Paul Böhm vom Wiener Metalab gründet analog zu YCombinator das europäische Start-Up Fördermodell YEurope: gegen spätere Beteiligung erhalten Firmengründer Stipendien für die Frühphase der Porjektrealisierung.
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Not only is “unauthorized” not in the url of this article, it’s also not in the title.

Something close is in the title

Paul Böhm, Kennern der Wiener Web- & Technologie-Szene wohlbekannt als Projektleiter des Metalab Innovationszentrums, ließ diese Woche mit der Gründung eines Venture Kapital-Fonds auch international aufhorchen (siehe u.a. TechCrunch): YEurope – …

encourage entrepreneurial spirit in Europe. Paul Böhm started the project after his own frustrated experiences financing a “social sorting”

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I am going to start a fund, 5,000 EURO for 0.00%, just to support the community

I’m a critic and in a start-up. Good entrepreneurs know that you arrive at a great business model by testing it out and questioning it to figure out what else you can do. Y-Combinator and TechStars throw down tiny amounts of cash. I don’t understand what your point is here.

Connections, no connections, whatever – the bottom line is there are no guarantees. Working with startups is a high stakes game that is not for pussies and critics. YC and TS throw down some cash and cross their damn fingers just like all the rest.

Y2 Combinator is a new kind of firm: a company that starts companies that starts companies. We help company-starting companies through what is for many the hardest step, copying the Y Combinator site without making silly mistakes.

I appreciate your respectful disagreement. So what you’re now telling me is that you’re paying for connections? That’s the same argument VC firms use. Honestly, connections matter a lot more in B2B than in B2C. Most Y-Combinator funded firms are B2C and therefore need hundreds of thousands of individual or small business users. These are not major software applications where the firm’s rolodex opens up and voila, you have 10% market share.

I can see the value perhaps of contacts to geeks with products who don’t have the social skills to show up at a networking event and make some friends. Use your alumni network. There are plenty of people willing to help. If you talk to enough people in the Valley, you will already know that most firms think Y-Combinator is a joke and that the deals being shopped to them are crappy. Yes, one or two firms will emerge, but how many of those end up becoming actual businesses? Does Reddit make a penny for it’s dumb acquirer?

Your last point is key and probably true. Most Y-Combinator funded projects (they really aren’t companies, but products), are worthless. They get great publicity on TechCrunch because Arrington & Co. like this kind of free, no revenue model business. It’s cool. That’s great. The traffic from these things dies down in 5 days. Go look at Justin.tv’s traffic. You’ll see the decline.

Also, there is a problem of statistical significance here. I love how TechCrunch claims this model is a winner. From what? One successful exit out of a cohort of 8? How is that statistically significant?

You think Paul Graham is mad because he lost 10 grand on Kiko? He probably made 10-100 times more than that on Reddit.

I agree that anyone could probably raise $5000 for that spanking new internet startup if they tried, but their parents probably aren’t going to help them much in getting the word out about it. However, taking an investment from one of these early stage investors almost guarantees press and recognition, even if the product/service is useless…- Metagg

Techmeme ideally should update its record but I think it mistakenly ignores title-only edits, which I suppose is an oversight.

I also agree with Simon (#18): it would be great to have a central ‘TechCrunch’ portal to specifically profile and map the startup scene in Europe.

The CI incubator funds 10-12 companies a year with up to $40K, usually taking between 10 och 25%, depending on valuation. They provide offices and services, as well as a business coach for each of the companies.

Mostly electronic and biotech startups, but the range is very wide. We’re more than 10 internet related startups.

/John Sjölander, project manager at Contribio (www.contribio.com)