Money in the bank, we’re funded!

  • Sorosh Tavakoli Sorosh Tavakoli
  • July 10th, 2008

Running a startup, getting funding for your business can be perceived as a business of its own. And well, somehow it is, especially for first time entreprenuers like us. But now we’re there and it all turned out better than we could have ever imagined.

Today we got €420k in the bank from one of Swedens top VC firms, Creandum, and two business angels Henrik Torstensson and Magnus Hultman. From my mobile office in a Starbucks in London, I’ll tell you a bit more about these guys.

The investors

So far, we’re really impressed with Creandum. The company is run by a group of really good people and they haven’t disappointed us on a single point. Fredrik Cassel who is our main contact is smart, professional and have been really helpful this way. The company has also invested in Xtract, working with social advertising intelligence, Cint, a marketplace for online panels and Edgeware, selling robust server systems for online video.

Creandum

Henrik Torstensson and I are not only neighbours and love great coffee, we also connect in a good way when it comes to business. Henrik is today VP Business development at Stardoll and has a background in successful Swedish internet companies like TradeDoubler and Spray.  In addition to making his first angel investment, Henrik will enrich our board with his sharp analysis around online advertising and building a business.

Magnus Hultman is the best enterprise sales guy I have met in my life. You like him the first time you meet him, (he’s a sales guy god dammit!) and for some reason that first affection simply doesn’t wear off. This guy knows everything there is to know about selling your product. Magnus has a background at FramFab and founded Instadia, a web metrics company, in Sweden. The company made an exit to Omniture where he today operates the sales for Scandinavia. The plan is to recruit this guy, let’s see how that goes…

This seed funding will give us the muscles we need at this stage to take the company where it need to go. Top priorities are getting our product really scalable and expanding sales outside Sweden.

Update: In the press: PaidContent, NewTeeVee, The Alarm:Clock, theNextWeb, Internetworld, Resume, Dagens Media & Medievärlden.

5 Comments

  1. John Sjölander July 10th, 2008 at 15:15

    Grattis! Bra val av VC-bolag också. :-)

  2. Poppe July 11th, 2008 at 02:24

    Grattis Sorosh! Kul att Torstensson är med också, kunnigast i Sverige.

  3. Sorosh Tavakoli July 11th, 2008 at 10:46

    Thanks! Både Henrik och Creandum kan sina grejer :)

  4. VideoPlaza goes international with backing from Creandum, Torstensson and Hultman | SIME BLOG July 11th, 2008 at 13:46

    [...] Hot Stockholm startup and SIME friends VideoPlaza that supplies online video with an ad platform announced today that they have taken investment from VC firm Creandum and business angels Henrik Tor…. [...]

  5. Brett Hill July 12th, 2008 at 22:26

    Congratulations of the funding! I wish you much success.

    Brett Hill- CEO
    http://www.hotpluto.com

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