November 19th - 20th, 2013
10:00 am ~ 7:00 pm
Metropol Palace, Belgrade
Belgrade Venture Forum is unique and truly international gathering of investors, entrepreneurs and experts from all around.
Belgrade Venture Forum is the largest venture capital and private equity investment forum in Serbia created to improve access to finance, to raise awareness and build investment readiness, to foster entrepreneurship development and to facilitate networking among regional businesses and other stakeholders.
We believe that there is huge untapped potential in this region for private sector development through equity based financing. Number of excellent projects and investors’ interests in Serbia is piling up. Belgrade Venture Forum is a hot spot and critical mass event for all interested in raising capital, finding investment opportunities and creating innovative partnerships and networks.
SeVeN is proud to present Belgrade Venture Forum Winners for 2013! More than 30 members of investment and expert juries choose a winner of each of 6 Pitching Sessions! Out of them, one startup stood up by the grades
1 Strawberry energy is the Serbian Company engaged in renewable energy sources and clean technologies. They make renewable energy sources more accessible to all people. Their most prominent project was the public solar charger for mobile devices Strawberry Tree, which was awarded by the European Commission with the first place at the “Sustainable energy week 2011”. They innovate and improve products as well as their business model. 2LiveView is independent, cross-media creative agency from Belgrade. They are augmented reality content specialists with business idea to develop range of profitable products and services in AR field. From the wildest concept to the finest detail, together with friends and partners from all over the world they create engaging content that makes people feel, discuss and reflect. 3Festomat has complete NFC Ticketing solution for control of common areas, VIP or backstage to ensure that each area is fully secure and realtime monitored. With their solution each fixed or mobile reader can validate single ticket faster than the blink of an eye. Their software enables complete control over ticket inventory and prevention of possible ticket misuse.SeVeN and its partners StartLabs, Dealmarket and Roaming Electronics provided prizes to all the winners.
Belgrade Venture Forum is proud to announce that among more than 130 applications, independent investment jury has handpicked 40 of the best and brightest projects! Full list of those awarded a chance to personally pitch their ideas in front of potential investors are:
The company has identified a good market and customer base for their products and/or services, and can clearly demonstrate how they can effectively sell to their customers.
The company has clearly identified the type of partnership and/or investment that they are looking for.
The company’s team has the necessary skills and experience to grow the business.
The company can demonstrate a solid competitive advantage through intellectual property (existing or potential trade secret, copyright, trademark, patent, etc.) and/or potential market channels, strong partners, etc.
The products and/or services offered are innovative, technologically advanced, of better quality, or lower price, or otherwise have distinct competitive advantages.
The information presented is well defined, clear, concise and attractive for potential investors/partners.
Academic institutions and spin-off companies
Technology transfers and better integration of academia and industry brings great results in fostering high tech entrepreneurship.
Experiences from startups who received invesstments
Startups and more experienced companies which managed to find investors and to raise capital will share their experiences and present lectures learned
Intelligent products for healthcare
Technology advancement brings longevity and enables millions to reach for full personal potentials and inclusion.
Women in startups – what can we learn from great examples?
Exploring experience and business cases of successful business ladies.
Creating the right start-up team
having a great team is the backbone of starting and growing the business, in acquiring investments and building partnerships.
Opportunities and challenges of cross border investment in the SEE region
What are the trends and future developments in cross border investments in light of increasing regional integration
Startup trends – what’s hot and what’s not?
Explore how new social and technology enablers open new business opportunities.
The Rising Map of the Angel lnvestor
Learning of the 9 steps between entrepreneur and business angel
Lean Startups
Learn what are the best methodologies to develop and grow your startup business.
Corporate Venturing
A topic big as the corporate world itself. Find out how big business leverage on ideas and products from small innovative companies, teams and innovators.
