New Technology Trends

$50K Additional Prize for Financial Services Startups at the upcoming Innotribe – Apply Now…

There is now a $50K prize as I indicated in the title – here is a re-post with instructions:

I've recently agreed to serve as a judge for the 2012 Innotribe Startup Challenge, an extraordinary opportunity for FinTech and Financial Service startups and innovators to meet potential investors, customers and partners from the world's leading financial institutions and FinTech investors.

Sponsored by SWIFT (www.swift.com), the Innotribe Startup Challenge (http://www.innotribestartup.com) fosters collaborative between emerging FinTech and Financial Service innovators and SWIFT's member community of over 9,700 banking organizations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 209 countries.

Applicants to the Challenge enjoy online exposure and introductions to hundreds of potential partners and customers from SWIFT's member community, as well as investors and other members of the startup ecosystem.

Semi-finalists, selected by a panel of expert judges, are invited to one of three regional Challenge Showcases (New York - Feb 8, Bangkok - Apr 25/6, and Belfast - late June), where innovators pitch and network with a hand-picked group of 40-50 investors and financial industry decision makers.

The 15 most promising companies from across all three Showcases, as selected by qualified decision makers and investors from across the SWIFT community, will be invited to present at Sibos, SWIFT's annual financial industry trade show that attracts over 8000 financial industry decision makers, influencers and journalists. Sibos (www.sibos.com) will take place this year in Osaka, Japan in October 2012.

The Challenge is open to companies working in financial technology or technology-enabled financial services (no consulting or outsourcing) such as payments, securities, trading, social media tools, big data/data analytics, security, identity, b2b or b2b2c mobile, small business apps & services &/or IT infrastructure. Early-stage applicants must be less than 3 years old with less than $1M in combined revenue and investment in the last 12 months. Later-stage applicants may be of any maturity level, but the products/services they submit must still be 'under the radar'.

Companies apply online by completing a short questionnaire and submitting a pitch deck. Early-stage applicants can participate in the Challenge at no cost other than travel costs to the Showcase if selected as a semi-finalist. Later-stage semi-finalists are subject to a $5000 presentation fee and cover their own travel costs for the Showcase and Sibos. Early-stage finalists invited to Sibos receive re-imbursement for travel expenses, while later-stage finalists cover their own travel costs. No other program provides FinTech and Financial Services innovators access and exposure to so many qualified potential investors, partners and customers at so little cost.

Applications for the February 8th NYC Challenge Showcase are due by January 6th. To learn more and apply, please visit http://www.innotribestartup.com.

The Innotribe Startup Challenge is Feb 8, 2012 in NYC: http://innotribestartup.com/

This e-mail and any attachments thereto may contain information which is confidential and/or proprietary and intended for the sole use of the recipient(s) named above. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify the sender and delete the mail. Thank you for your co-operation. SWIFT reserves the right to retain e-mail messages on its systems and, under circumstances permitted by applicable law, to monitor and intercept e-mail messages to and from its systems.

Please visit http://www.swift.com for more information about SWIFT.

Fin Serv Startups : Apply for the Innotribe Startup Challenge

I am honored to be a judge again at the upcoming Innotribe in New York.  BizSpark recently partnered with SWIFT on the Innotribe Startup Challenge to bring BizSpark companies working in FinTech and Financial Services an extraordinary opportunity to meet potential investors, customers and partners from the world’s leading financial institutions and FinTech investors.

Sponsored by SWIFT (www.swift.com), the Innotribe Startup Challenge (http://www.innotribestartup.com) fosters collaborative between emerging FinTech and Financial Service innovators and SWIFT’s member community of over 9,700 banking organizations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 209 countries.

• Applicants to the Challenge enjoy online exposure and introductions to hundreds of potential partners and customers from SWIFT’s member community, as well as investors and other members of the startup ecosystem.
• Semi-finalists, selected by a panel of expert judges, are invited to one of three regional Challenge Showcases (New York - Feb 8, Bangkok - Apr 25/6, and Belfast - late June), where innovators pitch and network with a hand-picked group of 40-50 investors and financial industry decision makers.
• The 15 most promising companies from across all three Showcases, as selected by qualified decision makers and investors from across the SWIFT community, will be invited to present at Sibos, SWIFT's annual financial industry trade show that attracts over 8000 financial industry decision makers, influencers and journalists. Sibos (www.sibos.com) will take place this year in Osaka, Japan in October 2012.

The Challenge is open to companies working in financial technology or technology-enabled financial services (no consulting or outsourcing) such as payments, securities, trading, social media tools, big data/data analytics, security, identity, b2b or b2b2c mobile, small business apps & services &/or IT infrastructure. Early-stage applicants must be less than 3 years old with less than $1M in combined revenue and investment in the last 12 months. Later-stage applicants may be of any maturity level, but the products/services they submit must still be 'under the radar'.

