Jan Vorstermans discusses funding and ecosystems for ICT startups. He outlines his background and experience founding startups and investing. The probability of startup success is low, so programs are needed to enhance success rates. However, successful entrepreneurs are often not university dropouts but have work experience. When selecting startups for incubation and acceleration, the right problems and teams must be chosen. External investment is not always needed but provides validation and risk/reward sharing. Crowdfunding is an alternative source of early funding that is growing. iMinds supports tech businesses in Flanders through incubation, research projects, and global expansion support. VentureWise aims to fill financing gaps for startups between incubation and later funding stages through their

1. FUNDING- AND ECO-SYSTEMS
FOR START-UPS (ICT)
JAN VORSTERMANS
MANAGING PARTNER
VENTUREWISE

2. 2
BACKGROUND: LIFE SO FAR
 General
o Born 25 March 1960
o M.Sc. Telecom Engineering from Ghent University
 Career
o 1984 – 1989: R&D at Ghent University at Siemens (Nokia)
o 1988 – 1994: Business unit management and business development at Telindus (Proximus)
and Nynex (Verizon)
o 1994 – 2002: Operational, commercial and general management at BT Global
o 2003 – 2013: COO Telenet
 Founder Qunova and Qunova Projects
 Co-founder VentureWise
 Founding Partner Volta
 Investor in Limecraft, Kinetura, Viloc, Moovly, Steampunk Wizards, Rabt, Skelia, Valle
Verde
 Non-Executive Director Invitel and Option, ex-board member iMinds

3. HAVE STARTUP STOP NEED MONEY STOP
PLEASE HELP STOP

4. THE PROBABILITY OF START-UP SUCCESS IS LOW, WE NEED
PROGRAMS THAT ENHANCE PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS
 Many start-ups, many with similar ideas and great teams
 Starting up is hard, 60 % of tech start-ups don’t survive (4 year horizon)
 It is OK to fail (early)
 Success = having a growing profitable business
 1 / 40 000 become unicorn
40%
29%
23%
19%
18%
No market need
Out of cash
Team
Outcompeted
Pricing/cost
Top reasons for failure:
77% product/market fit
29% burn rate

5. SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURS ARE MOST OF THE TIME NOT
UNIVERSITY DROP-OUTS
Choose a job you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life
(Confucius)
40
Average age when they started their
business
1%Come from rich or poor backgrounds
75%
75%
Worked as employees in other companies
for more than 6 years
Ranked in top 30% at school and university
60%
Started own business because standard
work environments did not appeal to them

6. ARE WE SELECTING THE RIGHT START-UPS FOR INCUBATION
AND ACCELERATION?
Choose a problem that
agitates the crap out of you
Make sure you are the right
person to solve the problem
Find the team with which you
want to go to war
Define your strategy and
funding requirements
Bootstrap the business
as long as possible

7. DO WE ALWAYS NEED TO PUSH FOR EXTERNAL (RISK)
INVESTMENT?
Investors do not grow on trees
Growth & comfort don’t co-exist
People matter
External funding means validation and valuation
… and risk/reward sharing
AmbitionBusiness Market Risk

8. 8
THE NATURE OF EARLY INVESTMENTS IS CHANGING, THIS
REQUIRES EVEN MORE GUIDANCE

9. 9
WHERE CAN WE FIND CAPITAL IN THE EARLY STAGES OF
DEVELOPMENT
Bootstrapping
FF&F
Government
Business Angels
Incubators
Corporate Funds
VC
Inception
+++
+++
+++
+++
---
---
Product/Market
Fit
+
+
+
+++
++
-
---
Scale-up
-
-
-
+/-
+/-
+/-
Crowdfunding ++ ++ -
+/-+/-

10. 10
HELP THE START-UPS TO RAISE CAPITAL FROM PROFESSIONAL
INVESTORS: TEACH
1. Be honest (to yourself)
2. Know the business and …
3. … the market (data, competition, business
models, benchmarks)
4. Have a plan, no window dressing
5. Identify/know potential investors
6. Get an introduction, find allies
7. Investors are extremely busy
8. This is a sales job,
9. No does not mean out
10. First pitch to investors who are likely to be
negative
Ensure VCs (that invest early) are part of your eco-system

11. 11
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU TEACH. THERE IS DATA, AND THEN
THERE IS MORE DATA
The Entrepreneur Thinks: The Presentations Says: The Investor Thinks:
Everybody will want to buy our
product
Our projections are conservative We will have to take significant
haircuts
This product version is really
good
The product is ready This product will have to be
reworked
The market is really big Our market will be 50 billion in
2017
They don’t know where the
market is
I hope nobody knows the
competition
There is no competition in this
space
They don’t know the
competition
Our technology is complex Our solution cannot be copied (Almost) Everything can be
copied
A few investors expressed an
interest
We have many investors lined
up
We are the first investor they
speak to
I like our team We have a proven management
team
I see limited experience
This person at the Fortune 50
company said they would sign
We will soon sign-up a Fortune
50 company
In your dreams
We are just to clever and agile
compared to large companies
The large companies are too
slow/dumb
Ever been eye to eye with an
elephant?

12. 12
CROWDFUNDING AS ALTERNATIVE?