Aging – the next big market
Population all across the developed world is aging rapidly, thus creating huge market opportunities for new ventures
European Regions Best Practices
Meet representatives from some of the most develop and unique European regions – Flanders (Belgium) and Basque country (Spain)
Business cases and investment presentations
Hear almost 10 presentations from business people who closed some of the best deals in a region and learn directly from investors what are their investment preferences and experiences
First Day – 19th of November | ||
09.00 – 11.00 | Investment Readiness Workshop (Pitching Companies Only) |
Serbian Venture Network and Friends |
11.00 – 11.15 | Final technical check for pitching companies | |
11.00 – 12.00 | Conference registrations | |
12.00 – 12.30 | Opening Ceremony | Saša Radulović – Minister of Economy, Republic of Serbia Stefan Lazarević – State Secretary in Ministry of Trade, Republic of Serbia Dr. Stephan Heieck – Project Leader @ GIZ Access |
12.30 – 13.00 | Keynote address: Startup trends – what’s hot and what’s not |
Vladimir De Frančeski, Director @ Founders Institute |
13.00 – 13.10 | Presentation | prof. Vojin Šenk, Coordinator for EEN @ University in Novi Sad |
13.10 – 14.00 | Panel: Academic institutions and spin-off companies | prof. Ivanka Popović, Vice-rector for Science @ Belgrade University prof. Vojin Šenk, Coordinator for EEN @ University in Novi Sad Geoff Butcher, Black Adder inc Patricia Gannon, Karanović Nikolić Siniša Perović, Microsoft Predrag Spasojević, Google Ambasador Moderator: Aleksandar Bijelić, SeVeN |
14.00 – 14.30 | Best Practice and Investor Presentation | Horst Katter, Intel Capital |
14.30 – 15.30 | Lunch and Networking Break | |
15.30 – 16.00 | Keynote address: The Rising Map of the Angel lnvestor – 9 steps between entrepreneur and business angel |
Baybars Altuntas, Ambassador to Turkey & Balkan Countries at World Entrepreneurship Forum |
16.00 – 16.15 | StartLabs – First Serbian Tech Accelerator | Nebojša Lazić – Partner @ StartLabs Accelerator |
16.15 – 17.00 | Panel: Women in startups, what can we learn from great examples | Branislava Gajić, CEO @ Infostud Jana Rodić, Co-founder and Partner @ LiveView Studio Mina Mićanović, Poslovna Inteligencija Tatjana Zabasu, RSG Moderator: Nadja Jokanović, Co-founder & CMO @ Wannabe |
17.00 – 17.30 | Networking & Coffee Break | |
17.30 – 17.40 | Presentation: Aging – The Next Big Market |
Tobias Stone, Venture Partner @ Kwamecorp |
17.40 – 18.30 | Panel: Intelligent products for healthcare | Saša Cvetojević, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor Geoff Butcher, Black Adder inc Toby Stone, Venture Partner @ Kwamecorp Roop Chandwani, PhD l CEO and Managing Director @ Aggio Partners Limited Moderator: Justin Wilcox, Founder @ Nimbus Health |
18.30 – 19.00 | European Regions Best practices: Fostering Innovation and Investment in Flanders, Belgium |
Thomas Castrel, Deputy Director @ Flanders Investment and Trade |
Second Day – 20th of November | ||
10.00 – 10.15 | European Regions Best Practices: GAIA cluster, Pays Basque, Spain Scaling up from Projects to Products, Services and Markets |
Jokin Garatea, International Manager @ GAIA |
10.15 – 10.45 | Keynote: Lean startups |
Justin Wilcox, Mentor @ Startup Weekend and Founders Institute |
10.45 – 11.30 | Panel: Experiences from startups who received investments |
Saša Šarunić, CEO@FiveByFive Ivan Vesić, CEO@VetCloud Ivan Rašić, Founder @ CaseTrek Janko Milunović, Strategy & BizDev @ Brainstorm Stojan Varteš, CEO@Digital Solution and Technology Moderator: Vukašin Stojkov, Co-Founder @ TruckTrack |
11.30 – 11.45 | Discussion with Audience and Q&A’s | |
11.45 – 12.00 | Presentation: DealMarket |
Urs Heusler, CEO @ DealMarket |
12.00 – 12.15 | Presentation of Business Case | Peat Miletić, President @ Finmetrix |
12.00 – 12.45 | Presentation: To the community | Siniša Perović, Evangelist @ Microsoft |
12.45 – 13.40 | Lunch and Networking Break | |
13.40 – 14.00 | Keynote: How to innovate and stay at home |
Vedran Bajer, Industry Manager @ Google |
14.00 – 14.20 | Investor presentations | |
14.20 – 15.00 | Panel: Selecting the right start-up team |
Nebojša Lazić, Partner at StartLabs Accelerator Vladimir Prelovac, CEO @ Prelovac Media Marek Rusiecki, CEO @ Xevin Capital Bal Balaji, CEO @ Bal Lab Robert Sheffrin, IISP Moderator: Dušan Kaličanin |
15.00 – 15.20 | Best Practice and Investor presentations | Cotrugli – International Expansion of leading regional business school ENECA |
15.20 – 16.20 | Coffee and Networking Break | |
16.20 – 16.40 | Experiences of Investor in Serbia | Rade Rakočević – Serbian Entrepreneur and Investor |
16.40 – 17.25 | Panel: Opportunities and challenges of cross border investment in the SEE region |
Irina Dimitrova, CFO @ LaunchHub Accelerator Anita Mlinarić Tregner, Business Development Manager for Croatia and SEE region @ Meta Group Ivo Simov, Eleven Accelerator Dalibor Marjanovic, BICRO Natalia Meylunas, Head of Regional Programme, Small Business Support Team, EBRD Moderator: David Schoch, President @ SPEA |
17.25 – 17.40 | Award Ceremony | Stefan Lazarević, State Secretary Nebojša Lazić, Partner at StartLabs Accelerator |
17.40 – 17.50 | Closing Ceremony |
Register for the conference and join more then 300 participants to network, meet pitching companies and investors, and understand trends for the further development.
