UK entrepreneurs embark on ‘Web Mission’ to Silicon Valley
- Added:
- Apr 11, 2008
20 British web entrepreneurs are set to spend 5 days in Silicon Valley in a new private initiative called the Web Mission.
Sponsored by HSBC, BT, Heller Ehrman UK Trade Invest, and with partners including Sun and Oracle, the group will spend time exploring opportunities for their businesses and will meet representatives from Google, Facebook, Bebo, Linkedin and Amazon, as well as a number of up and coming fellow entrepreneurs.
They will have the chance to pitch their businessses to US-based investors and to attend leading industry events including Web 2.0 expo, taking place during the week.
The trip takes place between April 19th and 24th and is independently organised by serial entrepreneur Oli Barrett and Polecat Ltd. The 20 companies were selected from over 100 applicants.
Michael Birch, who recently sold online social network Bebo, said: "The Web Mission represents an amazing opportunity for the best of entrepreneurial UK talent to visit Silicon Valley, and learn for themselves the differences that make the US a breeding ground for innovation and more importantly successful execution of ideas. With a spark of inspiration the UK has every opportunity to replicate that success on UK soil."
Doug Richard, who contributed to the selection process added: "Some of these companies are as good as anything coming out of the Valley."
To read more about the Web Mission (including an agenda) go to: www.webmission08.com
The 20 companies embarking on the Web Mission are:
Groupspaces - Web-based tools for groups
Tioti - A social network around TV
Exabre (TheFilter) - Advanced music recommendation
Coull - Interactive video platform
Zogix - Employee services platform
Byteplay (dotHomes) - Real estate search engine
Trampoline Systems - Enterprise software harnessing social behaviour
Hubdub - News prediction social network
WAYN - travel and lifestyle social networking community
TrustedPlaces - Venue recommendation network
Slicethepie - Enabling bands to raise money directly from their fans
Mydeo - Mainstream application for storing and sharing video
Skimbit - Research and share decisions
Huddle - Enterprise 2.0 collaboration
Rummble - Mobile social networking and recommendation
Zebtab - Desktop TV application
Silobreaker - Contextual and graphic search results
Kwiqq - Social Website builder
edocr - Making business documents interactive
ShortFuze - Online movie creation tools for social networks
Details on the 20 selected companies are listed in TechCruch.