Partners



Tech Tour & The International Venture Club would like to thank their partners for their generous support.

 

Global Partners

Egon Zehnder International was founded in 1964 in Zurich and today the firm specializes in Board Effectiveness Reviews, Leadership Strategy Services and Executive Search at the Management and Board levels. The Firm has a distinctive vision and structure aimed at achieving two basic goals - placing clients' interests first and to lead its profession in creating value for its clients through the assessment and recruitment of top-level management resources. The Firm has a structure which is unique in its profession. The Firm's 385 consultants, operating from 63 wholly owned offices in 37 countries, are organized around a single-profit center partnership. This is designed to eliminate competitive barriers between offices. It allows the Firm to operate seamlessly when engagements call for multi-office, cross collaboration and knowledge sharing. Large or small, local or global, clients benefit from this structure by having access to the Firm's most relevant resources and relationships wherever they may reside.


Founded in 1988 by Aletta and Peter Stas and driven by passion, Frederique Constant has grown into one of the larger Swiss watch manufacturers. In 2011, production reaches over 120'000 watches, sold in over 2'700 points of sale in 100+ countries around the globe. Frederique Constant positions itself in the Accessible Luxury segment, with most of its watches selling at CHF 1'000-5'000 retail. The company is expected to continue its annual 25% growth, doubling in size every three years. Over the years, we have earned a reputation as a leading maker of Swiss luxury watches despite the relative youth of our brand. The quality of our watches and the detail involved in crafting each watch is only part of our success story; the rest was driven by watch aficionados and lovers of our brand who saw that we had something different and unique to offer. It is by appealing to this same group of people that we hope to make a difference in the lives of many by soliciting for their support to extend the same affection they have for the brand, towards charities and causes we are associated with.

 
Founded in Geneva in 1805, the Pictet Group is today one of Europe's leading independent wealth and asset managers, with more than EUR 316 billion in assets under management and custody at 30 June 2013. Entrepreneurship lies at the heart of Pictet’s values. Pictet is a partnership of eight owner managers with principles of succession and transmission that have remained unchanged since foundation. These principles encourage a spirit of collegial management and entrepreneurship, a long-term vision and commitment by the Partners.
With this entrepreneurial spirit forming the basis for its growth, Pictet & Cie has 3,300 employees with a global presence of 25 offices. While this tradition ensures continuity, it also creates the adaptable and entrepreneurial environment which is essential to the future prosperity of our clients and of Pictet itself.
Pictet is a global sponsor of the Tech Tour, the Founders Forum and DLD and works together with Monocle for the weekly business show The Entrepreneurs, showcasing the most exciting ventures in the business world.  

 

Silver Partner

 


Cocktail Partner

 

Investment Banking for tomorrow's Leaders. Founded in 2003, Torch Partners is one of Europe’s leading independent providers of investment banking services to growth oriented sectors. Its clients range from entrepreneurs to industry leaders and from specialist investors to globally recognised equity capital providers. Torch caters to high growth businesses, both early in their life cycle and as they develop into recognised market leaders, intervening at the critical inflection points in a company’s life - fundraising, buyouts, spinouts, M&A, IPOs. Torch Partners Corporate Finance Inc. is registered as a broker-dealer with the SEC and a member of FINRA. For more information, visit www.torchpartners.com.





 

Bronze Partners


Bulger Partners is a new breed of financial partner dedicated to providing the highest quality strategic advice, transaction execution, and liquidity to growth-oriented businesses. Our team of professionals combines comprehensive operating capabilities and financial expertise developed at the leading technology and financial services companies.
 
Deutsche Börse Group is one of the largest exchange organisations worldwide. It organises markets characterised by integrity, transparency and safety for investors who invest capital and for companies that raise capital – markets on which professional traders buy and sell equities, derivatives and other financial instruments according to clear rules and under strict supervision. Deutsche Börse Group, with its services and systems, ensures the functioning of these markets and a level playing field for all participants – worldwide.
 

Gimv is a European investment company with over three decades of experience in private equity and venture capital. Gimv is listed on NYSE Euronext Brussels. Gimv currently manages around 1.8 billion EUR (including third party funds) of investments in 85 portfolio companies, which jointly realise a turnover of more than EUR 6 billion and employ over 28,000 professionals.

As a recognized market leader in selected investment platforms, Gimv identifies entrepreneurial and innovative companies with high-growth potential and supports them in their transformation into market leaders. Gimv’s four investment platforms are: Consumer 2020, Health & Care, Smart Industries and Sustainable Cities. Each of these platforms works with a skilled and dedicated team across Gimv’s home markets of the Benelux, France and Germany and can count on an extended international network of experts.


Iris Capital is a pan-European venture capital fund manager specializing in the digital economy. Since its inception in 1986, the Iris Capital team has invested more than €900 million in more than 200 companies. Iris Capital targets opportunities in service or technology companies, seeking growth capital in order to realize their strategy. It provides active support to its portfolio companies on the basis of its strong sector specialization and experience, and has offices in Paris, Düsseldorf, San Francisco, Montreal, Riyadh, Dubai, Beijing and Tokyo.  In 2012 Iris Capital has entered into a strategic partnership with Orange and Publicis to manage their joint venture capital initiative. For additional information please see www.iriscapital.com.
 
For more than a century, Morgan Lewis lawyers have helped clients achieve their business goals, and clients have come to rely on the firm for its tradition of professional excellence, integrity and client service. Morgan Lewis has more than 1,400 lawyers and 300 other professionals (including technical specialists, patent agents and paralegals) in 22 offices worldwide. We have a complete range of practices and are well positioned to meet clients' critical legal needs.
 