Mr. Katter is responsible for business development activities which put emerging technology companies in front of Intel’s top customers and other potential strategic partners. He is working with companies like Alcatel-Lucent, BNP Paribas, BMW, Cap Gemini, Morgan Stanley, Sony Mobile Telecom Italia, Total, and many others. Previously, Horst has been with Intel Corporation for 7 years where he was responsible for ISV marketing, SAP alliance, server platform management, enterprise market development and marketing operations for the EMEA region. He also held strategic positions in professional services, business development, strategic marketing, public relations and corporate management in Europe and Middle East.
A Silicon Valley startup lawyer, mentor and angel investor. Besides practicing corporate, securities and intellectual property licensing law, Vladimir founded the Founder Institute chapter in Zagreb and coaches numerous startups from US, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Before and between practicing law, Vladimir was an engineering and manufacturing strategic planner at Sony, a startup founder, VP business development and CEO.
Founder of Deulcom lnternational, one of the fastest growing trademark of Turkey that was prized by Eurowards. Founder of UFRAD – Turkish Franchise Association. Elected as the Best Businessman – 2010. His company Links Angel is acting as a business angel platform supporting start-up businesses in Turkey. Full member of World Business Angels Association. One of the dragons of Dragons’ Den, entrepreneurship TV show. He was the only participant of a White House Presidential Summit in Washington DC who was given a personal audience by the US President Obama. Serves as Ambassador to Turkey & Balkan Countries at World Entrepreneurship Forum.
Founder of Xevin Investments Ltd., and one of the most active Angel Investors in Poland. He co-founded the first online advertising network in Poland (2000) and was one of the first members of IAB Poland. He has 12 years of experience in e-business. Some of his investments: filestube.com, web.me, cubegroup.pl, cuppon.pl,bezokularow.pl, gametrade.pl, skubacz.pl, pcdoc.pl, bartvpn.com, advice.pl, babyssecret.pl, hilt.com.ua,usabilitytools.com, shoplo.com and others.
Marek was an investor in TV show Dragon’s Den
Founded Aggio Partners, focusing on building high performing management teams in the global life sciences sector. He mentors entrepreneurs, runs workshops and contributes to MBA courses and executive leadership programs including VISION, UCL’s leadership forum for the biological sciences industry. Aggio works with investment companies seeking to transform under-performing assets. They work with seed businesses which have developed novel technologies and are embarking on ambitious growth curves, as well as with multinationals establishing operations in new markets and territories.
DealMarket is a global online platform enabling private equity buyers, sellers and advisors to maximize opportunities around the world – a one‐stop shop for Private Equity professionals. DealMarket was voted the “Best Global Private Equity Platform for 2012 and 2013” by Corporate Livewire. Prior to DealMarket, Urs was in the management team building up amiando, Europe’s leading online event registration and ticketing platform, where he has been in charge of sales & customer care and the internationalization of the company. He is also the owner of Haeusler Management & Ventures, an internet business consulting firm. Urs also supports early stage tech start-ups as a Business Angel.
Tobias is a venture partner at Kwamecorp and a research fellow in Innovation at Huddersfield University, which is one of the most entrepreneurial universities in the UK, and has www.3mbic.com, a leading innovation space. He is also on board of the Wye, a creative industry and tech co-working space in Berlin. He mentors and advises a number of startups through various initiatives including Startup Bootcamp, having particular interest in medical startups and hardware. He worked on economic development in Serbia and around SE Europe from 2002-2005, as a Program Director at the Soros Foundation.
Jure has established the first Slovenian based VC Fund, raising private commitments mostly from domestic industrial investors. He is actively promoting entrepreneurship and regularly holds lectures on finance and fundraising procedures for start-up communities in Slovenia and across Balkans. Prior to establishing RSG Capital he was a deputy head of asset management in KD Group and stock broker on Ljubljana stock exchange.
Irina has considerable experience in corporate finance and financial advisory, including acquisitions, VC financing, disposals and exits, valuations, research and due diligence. She has been instrumental in success of a number of IPOs, trade sales (buy and sell side), capital increases, private placements, and public-to-private transactions (tender offers). LAUNCHub is a seed fund supporting the most promising entrepreneurs and digital startups in South and Eastern Europe. Their investments vary up to 200K Euro and they also run a mentor-led program helping young entrepreneurs grow their business faster
StartLabs provides funding, mentorship, office space, technical infrastructure, business services and networking channels to exceptional entrepreneurs and their teams helping them turn ideas into sustainable business. Nebojša served as CTO in five technology startups and most recently as CEO of SuperSpace, major e-commerce venture in Serbia. While working for over 20 years in software development Nebojša gained broad experience in various technologies, ranging from mobile to enterprise cloud applications.
