ReportVenture Cup Mentor Program

Season 2014-2015

November 2015

Venture CupPorcelænshaven 7

2000 FrederiksbergTel: +45 3815 3377

Table of content

Publisher Venture CupAuthors AlexanderPloug&SteffanElleyLayout CasperSvane&SteffanElleyPublished October 2015

3 Introduction4 Keyfindings6 Venture Cup Mentor Program6 Connection to other development programs

7 Startups7 Academic diversity

7 Startup timeline

8 Mentors8 Meeting location, job & skills

9 Developing university startups9 Progress in the startups’ lifecycle

10 Social capital

11 Company registration (CVR) & survival rate

11 Startup satisfaction

12 Cases13 Macellum & Steffen Skovfoged

14 LevelUP & Morten Hoff Ærsøe

15 Cook With a Local & Simon Sheard

16 Goals for season 2015/201617 Final remarks

IntroductionVenture Cup Mentor Program (VCMP) is the largest network of volunteer mentors in Scan-dinavia. The mentors support and encour-age promising university startups through mentoring, networking and passing on great learning experiences. VCMP is a one-year de-velopment program where the startups have the opportunity to apply for a new/additional mentor each quarter.

The core of VCMP is the extensive network of experienced entrepreneurs and execu-tives who are mentoring ambitious univer-sity startups with the ultimate goal of turning their innovative ideas into reality. Through a nationwide collaboration with corporations, innovation environments, university incuba-tors and the Danish universities, the vision is to reduce the gap between idea and market entry for university startups.

The mentors in Venture Cup’s network have excessive experience in various fields, thus securing professional support and guidance to startups in all industries.

Since the launch in February 2014, the pro-gram has been growing continuously with increased numbers of mentors, startups and nationalities participating.

Setting up a structured effort to support and develop aspiring university startups has shown significant results in the first season of VCMP. After four months with a mentor, the

university startups have on average moved from one phase in the startup lifecycle to another. 63 of the 156 enrolled startups in VCMP have CVR-numbers and a significant increase in CVR registration is expected in season 2015/2016. The program has brought 70% of the university startups closer to the market and 70% of the teams expect the pro-gram to have a positive effect on future rev-enue. Finally, 97% of the enrolled university startups would recommend other startups to join Venture Cup Mentor Program.

To gain deeper insights into the results and the future of Venture Cup Mentor Program, please continue reading.

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Key findings

97%OF VCMP ENROLLED STARTUPS WOULD RECOMMEND THE PROGRAM TO OTHER STARTUPS

41%OF VCMP ENROLLED STARTUPS ARE CVR-REGISTERED

155+UNIVERSITY STARTUPS HAVE JOINED THE PROGRAM SINCE THE LAUNCH IN FEBRUARY 2014

130+PROFESSORS, ENTREPRENEURS AND EXECUTIVES ARE PART OF THE MENTOR NETWORK

+

+25INTERNATIONAL MENTORS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD

2000HOURS OF MENTORING VIA PHYSICAL OR SKYPE MEETINGS

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ALLSTARTUPS HAVE DEVELOPED AND REACHED A NEW PHASE* WITHIN FOUR MONTHS

89%OF THE STARTUPS HAVE ENTERED THE MARKET OR ARE CLOSE TO MARKET ENTRY

70%OF THE STARTUPS EXPECT A POSITIVE EFFECT ON THEIR FUTURE REVENUE DUE TO THE MENTOR PROGRAM

55%OF THE MENTORS ARE FOUNDERS OR CEO’S

100% SURVIVALRATE

ALL CVR STARTUPS WHO HAVE PARTICI-PATED IN THE PROGRAM ARE STILL AC-TIVE

The report is based on data about all partici-pating (current and previous) mentors and startups, a survey filled out by startups from the first four kick-offs, and interviews with mentors and startups for additional insights.

Data for the report

DefinitionofkeytermsMentor: A successful entrepreneur, profes-sor and/ or executive who inspires and guides university startups. The network of mentors has excessive experience in various areas of business.