   
 Mobicap Ventures, the first pan-European seed stage Venture Capital fund focusing on mobile & mobility with local presence in Germany, United Kingdom, France and Belgium. As a specialised seed stage Venture Fund Mobicap Venture addresses the outstanding opportunity for mobile & mobility businesses in Europe. European entrepreneurs face a major challenge in financing during the initial phase of their start-up’s development. Mobicap Ventures provides smart money to the best entrepreneurs. Mobicap Ventures has target size of 60 – 80 M€, with a first closing objective at 45 M€. It is managed by a professional and complementary team: experts in mobile & mobility, seed stage development support and venture capital. The team has an efficient, hands-on and entrepreneurial approach, is actively involved with the management and maintains local presence. In Berlin the team is advertising the investment opportunity and exploring cooperation with other early stage investors and coaches.


Supporting Partner

We help entrepreneurs and Venture Capital firms improve the operational performance of their companies, primarily in the Enterprise Software industry. We have substantial experience in building operational platforms for sustainable growth. All partners at Zobito have experience in taking companies from tiny to world class and are proud to say that the success was based on science and not art. An important part of our business idea is to share both risk and upside in the companies we help. We put our money where our mouths are.
 

Dinner Co-Host

The media-, information, and creative sectors belong to Berlin’s largest branches of industry. Project Future has supported these branches since 1997. The state initiative, which is located within the economic management, optimizes the growth conditions for those sectors, develops strategies, coordinates clusters and initiates and promotes projects. By means of hosting events and releasing publications, Project Future encourages the dialog with the public and builds up links between the business sector, science, politics and administration.


Media & Communication Partners

BondPR Worldwide is a global communications firm currently managing PR campaigns in over 50 countries for clients such as Autodesk, BroadVision, ClickSoftware, Dell SonicWall and Regus. BondPR offers streamlined, seamless and scalable campaigns through one point of contact, making world-class global PR available to technology and business to business clients without the hassle and overhead typically associated with international PR agencies. This makes it very interesting for Start-Ups that want to roll out internationally with fast results and high ROI. BondPR Worldwide is structured around a “One Team” approach. One Team means one central point of contact, one senior ‘go to’ consultant dedicated to ensuring your campaign is orchestrated and conducted to the same high standards everywhere in the world. The business model is based on developing and delivering PR programmes that achieve the maximum results with the minimum administration.
 

Informilo is a Paris-based media company that covers the global tech sector with a strong emphasis on Europe. The focus is on entrepreneurship and innovation in every part of the pipeline from the smallest start-up with the best idea to big companies that embrace creative disruption. The aim is to help start-ups and venture capitalists benchmark the global competition and connect with big corporates. In addition to its Web-based magazine Informilo is launching a quarterly report on venture capital and entrepreneurship in Europe in the Times of London (the first edition will be published in December 2010) and will be a regular contributor to a new “technology news of the week” segment on France 24 television station. Informilo was founded by Jennifer L. Schenker, a veteran journalist who has been covering the technology sector in Europe for 25 years, for publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and BusinessWeek.
 

Founded in1998 GoingPublic Media AG is today one of the leading publishers of magazines on corporate finance, technology, and capital markets. In addition to the monthly issued GoingPublic Magazin and its well known special editions like “Biotechnology” or “Corporate Finance & Private Equity Guide”, the company publishes monthly the VentureCapital Magazin. It stands as a hub for the private equity and venture capital industry in German speaking Europe and addresses investors and entrepreneurs. The monthly issued magazine Smart Investor addresses retail investors. The six times a year published HV Magazin is directed to the GM-responsibles (board members, investor relations managers etc.) of listed companies. The likewise young publication Unternehmeredition, focuses six times a year mediumsized business entrepreneurs. In 2008 DIE STIFTUNG became part of publication programme of GoingPublic Media. The magazine appears with the highest coverage (15.000 recipients) within the foundation and private wealth market in German speaking Europe. In its corporate publishing division “GoingPublic Services” about ten magazines and newsletters are annually produced on behalf of corporate customers as Deutsches Aktieninstitut, the association of German listed companies (“Finanzplatz”). GoingPublic Media is listed in the Open Market of Frankfurt Stock Exchange (WKN 761 210) and in M:access of Munich Stock Exchange. All publications are published in German.


 

Industry Support

 

EBAN - The European Trade Association for Business Angels, Seed Funds, and other Early Stage Market Players is a pan-European organization gathering over 100 member organizations from 27 countries, including business angels networks and federations of networks, early stage venture capital funds (investing less than 3 million euros per transaction, and interested in cross-border collaboration with angels). EBAN represents circa 250 angel groups in Europe via direct or indirect membership, reaching out to 20.000 angels and receiving circa 40.000 business plans a year. It was established in 1999 with the collaboration of the European Commission by a group of pioneer angel networks in Europe. EBAN’s mission is to enhance the visibility of business angels, business angel networks, and early stage funds and help its members exchange good practices.

 

In Association with

Intesa Sanpaolo is the banking group which was formed by the merger of Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI. The merger brought together two major Italian banks with shared values so as to increase their opportunities for growth, enhance service for retail customers, significantly support the development of businesses and make an important contribution to the country's growth. Intesa Sanpaolo is among the top banking groups in the euro zone, with a market capitalisation of 21.1 billion euro(1) and aims at becoming the benchmark for value creation in the European banking system. Intesa Sanpaolo is the leader in Italy in all business areas (retail, corporate and wealth management). The Group offers its services to 10.8 million customers through a network of approximately 5,500 branches well distributed throughout the country with market shares no lower than 15% in most Italian regions.