Anita is COO of META Group’s subsidiary in Croatia, in charge of Globe Innovation Platform Concept in Croatia, SEE and CEE region. She is also supporting fund management and activities of Ingenium Slovenia Fund. Prior to joining META Group, she served as COO at USAID project Partners for Financial Stability (PFS) which supported financial sector development in SEE and Eurasia. There she built a broad network of more than 200 investors, business angels, incubators, and technology parks with the goal to improve the investment climate and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the region. From 2006-2010, Anita served as Director and Fund Manager of Fund Company Subsidiaries of Closed Ended Real Estate Fund under the Management company Jadran Invest LTD.
David Schoch is a member of the board of directors and a founding shareholder of Orion Telekom, and has more than 15 years of experience working in technology and investments in Europe. In the 90’s Mr. Schoch was instrumental in development of the largest alternative telecommunications operator in Central Europe, GTS. He also spent the first half of this decade in London working as the Director of Business Development and Strategy for Cable & Wireless’ £350m enterprise division. Mr. Schoch is a founding board member and President of the Serbian Private Equity Association. .
Ivo devised Eleven’s strategy. He was previously a director in a private equity fund, but now wants to change the VC industry from the bottom up. Eleven is a EUR 12 million venture fund that provides financing to early-stage startups using an incremental investment approach alongside iterative development – thereby, starting with many small experiments, filter out failures, and invest in successes. Eleven is powered by Springboard, the leading European startup accelerator.
Saša is a serial entrepreneur, who established several companies in health sector, mobile telecommunications and distribution of FMCG. He is active angel investor in tech companies with biggest number of investments in Croatia. Some of his investments are Salespod, Once, Entrio and Hipersfera. He is also one of the founders of Crane – Croatian Business Angels Network. Saša plays a major role in projects which are very important for development of Croatian startup ecosystem, such as ZIP (Zagreb Entrepreneurship Incubator), the first startup incubator and coworking space in Zagreb.
Balaji Bal’s 16 year entrepreneurial career has spanned both start-ups and turn-arounds. Companies he has founded or led include SurfKitchen (acquired by Teleca AB), FlauntR (acquired by Fotodesk Group AG), Fotodesk Group AG (Acquired by the CEWE Color AG) and DeviceDriven among others. He is currently CEO of Bal Lab, a boutique software company focused exclusively on product engineering, primarily for start-ups. They are currently working on projects for start-ups in multi-channel messaging, banking, travel and big data image analytics. They are located in Belgrade, Serbia and Basel, Switzerland.
Marius is a renowned Romanian serial entrepreneur, business angel, investor and professor of entrepreneurship. When you have a golden idea you should talk to him. He also supports numerous training and leadership programs for young people and established entrepreneurs, including prestigious School4StartUps in Romania.
Tatjana joined RSG Capital in early 2007, only few months after its establishment. She co-founded the venture capital fund and contributed to setting up an existing venture capital business. As investment director she now serves on boards of the portfolio companies TAB Systems, ShoutEm and Efos. Prior to joining RSG Capital, Tatjana was a corporate finance adviser in Deloitte, mainly engaged in transaction services, M&A advisory and in-depth company reviews. She also consulted on development strategies and worked on company valuation projects.
Natalia worked from 1996 to 1999 as Investment Officer in Small Enterprise Equity Fund In St.Petersburg, Russia. After that, she worked in BAS North-West Russia, TAM/BAS Group – EBRD, first as a Project Officer and then as a National Programme Director. In period from 2005 to 2009 she worked in capacity of a Regional Programme Director in Chisinau (Moldova), Baku (Azerbaijan), Tbilisi (Georgia), Yerevan and Armenia. She is curently Head of Regional Programme, EBRD TAM/BAS in Western Balkans/SEEII, responsible for BAS operations in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro.
Dejan has over 15 years’ experience as a broker, capital markets, investment and M&A consultant and business development specialist in countries of Balkan region. He started his career in M&V Investments in 1998, and in 2003 set up his own brokerage firm Sinteza Invest Group. During 6 years, he provided brokerage and consulting services in privatization of over 150 companies in Serbia and the region. From 2006 till 2010, Dejan performed several successful acquisition projects in Serbia and the Balkan region. From 2010 to 2012, he served in Ascendant Capital Advisors Belgrade, one of the leading investment banking boutique – M&A advisor in Adriatic region, as Managing Partner for Serbia.
Often referred to as “lifestyle entrepreneur”, Rade founded the largest brokerage company in Serbia and region and then sold it to KBC Securities in 2007. Since then, he is an active investor and partner in several projects he personally likes, both in IT and other areas, like Inbox, Web Media Agency, Gym 4 Me, lol.rs, Belgrade Cultural Network (Belgrade Beer Fest), and others. He is also a Board Member of Serbian Associations of Managers.
