an event for entrepreneurs looking for VC. Co-Organizer of TEDx Rhein-Neckar. Member of the CEO Collaborative Forum. Previously worked at SAP in strategic market intelligence/global marketing as analyst, and as product manager in the Emerging Solutions in Walldorf and New York. Since 2001 he worked as a consultant in internet business, at the management consulting company SVP Deutschland AG in research projects, and in interdisciplinary research at the Institute for Peace, Ecology, and Sustainability (FEST e.V.) in Heidelberg.
ADTELLIGENCE provides the leading Online Marketing platform for the social web. It allows social networks, social media portals as well as eCommerce platforms to monetize their websites and at the same time raise their online advertising campaigns’ income efficiently. The ADTELLIGENCE Ad Platform offers a fully automated closed-loop marketing process for advertisers to use Social Targeting and Social Data Analytics for an accurate serving of online campaigns and automated optimization. We unify ad serving, demand side platform, campaign management, ultra-precise interest- and target group-targeting, business intelligence and market research into a fully automated SaaS solution.
Pieter van der Does, CEO & Co-Founder, Adyen
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Prior to Adyen, Pieter has been active in the PSP world since 1999 when he joined the Bibit board. In this position he was responsible for Sales and Marketing, Legal and the international expansion of the business. In 2004, the Bibit board sold the company to RBS. Within RBS Pieter was a board member of what now is “WorldPay”.
Adyen is the leading and most innovative provider of global Internet payment & risk management systems for mid, large and enterprise e-commerce merchants. Adyen’s revolutionary Internet Payment Solution enables merchants to significantly increase online conversion by optimizing the online payment and risk processes. This “one-stop” solution can be implemented within days and connects merchants to global customers through a growing offering of payment methods.
Mathieu Llorens, CEO, AT Internet
Mathieu Llorens joined AT Internet in 2000 and is now CEO. He is also a professor of web marketing at the University of Bordeaux. Mathieu obtained a post-graduate degree in Information Sciences (Online Audience Measurement) and is also a certified professor of literature. He is regularly invited to speak at business schools.
Established in 1995, AT Internet is a leading independent web and mobile analytics solution provider. Leader in both France and Europe in the field of online intelligence, its expertise and technology have enabled the company to develop unique and innovative solutions allowing it to measure web traffic, Internet user behaviour, the performance and availability of websites, and also to manage a company’s online reputation. AT Internet has approximately 3, 500 clients worldwide, including some of the largest companies and institutions in the world. With its Headquarters in Bordeaux, and thanks to its subsidiaries, AT Internet operates in 9 different countries worldwide including Germany, England, Ireland, Spain and Canada. It currently employs 150 people on an international level, with approximately 60% of its staff working in R&D.
Further information is available on the website: www.atinternet.com
Alon Carmeli, CEO, Babylon.com
Alon Carmeli is the CEO of Babylon.com. He has over 20 years of executive management experience, leading global high-tech companies. Strong background in the Internet business market, strategic planning, marketing, business development and sales. Extensive experience in all strategic levels of executive management, among them, M&As, P&L management, IPO & private placement, investor relations and team building. A recognized leader in the high-tech software and Internet environment, Alon Carmeli also served as Vice President at Babylon.com from 2002 to 2007. Prior to Babylon, Mr. Carmeli has served as Vice President at VIZRAT, 1997-2001, and as the Managing Director of the Simulators Division at BVR Systems Ltd. between the years 1991 to 1997.
Alon holds a BoB (Hon) in International Trade from The College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS) as well as an executive MBA from Tel Aviv University.
Babylon.com is a publicly traded company founded in 1997. The Company is a leading provider of language solutions such as online dictionary and translation software, translation services, language learning solutions, English writing enhancement and more. Babylon.com has set a Guinness World Record™ for Most Downloads of a Translation Software with over 100 million users in more than 200 markets, supporting 75 languages and listed among the 80 most popular websites worldwide. For more information about Babylon, visit www.babylon.com
Number of employees: 160
Ariel Finkelstein, CEO and Co-Founder, Kampyle
Ariel Finkelstein is the CEO and co-founder of Kampyle, a leading SaaS feedback solution. Kampyle collects and analyzes visitor feedback, captures real contact details and intelligently distributes feedback data to appropriate stakeholders. By transforming how companies interact with their website visitors, Kampyle enables businesses to optimize user experience, increase lead generation and conversions.
Since Finkelstein co-founded the company in 2007, the client base and revenues have significantly grown. He is responsible for the strategic direction of the company, which currently has 25 employees, and for creating its go-to-market strategy for SMBs and large enterprises. Since its inception, Kampyle has powered more than 50,000 companies who use feedback to gain insight into user behavior for enhancing their websites, products and service offerings. To date, Kampyle has processed more than 12 million feedback forms in over 60 languages in over 190 countries.
Jan Rezab, CEO, Socialbakers
Jan Rezab is the CEO & Co-founder of Socialbakers, a company focused on social media marketing and measurement. Jan`s role is to actively push Socialbakers`s global strategy. Socialbakers is one of the largest social media statistics resources worldwide, and its goal is to provide the best social profile monitoring, and measure every social object there is in the world, in the context where it belongs. Socialbakers is also one of the Facebook Preferred Developer Consultants.Prior to joining the social media marketing world, Jan Rezab was CEO / Founder of a mobile company called Redboss for 8 years in mobile content / games / services business.
