Early-stage investing has long been the problem child of European venture capital, with too few investors willing to finance untried technologies. Without government intervention, not much would get done in this area.
Now German serial entrepreneur Lars Hinrichs - founder of the business social networking site Xing, who sold his company to Burda Media last year for an estimated €48.3 million - is stepping into the gap with his own twist on the incubator concept. He recently launched Hamburg-based Hackfwd, a pre-seed investment company that will target European software entrepreneurs.
Although many of the ideas put forward by Hinrichs are not unlike those of a standard incubator - equity in exchange for advice and coaching to help speed the process of starting a company - Hackfwd does have a new take on finding people to back. Its tenet is to, “put geeks first”. It does this by seeking out software coders who perhaps aren’t even looking to start a company. Using the extensive network Hinrichs built up while at Xing, the company will track down entrepreneurs before they have even have a business plan or a prototype.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Science|Business A new model for private sector seed funding
Author: Mary Lisbeth D’Amico