Aleksandar is a co-founder and president of Serbian Business Angels Network (SBAN), one of the leading venture capital/private equity organizations in Serbia that brings together investors, successful entrepreneurs and other relevant stakeholders. Since May 2012, SBAN represents SEE region in a Board of Directors at EBAN (European Business Angels Network). Aleksandar founded engineering company HTEC and invested in few technology start ups.
Vuk is Investment Director at SEAF’s South Balkan Fund, Belgrade based fully invested fund which has invested in 6 SME’s since its inception in 2005. He worked on the Fund’s entry into two of the investments. He now supports the fund in tracking of its portfolio and potential exits. The fund is in the management phase of investment cycle focusing on value growth and prepping for exit in the next couple of years. Prior to this he headed the Serbian office of an M&A consulting firm and worked on sell side mandates across ex-Yugoslavia.
Peat Miletic is the founder of FinMetrix, Inc. a consultancy which focuses on lean consulting, advanced operational performance measurement, collaborative change management, and operational strategy implementation. Peat is especially passionate about creating exceptional teams, and this philosophy is the guiding principle for equity investing in companies in Serbia, such as Digital ST. FinMetrix, Inc. clients are some of the most renown global corporations operating in virtually all industries. The combined competency platform allows FinMetrix to deliver significant benefits to these clients and compete effectively in global markets.
Stoyan is experienced in investments, cross-border marketing, and business development. He was most recently Country Manager of General Energy, a regional renewable energy investment company. Previously he was Marketing Director of an international consortium between T1 & Samwoo Group, and during his career at Swissport, Stoyan supported its successful market entry onto the Cyprus and Bulgarian markets. Stoyan also played a key role in the acquisition and reorganization of the Dutch industrial chemicals company Eco Cleaning; He has also launched a start-up web platform for sharing confessions and life experiences.
Mr. Fartunov’s experience is in investment banking, consulting and online media in the Netherlands and Europe. He gained investment banking experience at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Amsterdam and EFG Eurobank Securities in Sofia. As a consultant, Ivan was part of the team that advised LG on their entry in the Benelux Digital Signage market. Most recently, Ivan served as Interim Director of the online edition of a major Bulgarian newspaper. While at university, Ivan was the vice-president of the university investment club, where he was responsible for identifying investment opportunities in CEE in collaboration with ACATIS Investment– a German value investing fund.
Co-founder of Telelink Group responsible for international expansion through natural growth and extensive M&A. With purchase and/or sale of over 40 regional companies on the Group level in the past 10 years, he has acquired an in-depth knowledge of the South East Europe telecommunication services market. Prior to Telelink, he started various companies in construction, software development and security fields in United States and in Serbia. His newest venture is the Institute for Energy Efficiency set to become the leading regional ESCO.
Mihovil has 15 years of experience in financial sector where he has, among other things, managed investment funds and a brokerage company. He was member of 29 supervisory boards, including that of Petrokemija. Along with his investments in capital markets, he continuously invested in different investment projects as well.
Serial software entrepreneur and executive. In each venture Voja leverages his global perspective to create new opportunities from the differences in markets, business cultures and consumer perceptions. Voja started a number of computer software and Internet related companies, including Vision Inc..
Gwidon is the co-founder of Xevin Investments Ltd. He graduated from Lazarski University. He has over 11 years experience in online advertising. During that time he held numerous managing positions in biggest online advertising companies in Poland such as CR Media Consulting, AdNet, Sabela Media Polska, Cube Group.
Vedran is working at Google’s Adriatics office based in Zagreb, Croatia as a digital consultant helping Google’s clients and those who might become one, to make the most out of the web – from early phase start-ups to large companies from multiple industries. He has been in the ‘intangible’ business for 10 years, working in marketing, sales and business development roles while leading many startups in that time, some of which are international. Vedran prefers the ‘unknown’ and of restless spirit and is dedicated in helping the regional startup scene.
Founder of successful healthcare (Nimbus Health) and mobile (Together Tech) companies. He also helps others entrepreneurs applying Lean Startup techniques. Justin has been invited to mentor at startup accelerators across 5 continents and, with an affinity for emerging tech communities, regularly spends time in local ecosystems, assisting and advising community leaders from Singapore to San Juan, Puerto Rico (and now Serbia). Justin is a mentor for both Startup Weekend NEXT and Founder’s Institute, and he blogs about Lean Startup experiments at Customer Development Labs.