Companies apply online by completing a short questionnaire and submitting a pitch deck. Early-stage applicants can participate in the Challenge at no cost other than travel costs to the Showcase if selected as a semi-finalist. Later-stage semi-finalists are subject to a $5000 presentation fee and cover their own travel costs for the Showcase and Sibos. Early-stage finalists invited to Sibos receive re-imbursement for travel expenses, while later-stage finalists cover their own travel costs. No other program provides FinTech and Financial Services innovators access and exposure to so many qualified potential investors, partners and customers at so little cost.

Applications for the February 8^th NYC Challenge Showcase are due by January 6^th. To learn more and apply, please visit http://www.innotribestartup.com.

ClickDimensions - Innovative Market Automation Company Raises A Funding Round

I am very excited to announce that one of my portfolio companies ClickDimensions has successfully raised a funding round with Canal Partners.  ClickDimensions have a very innovative Market Automation solution built natively using Microsoft Azure and Dynamics.  ClickDimensions were recognized for their innovative use of Microsoft's technologies when admitted into the highly selective BizSpark One program that identifies best of breed companies among thousands of software companies in the BizSpark program.   The company has won several other awards and accolades and its been a pleasure working with the management team and I am looking forward to their continued success. See more details at:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/11/prweb8977467.htm

Mintigo – Changing the Game In Customer Acquisitions

Happy to announce one of my Portfolio companies - Mintigo raised $9M in venture financing from Sequoia.

Mintigo has very innovative ways to assist businesses acquire new customers - This is the second company in my portfolio to be funded by Sequoia. Lattice Engines another one of our companies pulled a $10M series B back in July:

See article at :http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/23/mintigo-reads-your-customer-code-to-find-leads-gets-9m-from-sequoia-capital/

Digital Folio - Changing the Dynamics of Consumer Shopping

The Wall Street Journal has done a great review of one of my portforlio companies - Digital Folio.Walt Mossberg is just as excited as I am about the great potential for this company.  See the videos on Fox News at:

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1149497842001/mossberg-digital-folio-good-for-saving-time-and-/?playlist_id=87013

MarketWatch: Mossberg: Digital Folio is Powerful Shopping Tool

and

http://allthingsd.com/20110907/digital-folio-review-online-shopping-on-the-side/

Register for Dynamics CRM Technology On-Ramp Program

Microsoft Dynamics has recently launched a new Marketplace for list ISV solutions (similar to Sales Force’s App Exchange).We are seeking innovative companies of all types and sizes to go-to-market with Microsoft. To enable ISVs get listedin the Microsoft Dynamics marketplace, Microsoft is hosting an Dynamics Technical On-Ramp Program to assist ISVs get integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

To alleviate the cost of travelling for developers, Microsoft will be offering this course online by invitation only – developers can get trained directly at their offices with the direction of a Microsoft trainer.  Each company can have up to two employees attend the training – we may
allow more per company if slots are available at the end of the registration drive.

Program Details:

June 2^nd 2011 – Kick off with CXO and Developers
                                - Overview of the Microsoft Dynamics Ecosystem and How ISVs Can
                                Partner with Microsoft.
June 18th  - July  11^th 2011 – Dynamics CRM 2011 Technology On Ramp For Developers :
                                  - Deep technical training for developers including technical labs by 
                                    Microsoft experts
                                  - The Program will run in two time zones ( so we can accommodate
                                     developers in Europe and Asia)

                                  - Sessions will be scheduled  each week Mon, Wed Friday 
                                   with a day in  between each lecture for  developers to complete the
                                   technical labs
                                  - Time schedule for the courses will be posted shortly

Key Advantages for ISVs:

- Alleviate travel(flight and hotel) costs to getting your developers to training

- ISVs can train multiple developers from their offices and have access afterwards to
resources to assist with rapid integration

- Accelerate integration with Dynamics, get listed in the Marketplace and take advantage of sales partnership with Microsoft.

Immediate Call To Action

Please send me an email robowri@microsoft.com indicating your interest and a short overview of your company.
Microsoft will be sending  unique registration links for sign up to each attendee.

Expand Your Business Globally and Speed Up Development Time

Microsoft is in the midst of its biggest transition since inception with movement of products and services to the cloud. One of the central components of its SaaS strategy, is the introduction of a new business applications development layer which makes it easier and faster for developers to build and deploy business and vertical applications leveraging core platform assets like .NET, Windows Azure, Office and other business platforms. Developers can expose their solutions through an Outlook interface with potential visibility to hundreds of millions of consumers who currently use Microsoft Office today.