Startup: Up-and-coming university startup that has applied to be enrolled in VCMP. The startup has grabbed the chance to improve its business through knowledge sharing and guidance from VC’s mentors.

* See page 9 for description of “phases”

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Venture Cup Mentor ProgramFebruary 2014, Venture Cup Mentor Pro-gram was launched with support from Hempel Fonden. The program has been growing ever since and has now connect-ed more than 155 startups to 131 national and international high-profile mentors. This makes VCMP the largest mentor program for university startups in Scandinavia.

University startup development is the core driver for VCMP. The mentor network is connected to other entrepreneurial pro-jects sharing the goal of supporting and guiding university startups. The aim of the collaborations is to create synergy between the projects by complementing each other, sharing resources and developing profes-sional network.

Offering mentorship through VCMP ads great value to development programs like Pro-Program and Iværksætterpilot. To VCMP, the collaboration widens the profes-sional network and most importantly gives access to more high-potential university startups.

Figure 1 illustrates the collaboration struc-ture and the number of startups coming from each program. A full list and overview of VCMP startups is found in Appendix A.

Connection to other development programs

Figure 1: Connection to other development programs

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StartupsAcademic diversityVCMP startups are well represented at all universities in Denmark. 292 university stu-dents have been enrolled in the program. Figure 2 presents the distribution of men-tees across universities. Aalborg University and Danish Technical University (DTU) have the largest share followed by Copenhagen University and Copenhagen Business School (CBS). Of the 292 university students, 65 stu-dents have another nationality than danish.

AAU 49DTU 45CBS 36KU 28AU 22SDU 19ITU 13RUC 3Other 20Graduated 52

Figure 2: Academic diversity among the startups

Startup timelineThere are four VCMP kick-offs each year. As one batch of startups graduates from the program, a new batch is kicked off. This se-cures a continuous circulation of startups in the program.

Figure 3 illustrates the 156 startups’ point of travel in the program. 48 of the startups are now alumni, five startups have three months left, 34 startups have six months left, 11 startups have nine months left and 59 startups just entered the program this fall.

Figure 3: Point of travel among the startups

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MentorsMeeting location, job & skillsVCMP has an extensive mentor network of 131 experienced entrepreneurs, profes-sors and executives with a common goal of turning university startups’ innovative ideas into reality. The mentor network has a growing number of international mentors connected. International mentors bring im-portant experience, insight and knowledge of potential export markets to the Danish university startups. VCMP mentors have diversified skill sets and often experience from executive positions within different in-dustries. The figures give an insight into the mentors preferred meeting locations* (Fig-ure 4), their current job positions (Figure 5) and expert areas (Figure 6).

Outside of Denmark

66

1

9427155

2510

62

Figure 4: Preffered meeting location for mentors

Advisor 3%

Investor 4%

Director 4%

Senior-Manager 6%

Partner 7%

Project-Manager 8%

CEO 25%

Founder 30%

Other 13%

Figure 5: Job positions of the mentors

* Some mentors travel frequently and has listed more than one preffered location

Figure 6: Expert areas for mentors

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DISCOVERY STAGEThe startup is establishing the value proposition and is creating a prototype/MVP.Phase 1• Vision is captured.• Development of key ideas.• Development of concept.Phase 2• Business plan is created.• Development of prototype.Phase 3• Prototype/MVP is created and presented.• Potentially attracting angel investors.

Developing university startupsVCMP is working with early stage university startups which means that common KPIs (e.g. turnover, equity, no. of employees) are not suit-able. Instead, the following three variables are used to measure the impact of the program: Progress in startup lifecycle, CVR-registration and social capital added.

Progress in startup lifecycleTo efficiently assess the progress of the startups throughout the program, VCMP looks at three stages of a startup’s lifecycle: Discovery, valida-tion and efficiency. These stages are further di-vided into phases.

The stages (presented in Figure 7) are in-spired by Steven Blank’s Customer Devel-opment Model*, and Startup Genome’s Marmer Stages**.

To determine the development of the start-ups, a progress evaluation was made. Evalu-ation shows that after four months of en-rollment in VCMP, a startup has on average moved from one phase to the next one. This is a key observation emphasising the value of VCMP in supporting the startups’ journey towards a sustainable business.