He is serving corporate clients in the energy and technology sectors across the CEE/SEE region in the context of strategy development, performance improvement programs, and M&A mandates. Previously, he was an M&A advisor at TheMerger, a Viennese boutique investment bank for European technology startups and an associate with SpeedInvest, the region’s first super angel fund. Marius furthermore supports the annual Pioneers Festival and is a board member of “Austrian Startups”, a national industry association for technology startups.
With more than ten years in IT, he started his career in Microsoft in 2008 within Premier Support group. After three years of cooperation with largest Serbian companies, in 2011 he assumed leading position in Business Development and Evangelism group. Since then he works on implementation of Microsoft, but also Open Source technologies on Microsoft platform, through solutions implemented in cooperation with companies and academic institutions. Startup companies and BizSpark program in Serbia are subject of specific interest and he is „responsible“ for more than 40 startups that received direct help through this program. He is also involved in development of business strategy as unoficial mentor in three Serbian startups.
Geoff has spent over 30 years in the technology industry. From 1980 he had a number of general management and CEO positions including as founder of two companies which he successfully exited. Subsequently he has held a number of executive and non-executive Chairman roles in technology companies a number of which have been start-ups / spin outs from UK universities addressing sectors such as waste management, telecoms and manufacturing software, server cooling technologies, truck tire management and structured cabling management. In all of these roles he has a material equity stake. He has built considerable experience in M&A having bought or sold 15 companies and has raised well in excess of $250m in funding via Private equity, venture capital etc.
Flanders is a key economic region in Europe particularly active in high added-value sectors. With 6 million people Flanders reaches astronomical 175 billion in exports, and its advanced policy solutions and business support measures made Flanders experience in high tech development and investment attraction. Flanders Investment & Trade agency promotes sustainable international business, in the interest of both Flanders-based companies and overseas enterprises.
During international career, working for NCR, Electrohome, Telekom Srbija, B92, Mr. Vatres acquired vast expertize and business insights from various industries. As CEO and co-owner of Digital ST, Mr. Vatres laid foundation for disruptive approach in business, digital and mobile solutions. DBrain, globally unique platform, has became a backbone for highly sophisticated software solution that enables complex data modeling, finance metrics and connection to COGNOS reporting software.
Vladimir manages, directs, and innovates at Prelovac Media, and is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder of ManageWP. After realizing that managing multiple WordPress sites was far more difficult than it needed to be, Vladimir set out to create a high-quality WordPress management dashboard that took a group of unconnected WordPress sites and enabled them to be controlled from a single, unified dashboard. His company grew from 4 to 40 employees in one year. He is ranked among world’s top 100 influencers in Social Media in 2012. Currently he works on ChurnBee a SaaS metrics dashboard.
Saša co-founded Five minutes (www.fiveminutes.eu), the largest shop for mobile application development in the region, employing 55 people. He is co-founder of ShoutEm (www.shoutem.com), an easy to use native app builder that allows users to create a full-fledged iPhone and Android app with no coding. In 2010, ShoutEm raised $1Mil investment from Slovenian VC fond RSG capital, which allowed it to grow to one of the most famous platforms of its kind, with offices in Zagreb and New York and customers like the famous NY rapper 50 cent, USA Today, American Museum of Natural History, The Next Web, and others. A month ago Saša made his first exit by selling his share in Five minutes, the multi-million dollar business.
Vice-Rector for Science of the University of Belgrade, and former Dean of the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, UB. President of the Serbian Chemical Society since 2009. Professor on the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, UB since 2001. Her research interests are focused on polymer science and engineering (polymerization kinetics, polymeric nanocomposites, etc.) and sustainable development. Ivanka has two awards: Medal of the Serbian Chemical Society for Success and Dedication in Science and Award of the Ministry of Science and Environmental protection of Serbia for Scientific Achievements.
Vukašin co-founded SEE ICT, a not for profit organization that influences Serbian and regional tech startup ecosystem development and community building. SEE ICT delivered several important projects, including Startup Academy. He made startit.rs, a hub for Serbian tech startup community. Vukašin also co-founded a successful startup called TruckTreck. Startup went to Seed Camp and got few important acknowledgments and prizes.
CaseTrek is a technology company with the mission to serve law firms and advisers by intelligently finding new business opportunities, managing their law practice, lowering overhead and enhancing flexibility of their businesses. Ivan holds an international double-degree LLM in Law & Finance from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. He is passionate about finding new ways for technology to serve his fellow lawyers.
Milica started her finance/investment advisory career at International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 2001 focusing on the Balkan region. As finance advisor and business assessor, she assisted over 130 enterprises in developing, appraising, structuring and implementing investment projects in emerging economies. She has an extensive experience in financial analysis, equity valuation, M&A due diligence and financial restructuring. In 2013 she utilized her financial advisory and A2F expertise in order to develop and implement Investment Readiness Programme for SMEs within the Integrated Innovation Support Programme in Serbia.
