Kickstarting business: dmexco 2014 sets up Start-Up Village
dmexco has upped its attention on start ups in 2014. Face to face with the key players, innovative start-ups can make initial contact with pioneers and established players from the global digital economy in a specially conceived area at the trade fair. Located at the heart of dmexco, the new Start-Up Village will provide all ambitious start-ups that have business models based on digital marketing, advertising, media, or the ‘internet of everything’ with an ideal platform for successfully promoting their business concepts. Here, they can not only draw the market’s attention to their new types of solutions, technologies and visions but also ideally scale their business operations. Thanks to a unique combination of lounge and stage area, the special format, which was independently developed by dmexco, establishes direct contact to potential customers and important investors. The resulting business relationships can propel a start-up business from dmexco 2014 into the fast lane to success.
The Start-Up Village’s lounge, which has been specially conceived in line with the requirements of the young companies, provides ideal conditions for effective presentations and more detailed discussions with potential customers and investors. In addition, start-ups that are exhibitors at dmexco are given the opportunity to present themselves and their products and services to up to 150 decision-makers from the global digital economy on a stage immediately adjacent to the Start-Up Village. Each company in the village is entitled to a presentation slot whose duration must not exceed 25 minutes. Any interested start-up determined not to miss out on this exclusive opportunity to present itself at a prominent location at dmexco can apply for a site in the new Start-Up Village.
“With our new dmexco Start-Up Village, we offer young innovative firms from around the world an ideal framework in which to present themselves to the global digital economy. In this way they can make valuable contact with venture capital companies and the scene’s opinion-formers and key players. The range of firms represented at dmexco 2014 includes media and creative agencies, advertising and digital marketing companies, media groups and platform providers such as Google or Facebook. And all of them are directly accessible for companies that decide to participate in the Start-Up Village. That’s why we are convinced that the dmexco Start-Up Village 2014 will provide the springboard that enables many young companies to finally make the breakthrough,” the organisers of dmexco – Christian Muche, Director, Business Development, Strategy & International, and Frank Schneider, Director Marketing, Sales & Operations – said in a joint comment.
Start-up competition: TVSMILES wins right to presence at dmexco
As the winner of the first German dmexco start-up competition, TVSMILES has already ensured its participation in the dmexco Start-Up Village. With an innovative business concept based on a bonus programme that rewards users for watching TV, the newly established firm just managed to beat out the competition from dailypresent, scondoo and webeffects, the other finalists, at the Interactive Cologne Festival. To win the title, TVSMILES had to convince a top-class expert jury of the merits of its concept during the final pitches.
The jury comprised Kai Schmude (Venista Ventures), Prof. Kai Thierhoff (Thierhoff Consulting), Christoph von Dellingshausen (BVDW) and Frank Schneider (dmexco). When it comes to planning its exclusive presence in the dmexco Start-Up Village and the implementation phase, TVSMILES can expect valuable support from the Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft (BVDW) e.V. As an experienced mentor, the BVDW will provide the innovative young company with advice. The Interactive Cologne Festival, the Start-ups Initiative in the BVDW and Venista Ventures are supporting the competition as partners.
