Koppicatch

Joberate Enters NIY program

cityharry — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:43:24 +0000

Joberate entered into Tekes’ Young Innovative Companies (NIY) program

Social media recruitment firm Joberate entered into Tekes’ Young Innovative Companies program. The venture has been able to confirm major national and international recruitment deals and partnerships. Joberate’s service has been used in more than 30 countries and it is expanding its customerbase rapidly. Tekes funding will be used to strenghten international precence and growth.

KoppiCatch portfolio company Fenomen closed successfully their pre-seed round

cityharry — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:15:25 +0000

KoppiCatch led the pre-seed financing round for Fenomen Oy, the company with service Mobide(tm). The current investors, including KoppiCatch, and two angels investors, secured this round of financing. Also the management was strengthened by a CTO joining the company and investing personally as well. – This financing package shall be used to ensure product development towards coming commercial launch, from the current alpha.

Mobide to exceed 100 000 registered products by crowdsourcing

cityharry — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:08:32 +0000

KoppiCatch portfolio company Fenomen Oy reported today that their crowd-sourcing service called Mobide(tm) has reached the level of 100 000 registered products. This amazing number of tagged products has been captured by mobile phone users around the world by scanning bar codes on consumer goods. The service generates a flow of unique consumer opinion data at the purchasing moment, when people are having branded products in their hands.

Koppi’s Partner Oskari Lehtonen defended his doctoral dissertation

cityharry — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:59:39 +0000

Koppi’s partner Oskari Lehtonen depended his thesis relates to venture capital and entrepreneurship at Hanken. The dissertation investigates several factors that may influence the relationship between entrepreneurs and investors, and consequently the success of growth entrepreneurship. Such factors include the ways in which entrepreneurs might choose an investor, the investor qualities an entrepreneur should look for, the significance of the balance of power in the entrepreneur-investor relationship, the entrepreneur’s view of the role of experts in the capital investment process, and the increase in the credibility of entrepreneurs that can be brought by investors. The title of the thesis is An Examination of How Entrepreneurs Can Improve Their Position in Relation to Investors.
Download a pdf version of the thesis here:
helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/27777/233_978-952-232-139-8.pdf?sequence=1

KoppiCatch announced its first portfolio exit

admin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 06:58:49 +0000

KoppiCatch Oy, startup investor and Vigo accelerator, announced its first portfolio exit. Today Zokem Oy, Espoo-based mobile analytics company has been acquired by Arbitron, international media and marketing research company.

KoppiCatch has been working together with Zokem since late 2009 and took the company to the portfolio of accelation companies early 2010. KoppiCatch’s invesment strategy and core insight areas cover mobile and online services and solutions with “consumer touch points” – and analytics in particular – and hence Zokem was considered to be a perfect match with the strategy.

Koppi’s acceleration investment was followed by Avera and Tekes NIY program and the company was able to start investing strongly in product development and international sales.

KoppiCatch plans to re-invest most of the profits from this transaction to other potential new startups in Finland.

More information:

KoppiCatch Oy is Helsinki-based acceleration and seed investment company with portfolio of five companies. The company was rewarded “Vigo” status from Ministry TEM of Finland at the end of 2009. The company has three owning partners and a wide set of associated partners and advisors around the world. Contact: Harry Santamäki, +358 400 602024

www.koppicatch.com

Transaction details: http://arbitron.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=773

www.zokem.com

www.vigo.fi

Zokem – the first Vigo exit

admin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 06:33:02 +0000

KoppiCatch has excecuted its first “Vigo” exit transaction, when it’s portfolio company Zokem Ltd was acquired by Arbitron, the leading media measurement company in USA. Zokem has been assisted and accelerated by KoppiCatch since late 2009. The total deal value is up to $23.7 million between now and 2014. More, see press release.

Fenomen – quite a phenomen!

admin — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:32:32 +0000

KoppiCatch’s portfolio company Fenomen Oy reports that its Mobide service is in use in 130 countries and volunteers have created a data base of over 80 000 consumer products. ”This is amazing! The product is still an early stage alpha - and zero Euroes have been invested in marketing” says Harry Santamäki who has been assisting Mika Vehmersuo, CEO of Mobide since 2009.

Joberate will be accelerated

cityharry — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:41:36 +0000

Koppi has agreed that it will start accelerate Joberate’s growth, support to acquire additional funding and help the venture to execute its internationalisation strategy. The venture will apply to Tekes NIY-funding program in near future. Joberate’s CEO Jukka Pekonen comments the co-operations as follows: “We really are looking forward the co-operation”. KoppiCatch’s business accelerator in this particular case, Mr. Oskari Lehtonen, says that he has rarely seen a team that is executing in such a determination and passion. “This team really gets things done”.

Happy-Or-Not Ltd – new kid on the block

admin — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 06:30:08 +0000

KoppiCatch has become an accelerator for Happy-Or-Not Oy, a customer satisfaction measurement company. Mr. Heikki Väänänen is the CEO of the company. Mr. Harry Santamaki and Mr Oskari Lehtonen are the business accelerators from KoppiCatch’s side. ”Happy-Or-Not fits beautifully to our portfolio of consumer-centric ventures” says Mr. Santamaki.

Rapid Blue Solutions Oy – the “google for real life”

cityharry — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 07:50:12 +0000

KoppiCatch closed a seed investment round for its portfolio company Rapid BlueSolutions (RBS). This round ensures ramping up of sales and product development of this innovative young company. RBS also grows out from the premises of KoppiCatch and moves to own offices at Iso Robertinkatu, downtown Helsinki. Mr. Gavin Weight is the CEO of the company and Mr. Oskari Lehtonen is the accelerator from KoppiCatch’s side. ”RBS can provide retailers, shopping mall operators and venue owners very unique information how people move inside the buildings or in open-door commercial areas” says Mr. Lehtonen.