Nadja is an ambitious and passionate entrepreneur, MBA, Co-founder of a very successful Serbian startup WANNABE. “Wannabe” projects are WannabeMagazine.com (the most popular fashion, beauty & lifestyle web magazine in Western Balkans), WannabeStars.rs , WannabeBride.rs , WannabeMagazine.si, WannabeShop.com and a new Serbian fashion brand Wannabe Collection. The first project, Wannabe Magazine, has won many regional awards, some of them “The Best Regional Fashion Web Project” and ” The Best Website in Serbia – People’s choice”
Jana is Co-founder and Partner at LiveViewStudio, cross-media creative agency from Belgrade. As a content and technology specialist LiveViewStudio is creating interactive Augmented Reality solutions for wide scope of clients, from large corporate brands to public sector and cultural institutions. LiveViewStudio’s innovative approach to technology has been recognized by leading media and conferences, including among others: Wired, Creative Review, The Creators Project, and conferences like InsideAR, AWE 2013, Museums and Web.
Dušan is a board president of Technokratia, Partner in Digital, Founder of Interaktiv, Creative director in Pakom Group, and advisor for several companies, institutions and projects. Technokratia is leading organization for promotion of Techno culture, which delivered more than 4500 cultural events and parties. From the start, their motto is “Using the high technologies in creative purposes”. He was an editor, producer and author of several famous TV and radio shows and printed media. He co-founded and was Editor in Chief of TV Metropolis (first Serbian music television).
Ralph says he is an entrepreneur because of two reasons – to have fun and make ideas work, and to contribute to a better world without being dependent on any policy or donor. His goal is to start a new (social) company every 6 months! He became an entrepreneur in Belgrade after 3 years of helping young people in the region to start their own company and after 3 years as a policy advisor in city diplomacy for Dutch local government. He founded tourist companies iBikeBelgrade, iBikeNoviSad and Belgrade Nightlife Academy, and is founder and director of the first international bicycle-festival in Serbia: Beograd Velograd.
Through his support in RTD project management and his contribution to the formation of strategies for technology and business development, he has developed a portfolio of strong working relationships and contacts with many high-technology and IT companies. He is the coordinator of the “Mobile Services Innovation Platform” (MOBIP) project, which aims to support the competitiveness of high growth businesses in the mobile services sector. He was the coordinator of the “Gate2Start” project, which aimed to develop a model for the successful exploitation of research-based innovation.
Elena has spent 12 years in the energy and IT industry. She is involved in Accenture Smart Grid business developmentand supports projects as a Senior Manager in Europe, ME, Africa and Latin America in control system solutions andSmart Grid projects. Prior to joining Accenture, she has worked as Energy Consultant, entrepreneur, business developer, PM and expert throughout the world. She is a published author of a book „Transfer of best practice and available technology in renewable energy sources for isolated regions“ translated in five languages and a guest speaker at international conferences involving technical aspects of network automation control and system integration.
Ivan is co-founder and CEO of TechStars alumni VetCloud, that is helping veterinary clinics to make sense of their data, and offer animal owners new ways to discover and buy pet products and services. London-based and currently in private beta with prestigious veterinary clinics on three continents, VetCloud graduated most successful startup accelerator in the world, TechStars, and raised €350k from Eleven Accelerator Venture Fund and angel investors. VetCloud is offering practice and customer management tools for vets, with ultimate mission to use big data for providing clear picture of animal health care trends. Ivan is mentor at Eleven, passionate about disruptive b2b models and consumerization of the enterprise. He is startup activist and co-editor at startit.rs, constantly trying to increase regularity of his posts.
Tomas has successfully built up an innovative venture in the area of Social Media Monitoring, from scratch up to profitability and domestic market leadership. He now works as doctoral researcher at Sup de Co Montpellier Business School, and on down-to-earth new venture projects, helping them with his experience, network and knowledge. Tomas has already done and is further conducting some benchmarking research on startup accelerators across Europe. On the practical side, he is more and more focused on new ventures within the Health / Biotech sector.
Vojin is responsible for developing the strategy of establishment of innovation centers in the broad sense of the word. He has coordinated the “Best technology innovation” competition in Serbia since 2005 and PETITHA (Promoting Entrepreneurial Thinking in the High-Tech Area), a project financed by European Agency for Reconstruction. He is an author of the ICT part of the Technological Development Strategy for AP Vojvodina. He is also a member of the committee for preparation of the new law on Innovation Policy in Serbia. Co-founder of Konekta Konsalting, a consulting agency for high-tech entrepreneurs. Co-founder of two high-tech companies in the area of communication software development. Vojin has a PhD in Electrical Engineering.