*http://web.stanford.edu/group/e145/cgi-bin/winter/drupal/upload/handouts/Four_Steps.pdf** http://blog.startupcompass.co/pages/marmer-stages

VALIDATION STAGEThe startup is looking for early validationof interest from potential customers, the business model and core features are being refined.Phase 4• Validation of interest from first-movers. • The startup is ready for market entry.Phase 5• First paying customers.• Seed funding or angel investors.

EFFICIENCY STAGEThe startup is working on process optimisa-tion including repeatable sales processes and customer acquisition processes.Phase 6• Fine-tuning processes.• Improving business model for scalability.

Figur 7: The Phases in the Startup Lifecycle

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Social capitalMentoring is a powerful tool to create so-cial capital for startups by facilitating access to expertise outside the startup. Sharing knowledge and ideas with a professional en-trepreneur or executive gives the startups a chance to improve their business model by discovering flaws and unrealised potential. To measure the social capital, three key in-dicators are used: Skills development, net-work and business model development.

VCMP is a strong facilitator of professional and entrepreneurial networks for striving university startups. As Figure 8 shows, VCMP has contributed to network expansion for nearly 70% of the startups. Expanded net-works do not only mean more potential cus-tomers and partners but can also result in reduced costs of development and reduced time to market.

VCMP is a development program that does not only develop the university startups but also the individuals behind. Through men-toring, 62% of all VCMP startups have de-veloped their professional skill sets. These skills include: B2B sales, business develop-ment, marketing & social media and creat-ing access to investment, venture capital & funding. Figure 9 presents the developed areas in details. By using their newly devel-oped skills and expanded network, 80% of the startups have overcome one or more of the major challenges they were facing at program entry.

Figure 8: Network expansion for startups

Figure 9: Developed area of business for startups

15% of startups entering VCMP have a ba-sic, not extensively developed business idea, while the majority has created a ini-tial business plan. By entering VCMP these startups have the opportunity to develop their business model and accelerate the business through sparring, critical questions and moral support from a mentor. As Figure 10 shows, the program has improved the business model for more than 70% of the enrolled startups. Furthermore, 70 % of the startups expect a positive effect on future revenue due to VCMP participation (Figure 11).

Figure 10: Business model development for startups

Figure 11: Effect on a future revenue for startups

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Company registration (CVR) &survival rateThe last key indicator used to measure the impact of VCMP is the volume of CVR- regis-trations and startup survival rate. Since the majority of VCMP startups are early stage when entering the program, only a limited number of startups are CVR registered. Looking at the development of startups that entered VCMP at the first two kick-offs (Spring and Summer 2014) the results are clear. 50% of the early VCMP startups that are now CVR-registered* have filed for CVR-registration after entering the program. Ad-ditionally, all CVR-registered startups are still working actively on their business. The registered startups has a 100% survival rate.

Figure 12: Distribution of startups in the “phases”

The number of CVR-registered VCMP start-ups is expected to increase significantly in VCMP season 2015/2016. This expectation is based on two thing; 1) an analysis linking CVR-registration to the startup lifecycle and 2) the current distribution of VCMP startups in the lifecycle.

The majority of enrolled VCMP startups are in the early stages. As seen in Figure 12, (phase of startups in VCMP) 85% of VCMP startups are in the Discovery stage (phase 1-3).

Linking CVR-registration and startup lifecy-cle to each other, (Figure 13 CVR registered and unregistered) the numbers clearly show

that as startups progress through the life cycle the frequency of CVR-registration in-creases. The majority of VCMP startups are early stage (85% are in phase 1-3) and since the startups has shown progress from one phase to another within four months, it is expected to see a significant increase in CVR-registration within the next season of VCMP (2015-2016).

Figure 13: CVR-registration linked to “phases”

Startup satisfaction97% of the respondents said that they would recommend other startups to join VCMP (Figure 14). This is a clear indicator that the program has been a positive experi-ence for the startups and that the program has created great value for the startups in one way or another.

