Last tuesday was the 6th Microsoft Bizspark European summit on growth and entrepreneurship. It was located in the Microsoft campus in Paris and was hosted by Guy Kawasaki. Among the different presentations, the major one were :
- presentation on innovation by Guy Kawasaki
- a keynote of Jean Philippe Courtois, president Microsoft International. Presentation videos here.
- a startup competition featuring 18 companies
- a presentation on Web Api by Douglas Purdy
- A general discussion with Bernard Liautaud
Comments were unanimous : the event was a major success! Great organization (maybe except the food that was a little scarce), good networking with many of the European Venture Capitalists present, as well as many entrepreneurs and Bizspark network partners. The different Microsoft presentation illustrated the amazing scope and network that Microsoft has developed to push and support innovation and startups. In a few years, what started as Idees in France with 40 startups, has become a worldwide program covering 30 000 companies.
Among the startup presenting, a few standout by the quality of the presentation of the business momentum they already have. I am fully in line with jury on the two best companies of the day :
- kobojo, a social gaming company in the line of Zynga and Playfish. Great execution on an extraordinary market.
- Artesian, a Saas solution complementing traditional CRM solutions to provide relevant data to salespeople.
Among the other companies presenting, here a couple of personal pick :
- Captain Dash, with a great demo on visual mining, data analysis,
- moneydashboard, a UK me-too of Mint
- Sordu, a turkish elearning platform
- Time cockpit, a time management software
Overall, few stellar breakthrough new ideas or concept but a group of solid companies with interesting ideas or technologies.
Most interestingly is the split of the companies between B2B and B2C companies. Most companies driving innovation, and getting funding, are B2C companies. Social media and gaming have first taken up as B2C play before getting into the B2B space. That is what we call "the consumerization of innovation". This trend started several years ago and has continuously accelerated since that. At the Microsoft Bizspark summit, only 4 out of 18 companies were B2C companies. This is probably representative of the Bizspark companies where B2B are predominant. This also reflects the current Microsoft business which is heavily tilted to B2B with B2C a somewhat a lesser business. It is also clear what B2B startups would gain from being in Bizspark : access to technology, credibility toward prospects and customers, being part of the Microsoft ecosystem. For B2C startup, the value is much less clear.
For more information, here are a few fellow bloggers reporting on the event :
Frederic HALLEY
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