Recap from the first Uppstart event at Katalin in Uppsala
If you are prepared to hop into a train, it only takes 38 minutes (to be exact!) to get from Stockhom to Uppsala. Enter Katalin, a classic music venue where a lot of great artists have played over the years. Yesterday it was the scene for Uppstart. This was Uppsalas first event by Jason Dainter, the UK entrepreneur who have fallen in love with the city of Uppsala.
Guests for the night were Tim He from Northzone, Kerstin Cooley from MOOR and Magnus Branberg from GULLSPÅNG Invest. They discussed topics such as early stage funding in general, what investors look for and various tips for entrepreneurs in the audience. Jason did a great job with interviewing the panel.
There were lots of people, a staggering 275 individuals had signed up for the event. Although being a grass root initiative, we have heard that the event had great support from by the city (Uppsala kommun) from day one which is very encouraging for the future. Katalin is a good place with a nice pub and superb venue close to the central station of Uppsala. The Swedish Startup Space-crew were also very happy seeing that food was being served (yes, we are talking to you Tyler Crowley).
Pitching session
myactive
The first pitch of the night was myactive, a social training app. It took us quite a while to figure out what the pitch was all about, and this delay did affect the audience’s attention.
46elks
Johannes from 46elks demonstrated the capabilities of their service with “magic phone numbers”, including allowing users to relay phone calls to different persons in an organization without any expensive hardware setup.
Plick
Concluding the pitching session was Plick, the Uppsala-based startup that allows users to buy and sell vintage clothing. Read more about Plick in our article from a few months back.
Overall impression
All in all it was a great initative. Presentations were running slightly too long and could be shortened to keep up the pace, hopefully that was something that will be fixed. There is no doubt that this is exactly what Uppsala needs, with all that knowledge and so many entrepreneurs just waiting to be part of something bigger.
See you next time!
Read the entire article here