Figure 14: Startup satisfaction

*www.virk.dk

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CasesSeason 2014-2015, has given both mentors and university startups great experiences, valuable knowledge and useful professional connec-tions. VCMP has given the mentors a chance to meet inspiring young talents, kept them up to date with the newest trends and innovations and given them the opportunity to give some-thing back to the entrepreneurial community.

The startups have improved their business models, established close collaboration with their mentor and entered the market. Below are six cases presented with mentors and start-ups who look back at their experience as part of VCMP.

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Macellum Macellum is an online platform that enables fishermen to easily assess the value of their catch in all harbours connected to the Northern Sea. Furthermore, a feature is being developed which will facilitate direct trade between buyers and fishermen thus cutting out the middlemen.

Macellum won Venture Cup’s Idea Competi-tion 2014 and, to use their words, has been on a life-changing entrepreneurial roller coaster ever since. Co-founder Rasmus L. Christensen explains that the network they gained through Venture Cup has been very helpful.

The contact to Lars Buch (Managing Director, Startup Bootcamp), who was judging Macellum at the Idea Competition, led to an enrolment in the largest accelerator program in Europe - Startup Bootcamp. Their Venture Cup mentors Rune Hansen (Owner, Rune Hansen Consult) and Steffen Skovfoged (Co-founder and Execu-tive Director, UNIwise) have been with Macel-lum throughout their journey and supported when tough and challenging decisions had to be made.

Macellum, who started as an idea in the north-ern part of Jutland in late 2014, has within two years gained an incredible network, launched their portal and has now been offered a million figure investment.

Steffen Skovfoged - Mentor Steffen is co-founder and Executive Director at UNIwise who have revolutionised the way schools and universities do digital exams and assessment. Prior to his entrepreneurial path, he was Director of Development and Studies at Aarhus University.

After having been part of the Danish entrepre-neurial community for some years, Steffen was eager to give something back to the community that had given him so much.

“We had great benefit from it [mentoring] when we started out, we made our mistakes as a startup, so now we want to pay it forward. Pass on some experience to new startups”. (Rasmus L. Christensen).

The contact between Steffen and Macellum is still there even though the one-year program has ended. “The primary value of the program is the establishment of the contact between a startup and a more established entity.” (Ras-mus L. Christensen). Again, something that Stef-fen and Macellum had great benefit from; to have a contact for when you as a startup have a concrete question or a matter to discuss.

Steffen is definitely ready for a new round of mentoring at Venture Cup Mentor Program!

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LevelUP LevelUP provides football clubs with easy and affordable access to sports analytics. They have created an advanced scorekeeping app that al-lows football coaches to get powerful match reports and instant video highlights, saving them long hours of work. LevelUP is working together with some of the best football clubs in Denmark as well as the Danish Football Union.

LevelUP is based in Aalborg. They won the cat-egory Mobile & Web two times in a row, first in Venture Cup Idea Competition and later the Startup Competition 2014. LevelUP was ac-cepted into Startup Booster and then matched with their mentor Morten Hoff Ærsøe. The re-lation to Morten quickly grew stronger and he is now working part time as iOS-developer at LevelUP.

The mentor- and partnership with Morten “a guy with 20 years of experience in the soft-ware industry and an MBA” (CEO, Miklós Emődy) has been an invaluable pillar for the team to get where they are today.

In less than two years, LevelUP has developed from a vague idea to now having launched the platform, having the first paying customers and 10 professional footballclubs testing it. The system has the potential to become the future of football tracking world-wide.

To Miklós Emődy, the benefits of participat-ing in Venture Cup’s competitions and Mentor Program are clear: “Venture Cup is more than the price money, it’s the validation and pres-tige that comes with it... It helps an unknown startup with no track record”.

Morten Hoff Ærsøe - MentorMorten is a civil engineer who has worked with software for 20 years. He has a MBA from DTU Business in Innovation and Technology Man-agement. He has been a mentor for LevelUP since they won Venture Cup Idea Competition in September 2014. In the initial phase of the mentoring, the primary focus was on fine-tun-ing the business plan and pitches. Since then, Morten has not only functioned as a mentor, but also helped the team with some develop-ment/coding.

