Tag Archives: tech startup

Entrepreneurship

10 Highest Grossing Crowdfunding Campaign

A couple of weeks ago Pebble smart watch launched the most successful crowdfunding campaigns in history, raising over $16.5 million in crowdfunding revenue.  Over 60,000 individuals backed the campaign, and the launch date is set for May of this year. This crowdfunding campaign beat the previous record holder, the Coolest Cooler that was able to raise $13.3 million. Below is a list of the 10 most successful kickstarter projects of all time.

 

1)   Pebble Time raised $16.5 million

2)   Coolest Cooler raised $13.2 million

3)   Pebble 1st gen smartwatch raised $10.2 million

4)   Exploding Kittens card game raised $8.7 million

5)   OUYA games console raised $8.5 million

6)   Pono Music player raised $6.2 million

7)   The Veronica Mars movie raised $5.7 million

8)   Bring Back Reading Rainbow raised $5.4 million

9)   Torment: Tides of Numenera game raised $4.1 million

10)  Project Eternity game raised $3.9 million

 

Entrepreneurship, Europe

Greek Entrepreneurship on the Rise After the Economic Crisis

Todd Crosland Greek EntrepreneurshipA recent article in Forbes discusses an increase in Greek entrepreneurship after a disastrous economic downfall. Throughout the Eurozone’s economic crisis, the Greek economy was doing the worst. Their corrupt public sector was running up massive debts while their private sector was mostly dependent on their government. This was a recipe for disaster.

Throughout this economic crisis in Greece, there was an increase in Greek entrepreneurs wanting to change the outcome of the Greek economy by focusing on tech-based startups. The article goes on to state that the Greeks were always strong in the entrepreneur market. However, many of these entrepreneurs were unproductive and did not focus on the right sectors of the economy for their sales. The article states that currently 90% of new ventures are continuing along the old, failed growth models while the other 10% are focusing on areas of growth.

Endeavor Greece is an example of one of these companies focusing on high-impact entrepreneur growth within the country. This will hopefully create more jobs and opportunities for other entrepreneurs wanting to enter high-impact industries in Greece. Endeavor is currently in 20 different countries. They support and identify high-impact entrepreneurs in a variety of sectors, and provide resources for these entrepreneurs to become successful in their sector. Although tech startups were more than 50% of total investment in 2013, Greece should also focus on industries where they have competitive advantage, for example, in sectors such as food processing, agriculture, and tourism.

The Tech ecosystem in Greece is in its developmental stages as there are about seven Greek venture capitalists managing about $100 million. This is better than before the crisis, but is it still getting off the ground. One area in where Greece could have an advantage is in their high number of engineers. Most of their engineers leave to the UK and the United States to peruse careers. Hopefully with the new tech environment, more of them will stay in Greece.

Many Greek entrepreneurs believe that international support is also necessary so that they can rebuild their economy. This involves a more stable tax framework that will attract foreign investment. The public sector has been investing more in their emerging business heavy industry as Greek tech-startups head the way for economic recovery. Fingers crossed.

This article is based on this article in Forbes.