13. 13
KEY TRENDS IN CROWDFUNDING
Everybody can be an entrepreneur
• European markets are underdeveloped
• Regulation is key to success
• Crowdfunding is mainly a local activity
• Crowdfunding is hard: 70-80% of campaigns
fail (US)
• Global crowdfunding is growing 100% yoy
BELGIUM Rewards Equity
Amounts
Raised
10-25 k€ 150-250 k€
Average
Investment
85 € 700 €
Average
Duration
30-45 days 45-60 days

14. 14
ENTREPRENEUR.

15. FLANDERS INNOVATION ECO-SYSTEM

16. FLANDERS INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM
Micro-electronics CleanTech
ICTBio-tech
5 University Partners
Government
Corporate Partners

17. iMINDS: FLANDERS’ ICT RESEARCH AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
HUB
DIGITAL
RESEARCH
BUSINESS
INCUBATION
Strategic
research
Applied
research
Spin-offs
Global expansion
for tech businesses
Start-up support
for entrepreneurs
Living lab research
European
research projects

18. iMINDS SUPPORTING TECH BUSINESSES
iDiscover
Business Opportunities
iBoot
Draft Business Proposition
iStart
Launch Start-up Company
Go Global
Grow Company
INCUBATION
START-UPS
from incubation program
120+
PROJECTS
Wit the industry
PROJECT
PARTNERS
380+ 1100+
PUBLICATIONS
Yearly
RESEARCHERS
1000+ 850+
R&D PROJECTS

19. 19
BELGIUM: START-UP COMMUNITIES
5 years
5 000 start-ups
100 000 jobs

20. VENTUREWISE: A GROWTH ECO-SYSTEM
FOR ICT START-UPS

21. 21
VENTUREWISE ?
A balanced team strongly embedded in the Tech Eco-system
Jan Vorstermans
Corporate & Management
Tech
B2B
International
Investor
Brendon Grunewald
Entrepreneur & Start-up
M&A
B2C
International
Fund Management
Bart Becks
Corporate & Management
Entrepreneur & Start-up
International marketing
B2C
Tech
Kenny Willems
Incubation/Acceleration
Organization/Process
CFO
B2B
Innovation
Digital Media
IoT
Enterprise Software
Market Places
The most connected “Godfathers”

22. 22
FINANCING GAP BETWEEN INCUBATION/SEED AND LATER
STAGE FUNDING IN EUROPE
Incubate Seed Later StageScale-up
Limited funding options in the scale-up phase
Start-ups need more than money
Incubators
Accelerators
Government
Angels
Crowd
PE
VC
Corporates
(50-100k€) (100k-500k€) (500-2mio€) (+1mio€)
Consequences:
 Startups move very early to US
 Promising startups fold or are overrun due to insufficient funding
 Startups pivot to service-orientated companies

23. 23
VENTUREWISE ?
Fund Zero Fund 1 Studios Enterprise
Digital Media
IoT
Enterprise Software
Market Places
ECO-SYSTEM
Resources
Skeila
InThePocket
Dreams & Creation
GrowthGurus
Incubators
iMinds
BetaCoWork
RocketInternet
Atelier
Special Services
Cresco
Angel.me
BootstrapLabs
Corporates

24. 24
VENTUREWISE AS INVESTOR - KEY DIFFERENTIATORS
Our growth
Ecosystem
• Partnerships with high-quality resource & service providers, working
at favorable fees
• Equity for resources
Our investment
strategy
• Early Stage: both Seed (100-500k €) and Scale-up (up to 1,5mio€)
• “Spray, not Pray”
• Capital efficient deals
• Data-driven decision-making for investments
Our team
• Entrepreneurs for Entrepreneurs
• Extensive expertise & network in the selected focus areas
“Hot” focus areas
• Correspond with current breakthrough trends in Tech
• Significant follow-up investment opportunities
• Good exit potential (M&A)
Geographical reach
• Know-how of and access to various EU-countries (beyond BeNeLux)
• Scaling partners in USA & South-East Asia
Fund kickstart • Integration of existing portfolio of investments (“fund 0”)

25. 25
VENTUREWISE – ANGEL.ME (CROWDFUNDING) PARTNERSHIP
 With VentureWise:
 Advice and hands-on support
 Access to the eco-system
 Direct Investment from 100K – 2 Mio
 Too early? Crowdfunding via Angel,me
 Combines rewards + equity
 Proprietary technology
 International partner network
 Guidance and networking (angel.me sessions and summit)
 Supporting platform partners: lower fees, more support

26. TO CONCLUDE
THE FINAL FRONTIER

27. 27
THE VALUE OF LARGER ECO-SYSTEMS HAS BEEN
DEMONSTRATED
HOW?
The Rules from FastCompany
#1 Don't Be a Chihuahua
#2 Don't try to take more than your fair
share of the pie
#3 If you're invited to a wedding, don't
outshine the bride or groom
#4 Don't Be a Two-Timer
#5 Give to Get
#6 Be like Fonzie
#7 Don't be a douche bag
My 5 rules for (tech) eco-systems:
1. The power of the ecosystem = N!
2. An eco-system requires energy to survive
3. Successful business models get copied
4. Cooperation, win/win, open data
5. From R&D to customer involvement

28. never
lose
your
cool
or your
sense of
humor
Jan Vorstermans
jan@venturewise.eu
@jvorstermans