Tine Thygesen met with me at the Venture Cup headquarters next to Copenhagen Business School. She shared her outsider’s perspective on Denmark, her best tip to succeed in Venture Cup, and what the first step is toward being an entrepreneur.

[Read more →]

I spoke to John Helmsøe-Zink at the Via Venture Partners office in Hellerup.  He shared his views of what’s hot right now in the IT industry and how, given the financial crisis, ambitious and well-funded startups have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to steal market share.

“Our favorite sentence here is ‘only one thing is for sure and that is nothing will go as planned.’ And when nothing goes as planned you need to have very good chemistry between management, all the shareholders and the board.”

[Read more →]

I interviewed Peder R. Borchert and Christian Walther at their startup office hotel located in the heart of Copenhagen.  They are busy raising capital for Sealand Capital, their first venture fund.

“One of my personal goals is that I would like Mr. & Mrs. Denmark to be investing in startup companies.”

-Christian Walther

[Read more →]

Anders Christjansen shared his views of entrepreneurship in Denmark, what it takes to make an outstanding pitch to investors and the main take aways from the Denmark / Sweden 2009 Tech Tour.

“The international VCs are coming back to me saying ‘Wow, we’ve forgotten the quality of startups up here and we definitely need to come back!’”

-Anders Christjansen

[Read more →]

I interviewed Rasmus Christensen at the Natur-Energi offices in Østerbro which they partly share with WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and Fairtrade (Max Havelaar). Natur Energi is a self-funded start up providing green energy to climate-conscious consumers and companies, and they have ambitious plans to expand not only geographically but also in terms of product offering.

“It’s been a surprise to some of the old energy companies that they don’t own the customers.”

-Rasmus Christensen

[Read more →]

I interviewed Stig Hølledig in his office at Næsseslottet, a beautiful estate which is also an office hotel for startups.

“Quote.”

-Stig Hølledig

[Read more →]

I sat down with Martin Bjergegaard at the Rainmaking office in downtown Copenhagen.  Martin is charismatic in a low key way and Rainmaking, a ‘company factory’, promises to be big in a few short years.

“Values are extremely important for us. We want to be a warm-hearted company, we don’t want to be cynical like many consulting companies, law firms and VCs can be.”

-Martin Bjergegaard

[Read more →]

Jannik Nytoft, the recently appointed director of the Danish Venture Capital Association (DVCA), talks about the role of the DVCA and makes some suggestions about what the government can do to support private equity and venture funds in this time of financial crisis.

“The venture pipeline is in danger of dying out.”

-Jannik Nytoft

[Read more →]

Marlene Haugaard, the CEO of Væksthus, talks about the challenge Danish culture poses to entrepreneurship and what the government can do to support entrepreneurs through the financial crisis.

“In today’s Danish culture, it’s still not OK to say ‘I want to make a company and have 50 employees in 5 years.’”

-Marlene Haugaard

[Read more →]

Martin Thorborg was kind enough to join the Startupdenmark network and I immediately asked if he would do an interview.

Warning: very poor audio quality (sorry about that). On the other hand, Martin is so full of energy and inspiration that the sound quality is not important. We had an informal chat about his life in the US, the differences he’s noticed with Denmark (in particular how much easier it is to run a start up in Denmark compared to the US), the impact of the crisis on his car dealer and many other topics.

[Read more →]