In parallel, Microsoft has also released a Dynamics Marketplace which will be a central location for Microsoft’s customers to find, download, try and purchase SaaS business applications, and for businesses to list their completed solutions. It is also the central place for Microsoft sales teams to look for potential partners to jointly go to market with. Access to the Microsoft sales force has historically been the most time consuming, costly and most difficult step in the lifecycle of most startups. The new model makes it simpler than it has ever been for startups to get market and sales activation. To this end Microsoft is seeking innovative vertical and horizontal business solutions across vertical areas like Retail, Manufacturing, Financial Services and others. Microsoft has developed training resources, videos and useful content to assist software companies accelerate their development and get listed in the Marketplace. To access resources please follow the following instructions:

(1) Step One – Update Your Profile On BizSpark

(2) Step Two – Learn about the new Dynamics Business Applications Framework

(3) Step Three – Please send an email to georgemo@microsoft.com cc robowri@microsoft.com indicating your interest to assist navigate additional resources

(4) Step Four – Test Your Solution and Get Listed in the Marketplace

See also a FAQ list of most common questions in my prior blog

Frequently Answered Questions on Dynamics Marketplace and Dynamics

1. What is the target market (size of company, verticals)? Who do you sell to in the company?

· Microsoft Dynamics offers expansive business opportunities for ISVs by providing superior value to small & medium sized customers as well as large enterprise businesses, enabling them to maximize their IT investment and streamline processes across all areas of their business.

2. Who do we compete against? 

· Salesforce.com, SAP, Oracle, Sage, Epicor, NetSuite, Intuit, Infor

3. Why does Microsoft win?

· Enable the dynamics partner community to focus on their limited application development resources on addressing high-growth market opportunities—not application infrastructure

· Reduce customer interaction costs with flexible and affordable sales, service and marketing automation.

· Increase user adoption and satisfaction with familiar, easy to use applications, tools and user interfaces.

· Rapidly seize business opportunities with flexible software based on the innovation and value of the Microsoft application platform.

· Earlier in the Partner ecosystem lifecycle so higher channel recruitment

· Mid-market to Enterprise focus

· Vertical relevance is a key buying criteria

· Leading Platform: Microsoft’s proven commitment towards continually improving its products and becoming the leader in new markets makes Microsoft Dynamics a better platform to build software solutions on for a competitive advantage.

· Best of Breed Solutions: Microsoft Dynamics enables ISVs to utilize its advanced base functionality (e.g. multi-currency GL, analytics, SQL, cube generation, multi-language ) to build next generation solutions to retain their installed bases of customers and generate new revenue streams.

4. How many customers does Microsoft have with Dynamics?

· ERP: 300K+ Customers

· CRM: 23K+ Customers / 1,4m users

· No. of MBS selling partners (incl. ISVS): 10K+

5. Do you sell direct and/or indirect?  If both, what’s the split in revenue?

· Microsoft’s Sales Strategy is based on a very strong partner ecosystem. Dynamics products are being sold via channel partners directly to customers or indirectly (embedded solution) as part of partner’s vertical IP sold by ISV’s partner channel.

6. What is your partnering strategy?

· Microsoft is deeply committed to a channel-driven strategy. Of the three major ERP vendors, only Microsoft Dynamics is committed to selling through a channel-engaged model. This is demonstrated by the competitive partner business model Microsoft offers, as well as the extensive support provided through resources and tools that help partners offset investments and drive strong business results. Microsoft Business Solutions proactively aligns focused ISVs and VARs by vertical to drive vertical demand and to build vertical references and credibility

7. How many partners do you currently have on the Marketplace?  How many do you want? 

· Marketplace is available in 29 countries with more than 1,000 partners listed. We want many more!

8.  What co-marketing opportunities would we have around the launch? 

· Focus marketing investments on industry & vertical market opportunities and high-value partners throughout the partner marketing life-cycle

· Investment in vertical marketing activities, industry Public Relations and Analyst Relations and industry focused advertising that result in higher quality leads

9. High level description of marketing campaigns to promote partners to the install base - on demand and on premise

· We are driving awareness for the Marketplace to existing customers through events like Convergence, our Microsoft websites like Customer Source and through regular communication like newsletter & feeds

· Through-Partner Industry Marketing Campaigns enable ISVs to craft the appropriate campaign execution plan to meet their specific lead-generation goals, timeline, and budget to put together a unique campaign that meets ISVs’ industry needs. Components may include a postcard, direct mail, telesales activity, executive event invitation, or an offer to download or receive a third party white paper. Also included are web components to help to deliver a cost-effective digital marketing campaign for partners.