Socialbakers.com is one of the biggest social media statistics portals in the world, covering a wide range of social media statistics. We specialize in statistics for: Facebook in different countries, Facebook pages, Facebook applications, Developers on the Facebook platform, as well as Facebook advertising prices, LinkedIn in different countries, Twitter users. On top of this data, Socialbakers is in the right position to create advanced monitoring technologies like Socialbakers Page Analytics, which is now used by many brands both globally and locally to measure their Facebook presence. Source: http://www.socialbakers.com/profile-of-authors.
Successful Exits with a Sequel
Klaas Kersting, Founder, Flaregames
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Klaas Kersting (31) is the CEO and founder of flaregames. flaregames is an exciting games company focused on creating great games played on mobile devices and involving the real world. Before founding flaregames he was CEO and founder of Gameforge, which he grew to more than 400 employees and more than 100M EUR in yearly revenue in 5 years.
Raphael Zier, CEO, Netbooster
After learning computer graphics in France in Sup Info Com which has been ranked N°1 worldwide CG (computer graphics) school by the American magazine “3D world”, Raphaël Zier began his professional career in 1993 in Audour Soum Larue / SMS one of the leading French advertising company has the head of new media.
His taste for a challenge and his creativity lead him to set up his first company, 68th parallel, an online advertising agency, followed by Pôle Nord in 1997, a performance marketing agency. In 2006, when Pôle Nord was the 2nd biggest SEM (search engine marketing) company in France, just behind Aegis, he sold his company to the Publicis Groupe and became the head of the Publicis Groupe Media in France.
After having great success in France, Raphaël moved to London in 2007 to be charge of the global search activity of the Publicis Groupe.
In 2009, Raphael Zier left the PublicisGroupe to devote himself again to his own projects and invested in dynamic companies in the digital sector including pureagency.com, a mobile marketing agency and Easy Travel, an editorial travel portal.
Raphael initially invested in NetBooster in 2010 and was the first shareholder, director and development director. Appointed CEO of the NetBooster Group in April 2011, Raphael’s mission is to accelerate the development of the group in France and abroad.
Alexander Ribbink, Partner, Prime Ventures
Alexander Ribbink, Partner at Prime Ventures. Before joining Prime, Alexander was board member and Chief Operating Officer of TomTom, the personal navigation company. Prior to his time at TomTom he held a number of senior directors’ positions at MARS Inc. and Unilever NV, living and working in Paris, London and the Hamburg area. Alexander holds an MA degree in Law from the University of Amsterdam and an MBA degree from the Rotterdam School of Management.
Prime Ventures is a leading venture capital and growth equity firm focusing on investing in European companies in the technology and related industries and leverages its capital, experience and network to actively guide them into global category leaders. From its offices in The Netherlands and the UK the independent partnership manages over 275 million euro in committed capital, managed by 6 partners.
Dror Ceder, Founder, Wibiya
Dror Ceder is Co-Founder and CEO of Wibiya, a web application solutions provider that offers publishers a one-stop platform for integrating, managing, and tracking popular web applications directly on their websites. The company, which has 17 employees and is still growing, was established in 2008 and acquired by Conduit in 2011. The combined solution enables publishers to engage their users both on and off their websites.
Before founding Wibiya, Dror co-founded Joongel, an Internet-based company that provides simple search solutions in relevant categories based on the user’s geographic location. Dror graduated with a B.A. in business administration from the IDC Herzliya, where he participated in the Zell Entrepreneurship Program, a selective program that provides students with the tools they need to launch an entrepreneurial venture. Today, he is a member of the Zell Alumni Board of Directors and mentors current students in the program.
Gambling / Online Finance – Panel Discussion
Ronen Assia, Founder and VP Products, eToro
With over 10 years of interaction design experience, Mr. Assia is at the helm of eToro’s product development fulfilling eToro’s vision to reinvent and simplify the financial trading experience.
Mr. Assia holds a B.Des. in industrial design and an M.A. in design.
eToro is the world’s largest investment network, with over 1.75 million registered users in over 140 countries. eToro leads the social trading revolution through its community powered network enabling every investor to see, follow and automatically copy the trades of top performing traders in real time. eToro opens the financial markets to every individual making them accessible through a simple, transparent and more enjoyable way to trade. A range of Innovative trading platforms and eToro’s investment network facilitate information exchange between investors, accelerate knowledge sharing and shorten the learning curve for those who want to bring their trading experience to the next level.
Richard B. Olsen, Founder & CEO of Olsen Ltd, Co-founder & Chairman of OANDA
Olsen Ltd is a research and development company and investment manager based in Zurich, Switzerland. Olsen has led the development of high-frequency finance through research that has yielded practical applications and product to benefit individuals and businesses worldwide. The Founder and CEO, Dr. Richard Olsen, holds a licentiate in law from the University of Zurich, a Master’s in Economics form Oxford University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich. He worked in banking before founding Olsen and Associates in 1985.
Olsen Ltd has continued to build on its solid scientific foundation both in terms of continuing statistical analysis and the operation and refinement of real-time trading models begun in 1990. We have offered currency overlays and managed currency accounts since 2001. The company has demonstrated through proven portfolio management as well as academic research the validity and rewards of their investment philosophy.
Eleven employees are working for Olsen Ltd.
Dominik Kofert, CEO, PokerStrategy
Dominik became interested in online poker during his studies of Mathematics and Philosophy at Oxford University from 2001 to 2005. As he became a successful poker player himself, he founded a poker discussion forum and began acting as an affiliate for various operators.
In 2007 he moved to Gibraltar with the other co-founders to set up PokerStrategy.com. As the sole Director and CEO of the company, he has successfully built-up and grown the PokerStrategy.com Group.
