Business-wise Milan is something that a lot of European cities aspire (or should aspire) to be.
It’s also an impressive, modern city — and pleasantly sunny at the moment.
That said, I’m not here on vacation, but on my official capacity as an EBAN board member, representing the organization under the scope of the Future Internet Business project at the FIWARE VIP bootcamp (May 4-6).
Running a seed fund with StartTech and being a serial entrepreneur (and frequently finding myself on the organizing end of such events), it’s an excellent opportunity to network and collaborate with some of the biggest Italian (and European) VCs, and meet tech entrepreneurs from all around the European continent.
The bootcamp we’re attending is part of FIWARE’s VIP Programme, which was introduced by the Future Internet Public Private Partnership (FI-PPP) in late 2015 with the aim to highlight and promote the most promising (business and innovation and internationalization wise) projects based on FIWARE technologies.
And indeed, the startups and projects taking part in this event are downright impressive — and they had to be to secure their place among the 15 (out of 1000) startups that made it to the VIP program.
The aim of the VIP Bootcamp is to to further support those emerging companies in realizing their business potential by providing them with a comprehensive and much improved investor deck than what they previously had.
The event started today with a keynote speech by the professor of Marketing Strategy Carlo Maffè, an “introduce yourself” session and a “Demolition Pitch” panel, and will continue tomorrow with a full day of pitching training (including a couple of very interesting “stories from the trenches” style presentations).
The bootcamp will culminate on Friday with the actual startup pitches to Business Angels and VCs.
As an EBAN member (and as a serial entrepreneur and seed fund director myself), I cannot help but be impressed and inspired by both the organization and the excellent and hard working startup teams from all over Europe chasing their business dreams.
The full program of the event is available here.
(Oh, and, of course, if you’re a fellow entrepreneur, founder or VC, and are in Milan for the event, do come and say hi).
Dimitris Tsingos
Founder and CEO,
StartTech Ventures