“I helped them make sure that the different basics were covered; that marketing, general strategy, flows and processes work together, to make sure they didn’t crack”. Morten is an entrepreneur by heart, he is eager to support fellow entrepreneurs, and he has a clear vision: “My vision is to crack the statistics that show 80% of startups fail within three years”.

Even though LevelUP is situated in Aalborg and Morten in Virum, they have weekly contact and monthly dinner meetings. “I guess the team love my wife’s home cooked meals”, Morten points out.

According to Morten, the gain from being a mentor is: “the joy of giving, but definitely also the fact that you keep your brain sharp and stay updated. Furthermore, the special feeling and the spirit you see in a great startup is so exciting to witness and be a small part of”.

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Cook With a Local Cook With a Local is a sharing economy web-site where people can sign up to host or find social cooking and beverage events worldwide. They enable unique experiences and connect the world through cooking. Cook With a Local was a finalist in Venture Cup’s Startup Compe-tition 2014 and was later accepted into Startup Booster.

The Co-founders Inger Gislesen and Christo-pher Pilgrim emphasizes that having a mentor from VCMP helped Cook With a Local in vari-ous ways - from very foundational decisions regarding the business model to press releases and an increased professional network. “Our mentor Simon showed us that our decision of making the startup a for-profit social company was the right one... he had a non- profit foun-dation and he showed us why that wouldn’t work for our idea”.

Cook With a Local went from 4-5 people in the organisation when participating in Startup Competition to being twice as big and having offices at KPH co-working space not even a year later. The founders Inger and Christopher are now working full-time on the project after finishing their studies.

“The main thing we got out of him [red. Si-mon] was support. It has been really nice to be able to know that he really got our back.” Even though the one-year program is over, the contact remained. “Simon is a core part of our mentor team, we want him to stay on board as long as we can”

“A big thanks to the Venture Cup team for finding Simon for us!” (Inger Gislesen and Christopher Pilgrim).

Simon Sheard - MentorSimon is a social entrepreneur specialising in WISE with 20 years of experience with multi-cultural personnel management and develop-ment within the restaurant and food industry. Simon is director at Fonden Allehånde, which is a social business involving people with a hear-ing handicap in the daily operation of the com-pany. Currently, Allehånde consists of three de-partments in the catering industry. Simon was busy at the kick-off but found Cook with a Lo-cal’s concept interesting, even though a web- based platform was not in his area of expertise.

“Even though you feel that you don’t have much time, it gives you a lot of energy to meet so engaged young entrepreneurs”.

VCMP was Simon’s first experience as profes-sional mentor but he has previously worked with maladjusted teenagers and also helped friends and family develop their business ide-as. Simon believes it is important to help as-piring entrepreneurs; “without entrepreneurs there would be no jobs”.

The benefits of being a mentor is for Simon based around great networking and great learning experiences. “Besides getting extra energy by meeting these people, you also de-velop new ways of thinking... As an experi-enced entrepreneur you get some habits, but by working with young entrepreneurs you get a chance to break some of your habits”.

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Goals for season 2015/2016Startups and mentors have given posi-tive feedback regarding the first season of VCMP. The feedback also provides essential insights to the program and how it can be developed and made even better. The focus in the next season (2015/2016) can be di-vided into three headlines: Growth, Activi-ties, and Tracking.

GrowthVCMP has met an increasing demand for mentors. Therefore, the next season will fo-cus on attracting new mentors with a strong profile enabling improved quality of the program. VCMP has set a goal of recruiting 170 additional mentors within this year. The VCMP mentor network will thereby count 300 mentors by the 1st of January 2016. To reach the goal of 300 mentors, a detailed mentor recruiting plan has been made.

Venture Cup is hosting some of the largest startup- and idea competitions in the Nor-dics. Here, Venture Cup receives more than 1000 business ideas each year. The next sea-son will focus on attracting and helping more of these rising stars to reach their potential. VCMP wants to build a bridge between the two yearly competitions, help idea stage startups to mature and make them able to fly after the competitions. To reach and help more potential entrepreneurs, VCMP will be incorporated into the promotion and appli-cations process of the competitions.