10. How is the marketplace promoted from within Dynamics UI?

· In-product discoverability of the Marketplace with newest release of Dynamics CRM 2011

· We continue to find additional ways to expose the dynamics marketplace

11. What is the lead flow from the marketplace to the partner?

· We have close to 20K visitors per month growing rapidly and expect to reach 30K visitors within the next 3 weeks.

· Customers can read about the offerings from partners and engage the partner through the Marketplace, either through a web-link leading to the partner website, expose the partner phone number or sending an email. We call this Prospect Generation.

12. What is the lead flow from the marketplace to the partner on a monthly basis – average # of leads sent to partners

· We have just above 10,000 prospect generations per month

13. Additional public information incl. figures

· Microsoft as a whole will invest $9 billion toward R&D

· 7% increase in Microsoft Dynamics Net Revenue in Q2 FY11

BizSpark One Company Dayforce Raises $10M in Venture Funding Lead by Bridgescale Partners

After kicking off our new fiscal year at the start of July, I have been very busy over the last few weeks attending several conferences ( its the conference season at our company – where all the new year goals  and initiatives get communicated and set).  However here is some slightly belated great news  I have been wanting to communicate during the past few busy weeks:

Dayforce, a BizSpark One company in my portforlio just raised a $10M round lead by BridgeScale Partners.  Dayfoce provides on-demand workforce management solutions  across industries and is one of the most compelling solutions based on all the latest Microsoft technologies like Silverlight and Microsoft Dynamics.

Dayforce offers a complete workforce management solution with functionality that includes time and attendance, labor scheduling, labor forecasting, labor budgeting, labor analytics, task management,
human resources and employee self-service. The company has set itself apart from competitors with its vastly superior user experience, much faster application, and by providing significantly greater business value.

Dayforce has a fantastic leadership and engineering team and continue to provide cutting edge solutions that address today and tomorrow’s enterprise needs. See more details at http://www.dayforce.com. 

My Canadian counterpart David Crowe and I  have been working very closely with the Dayforce leadership team and very excited and happy about their success. Dayforce was just featured at the Microsoft  BizSpark One booth at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington DC from July 10th – 15th and are poised to do great things in the new fiscal year. This exciting news comes a few months after UK company  Huddle, another one of my Portfolio companies successfully raised an $8M funding round from Matrix Venture Partners.

BizSpark One Sizzles With Exciting New Companies

 

Its been a while since I had time to write …that;s because I have been busy.  Its been a super exciting fiscal year with my team’s launch of the BizSpark One program this past fall. As you can imagine my colleagues and I  have been heads-down trying to execute this exciting new program. However I have had so many inquiries lately as to what I have been up to;  and more and more people want to find out more about BizSpark One ..so its time for the REVEAL…:

What is BizSpark One?

The official definition :

Microsoft® BizSpark™ One, the latest extension to the Microsoft BizSpark program, accelerates the growth of selected high potential Startups through a one-to-one relationship with Microsoft and a global community of advisors, investors, and peers. BizSpark One pairs each Startup with a dedicated relationship manager at Microsoft who works with the Startup to identify its unique opportunities and build a tailored plan to promote the Startup’s visibility, expand its network of investors and mentors, expose it to business opportunities, and develop cutting edge applications

As one of eight panelist on the selection  team, we have been busy trying to recruit the most innovative companies into the program.  On the team I own the Enterprise and Vertical sector as well as the Dynamics product line and so I have been looking for innovative companies to incubate.

Who are some of the exciting new companies I am working with? 

Below are a profile of a few that span various vertical industries or are doing innovative things with our Dynamics product line:

SImplifi- great new company based in North Carolina that address the area on Online Banking in the Financial Services industry.

gloStream  -  An exciting new company based in Michigan in the Healthcare Space.  This company is building the next generation EMR solution based on Microsoft office  (profiled before in an earlier blog)

Dayforce – a company building Workforce Management solutions on our Dynamics Platform. Really snazzy application based on SIlverlight, Dynamics and all the goods…

Artesian – a  fabulous cloud/SaaS based company in the UK that’s providing Sales Intelligence around CRM

Lokad – a disruptive cloud based company based in France addressing Sales Forecasting based on our WIndows Azure cloud platform

Lattice Engines - .NET based Predictive Analytics on CRM  -  currently been integrated with Microsoft Dynamics (profiled in an earlier blog)

NextPage – great company with an innovative approach to Document Management based on SharePoint technologies

Acumatica – exciting new ISVs with reputable founders from Russia with a cloud/SaaS based ERP solution. The solution is all Microsoft technologies with great soon to be integration with Microsoft Dynamics.

Now the dust has settled with BizSpark One – I will be providing a digest on each company over the coming weeks so you can have a nice preview to all the exciting new innovations Microsoft has across various vertical industries.  Stay tuned and for folks who regularly read my blogs apologies for taking so long to write…