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The Award goes to QuickCool, a newly established medical technology company located in the technology park of Lund University, Ideon.
The longer term vision of the organizer the Baltic Sea Knowledge Region project and Venture Cup Denmark is to promote the Baltic Sea region as an internationally recognised region for knowledge-based companies - a bit like Silicon Valley, only bigger !
QuickCool a newly established medical technology company located in the technology park of Lund University, Ideon, was awarded the first Baltic Sea Knowledge Region prize for research based entrepreneurship at an informal ceremony held at Copenhagen University 26 January. QuickCool has been recently established to develop products for rapid, safe, user-friendly, and selective cooling of the brain based on a unique technique which induces selective hypothermia by using the innate anatomical heat exchange system of the brain.
Six companies, two from each of the regions Helsinki, Oresund and Hamburg were invited to Copenhagen to give presentations to a distinguished jury of individuals involved in assisting technology based companies to access early stage finance from the three regions.
Hamburg's representatives were Dr. Helmut Thamer, CEO of TuTech Innovation and Oliver von Sperber from CatCap GmbH, a company specialised in helping knowledge based enterprises with access to capital equity.
The event was jointly run by the Baltic Sea Knowledge Region project and by Venture Cup Denmark as a pilot to test the interest in establishing a forum for entrepreneurs in the early stages of setting up knowledge-based businesses from the whole of the Baltic Sea region to meet with a wide range of investors.
After presenting their business plans to the jury, the entrepreneurs, jury members and members of the Baltic Sea Knowledge Region project participated in a workshop moderated by Peter Höjerback CEO of Oresund IT Academy to discuss ways to improve trans-national support measures for accessing early stage finance. This was an opportunity for the entrepreneurs and those engaged in supporting them to compare the situation in the three regions and to exchange experiences.
The longer term vision is to promote the Baltic Sea region as an internationally recognised region for knowledge-based companies - a bit like Silicon Valley, only bigger!
All participants agreed that a Baltic Sea regional prize would provide a very good means to improve trans-regional networking and provide a valuable forum for companies to get better known outside their immediate regions.
The pre-selection of participants means that although investors and entrepreneurs possibly have to travel further, the quality is assured making the extra cost in time and travel worth it.
Oliver von Sperber, a Partner of CatCap commented: "I have attended many business plan presentations at a regional level in Germany, but the standard of presentations here was much higher. The fact that the contestants had to present in English also demonstrated their ability to address international customers, which is essential for rapid business growth. This says something about the value of having a greater critical mass to choose from. I am convinced investors would support such an action and that it could quickly become an important window for the best knowledge based companies to attract capital from a much broader base".
Heiki Hakkarainen of Telespro Oy, Finland, a start-up using expertise from medical emergency to develop different types of rescue covers pointed out that the fact that contacts had been established outside the home country strongly influenced the decision of investors to back the company: "These opportunities are so important." Heiki Hakkarainen added that of the 18 months it took him to start the company, 8 months had been devoted solely to getting financial backing - time which he would rather have spent developing customer relations and products.
Exchange of this kind of experience is important between entrepreneurs too.
Hamburg was represented by Sebastian Wallner and Marcus Volkmer who are just setting out to establish a spin-out from their research at Hamburg University of Technology. Their company KeyXchange, is aiming to provide security software based on advanced algorithms. Listening to and learning from other entrepreneurs and getting some tips from investors is vital to encourage successful entrepreneurship. Everyone stressed the importance of training.
Baltic Sea KR
is a project funded by the European Commission's pilot action "Regions of Knowledge" which was initiated by the European Parliament. The project partners represent the regions of Helsinki, Oresund and Hamburg which are regarded as some of Europes best regions for innovation based economic development.
Since 1 January 2004 the partners Culminatum Oy Ltd, Oresund University and Hamburg Innovation have been looking at means to integrate aspects of the technology transfer activities in the three regions. Studies have been conducted to compare the technology transfer infra-structure and access to early stage finance in the three regions.
The establishment of a prize for knowledge based entrepreneurship is a practical support measure which the project is seeking to establish as an annual event.
Monica Schofield, Head of the EU Office at TuTech Innovation and the coordinator of the Baltic Sea Knowledge Region project, comments: "Baltic Sea KR involves people in the frontline of helping regional development through the exploitation of research results, so it was important for us aside from the learning aspects of the project for our own benefit to find something straightforward and practical which we could establish to support entrepreneurs from research backgrounds. This event was a pilot, but the response was so positive that we will now work with the Venture Cup organisation to establish this on a large scale as an annual event".
Baltic Sea KR comes to an end in March 2006 when it will report its findings to the European Commission and regional stakeholders. Many challenges have been identified, but the collaboration has been extremely beneficial in establishing a strong network which can form the basis for future activities to make this one of the most dynamic knowledge-based economy regions in Europe.
For more information:
http://www.bskr.org
http://www.tutech.de/eu
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