ActivitiesIn season 2015/2016, entrepreneurial events focusing on development and net-working for VCMP stakeholders will be held. This is done in collaboration with Venture Cup Startup Booster (VCSB). An important

TrackingVenture Cup strives to continuously devel-op and improve the mentor program. To achieve this, high quality feedback is essen-tial. Thus, Venture Cup has introduced a new collaboration with a strong survey software provider. The software improves the feed-back quality and eases the data processing significantly. By improving the tracking pro-cess, it is possible to maximise the yields of the program for both mentees, mentors and Venture Cup staff.

Some of the new initiatives includes a monthly logbook filled out by mentees, an initial program plan created in collaboration between mentee, mentor and VC-staff, and a quarterly evaluation scheme to track the program plan.

part of the collaboration involves shared workshops. This will strengthen both pro-grams’ value proposition and create synergy between upcoming and established entre-preneurs.

The key driver for VCMP mentors is the op-portunity to connect with innovative start-up, be able to contribute to the startup eco-system and access the exclusive network of highly skilled mentors. The next season will have an increased focus on creating value for mentors through new activities and net-work opportunities. Mentors will be invited as VIP guests for all relevant Venture Cup activities and special mentor networking events.

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Final remarksThe goal of VCMP is to support, inspire and develop university startups on their quest towards taking over the world - or at least to make a sustainable business.

So far, 156 startups have been enrolled in the program. With the recent additions from USWC, the program has become in-ternational. 131 mentors have joined VCMP, in common for all of them is an extensive knowledge and eagerness to help the start-ups move forward.

The report shows that VCMP has had a sig-nificant impact on social capital added. This impact may explain the progress of the start-ups, the increase in CVR registration and the retention of startups in market when CVR registered.

Social capitalBy participating in VCMP, have the startups entrepreneurial networks been increased extensively, their business plans have been improved and crucial professional skills have been developed. The social capital added has contributed and helped the startups overcome various challenges and pushed the startups towards progress.

ProgressWe have monitored a momentous progress in the startups development process. All startups have in average moved from one phase to another after four month of enroll-ment in VCMP. This progress and way of as-sessing it makes the value of VCMP quantifi-able. The result is astonishing and stresses the importance of having mentors affiliated to startups.

Company registration (CVR)Participating in VCMP has accelerated the startups towards market and thereby com-pany registration. 43% of all enrolled start-ups are CVR registered, where more than 50% of them have been CVR-registered after entering the program. This shows that the startups have developed from a business idea to an established business through the program. Hence the analysis linking the CVR registration to the startup lifecycle, a great increase in company registration is expect-ed in season 2015/2016.

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Retention in marketVCMP does not only drive the startups to-wards progress, market and company reg-istration it also enables them to sustain on market.

All CVR registered VCMP startups (currently enrolled and alumni) are still in business. The result is significant and exceeds the av-erage survival rate for startup companies. VCMP startups stay in business, hence more likely to create value in the market than non-VCMP startups.

Venture Cup Mentor Program has so far helped 156 university startups develop their business. Social capital, life cycle progress, CVR-registration and retention in the mar-ket are all key pillars for supporting and de-veloping university startups.

The VCMP platform is scalable on a national level and has the potential to grow inter-national. 20 % of the mentor network is al-ready international and the volunteer men-tors’ interest in contributing to the startup ecosystem keeps growing. Furthermore the platform is adaptable to all industries and agile to integrate.

The platform is build on volunteering men-tors. As executives, professors or entrepre-neurs, they are all seeing the value of being involved in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and bridging the professional knowledge with bright ideas.The VCMP platform is data driven, system-atic and able to support and develop a high volume of startups. The platform gives the ecosystem and VCMO partners a high ROI at a very low cost.

VCMP does not only support and develop the narrow elite of startups who might al-ready be on the right path. VCMP supports all university startups in all industries, at all stages. Even though a high quantity of start-ups has been enrolled, neither result nor quality has been compromised.

The programs abilities and results speak for itself, VCMP fills a gap and proves it raison d’etre.