Are you affiliated with YCombinator?

No, we're not. YC's program is quite revolutionary. We think of YC as akin to something like the first University, and we hope to bring that concept to Europe.

Why do this?

Great things rarely happen just because of good people or great ideas. For something interesting to happen, opportunity, vision, and the ability to execute must come together.

Europe probably has just about as much money and education as the US. But according to the Aho Group Report, named after the former finnish prime minister Esko Aho, the ICT field, despite having some of the lowest initial investment costs in all of high tech, is the most severly underdeveloped.

The reasons for this, he attributes both to a lack of entrepreneurial spirit, and a lack of funding in the pre-seed areas. We'd like to believe the first point is not an absolute. We have great people with the skills and desire to create cool applications in Europe. On the other hand things are different here than in Silicon Valley. You can't just walk up to a rich friend here, who'll give you cash if your idea is great. There are no rich friends, and even if you know one or two, they haven't made their cash in a Startup, or even in the off chance that they have, they're a Business Guy. Businesses are started by business people here. if you want to start a business, you have no chance to get cash from someone from your world, who has been down that path before.

"Apart from more resources for R&D and innovation, a paradigm change that would preserve European values in a new social structure is needed for the achievement of the goal of an Innovative Europe." - Aho Group Report "Creating an Innovative Europe" (January 2006)

Since Europe doesn't have any dominant entrepreneurial hubs, in most cities you can't live among like-minded people. Because of that, we think that entrepreneurial spirit, experience, and knowledge get lost pretty quickly. We need a way to grow this knowledge within the collective memory of a community so that we can have sustainable growth and development. During the last 4 years we built the Metalab non-profit Project Space, which is now operated jointly by over one hundred people. We already regularly invite speakers, and we have built up contacts to investors, politics, advisors, and all the resources we could find locally. We believe this to be a step towards the social structure neccessary to enable Innovation within Europe.

Couldn't I just go to YCombinator?

If you have the opportunity to, you should! I'm sure it is a great experience. Some of us don't want or can't move to YC, either because of Visa Issues, or simply because they prefer to stay in Europe.

Who is behind this?

We're a team of five people, bringing various skills, resources, and a passion for startups in europe.

I am not from an EU Country. Can i apply?

If we like your application and you can come here, you're welcome to us. Immigration laws are strict though, so it might be difficult to get a visa, work permit etc. If we like your application enough, we'll try our best to help you with Visas or to find a different solution that might work.