International manager at GAIA, an expert in International Commerce, an active member of the Department of Telecommunications of the International Chamber of Commerce, board member manager of the European Network of Living Labs, Advisor of governments for regulatory issues affecting to Cluster companies. He has a broad experience in international projects coordination on ICTs, ecommerce for SMEs, RTD projects to improve competitiveness in the telecommunications sector financed by directorates of the European Commission. And he has also vast experience in ICT business development in countries like India, China, USA, and in many European countries like Austria, Germany, etc.
Dr. Pierrakis works as an Innovation Expert at the World Bank and at the Innovation Integrated Support Program (IISP) in Serbia. Previously he was the Head of Investments Research at Nesta, the UK Innovation Agency (London, UK). He has extensively published research and policy reports in the area of innovation finance (including Venture Capital and Business Angels) and Equity and Debt Crowdfunding, the first in-depth pieces of independent research in this field in Europe.
Programme Manager of “Pokreni se za posao” project at NGO ENECA, (Expert Community Association), funded by Philip Morris Operations Serbia and supported by RTS, where he also led “Poverty reduction through support of start-up businesses” project. Previously he was Relationship Manager for Mid Market at UniCredit Bank Serbia Regional Centre Niš, and Corporate Relationship Manager at Sociėtė Generale Bank Serbia Regional Centre Niš. He also worked as Grant Manager / Consultant for entrepreneurs and SMEs at German NGO “Help-Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe” and National Training Coordinator at OSCE.
Mr. Sheffrin has raised and managed venture capital funds, been a non-executive director and advised or invested in over 100 companies. As an investor and manager in the UK, Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc, he has participated in IPOs including a high growth start up that initially raised $1.4m and achieved a $2.1bn exit. A Chartered Accountant and former British Business Angels Association board member, in Serbia, he is a Venture Capital Expert with the Integrated Innovation Support Programme and a board member of the Serbian Private Equity Association.
Mina Mićanović has graduated from Faculty of Electrical Engineering and started her professional career in the field of development and implementation of intelligent information systems, first in Arius as a developer of reporting solutions for the banking sector, and then in the Asseco SEE (former Pexim) Business Intelligence department. In Mid-2008, she came to Poslovna Inteligencija where she holds position of Executive director from the beginning of 2011. Miss Mićanović is one of the leading consultants for modeling, design and implementation of DWH and BI solutions with expert knowledge of business processes in the telco and financial services industry.
Value proposition for everyone
Pitch your company to investors’ audience representing few billions in funds
Increase your investment readiness. Acquire experience. Develop professional network. Find strategic partners. Learn of newest development in policy and market trends. Experience firsthand how business community breads.
Meet-up high quality investor ready companies
most talented teams and entrepreneurs, prominent investors, policy and decision makers, industry experts. Generate partnerships and leads. Make your presence visible to more than 400 delegates from private and public sectors and investment community.
Create your deal flow in the South East Europe
Meet most innovative. investor ready and fast-growing companies and projects from Serbia and Region. Get connected to talented leaders and teams from ICT, Lif Science and Clean Tech fields. Access to partnership and potential co-investors.
Learn how to create effective models for fostering entrepreneurship
transfering technology, cooperating with private sector and generating wealth. Establish contact with representatives of companies and academic institutions from more than 15 countries.
Visit the old BKVF 2012 website | Check the videos from our previous event
What our participants are saying
By my opinion, South East Europe, and among them Serbia, is very interesting, mainly because of people and talents of local entrepreneurs. Globally, we are dealing with big problems such as lack of food, which is the basic need. Balkans is very interesting due to its great tradition in food production. I am sure that there is a great potential for organic food export in European Union. Second big problem that we are facing is the climate change and energy security problems, so I consider very viable investments those in electricity production from renewables, as well as the investments in energy efficiency.
If you are in entrepreneurship, BkVF is the event you need to be. Great opportunity to catch up with the world. Its a must-be place for networking, if you are serious about what you are doing.
Great initiative! The event is certainly first of its kind in the region and it offers so much to the entrepreneurs because of the direct contact with the investors and peers from various industries. Already looking forward to the next one.
BkVF was my first pitching experience and I must say that the organization and whole experience were really good. We’ve also seen a TED speaker on stage and TEDx organizers in the audience which added a special spice to the event.
When we search for projects and companies to invest we primarily search for strong people and teams, those who are ready to explore. For us, it is important that the project is original and that it has a potential to develop. We invest 500 million dollars in 150 projects a year and we have six partners searching for projects in Central and Eastern Europe.
Organizer of Belgrade Venture Forum is Serbian Venture Network (SeVeN)
We are the network of professionals from Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Albania.
Southeast Europe as integrated business region with enabling business environment and favorable business conditions, where the talents, innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and business partnering are the engines of growth and development.
To develop capacities and improve positions of regional businesses and entrepreneurs, in fields of knowledge-based economy, with goals of building competitiveness, improving access to finance and building sustainable and profitable business models.
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Serbian Venture Network
Granicarska 11 |Belgrade |Serbia