ARIADNE
is… GOING PLATINUM
The
2nd INVESTOR FORUM – 15 January 2008
Ariadne
Capital will be hosting its next Investor Forum on the 15th of
January 2008 in
The Forum
will focus particularly on the Advertising and Search, Digital Music and
Content, Life Services [e-Health, Digital Home and Consumer Financial Services]
and Communications Technologies and Applications.
Amongst those invited will be 250 leading investors, both venture
capital firm partners as well as the investment directors of family offices,
and leading private investors, as well as the media and analysts, and other
leading entrepreneurs.
WHY GAMECHANGERS?
We have
selected the theme `Game Changers` as most of Ariadne’s portfolio companies are
disruptive – they are changing the rules of the game in their industries. Our companies range from around £1m to
£200m in revenues, and are operating in (on an average of) two continents, and
in five countries.
Many of our
companies are raising capital and actively looking for partnerships, and
sponsorship will represent a tremendous opportunity to get in front of them as
they pitch their company’s vision and strategy.
PAST INVESTOR FORUMS
Ariadne held
its 1st Investor Forum at the
Video clips
of the speakers may be seen at: http://www.ariadnecapital.com/journal/v6e3/
ARIADNE CAPITAL’S VITAL STATISTICS
We are a
London-based, 12 person-strong, investment and advisory firm focused on the
communications, digital media and life services sectors.
We have 42 founding Investor Members who form
Ariadne’s shareholders. These include
some of the most successful technology entrepreneurs including:
The founders
of:
§
AlphaMosaic/Broadcom [Jalal Bagherli],
§
Element 14/Broadcom [John Redford],
§
BetFair [
§
Hotmail/Microsoft [Sabeer Bhatia],
§
Systinet/HP [Roman Stanek],
§
WorldPay/RBS [Nick Ogden],
§
SES Astra [
§
Giga/Intel [Finn Helmer], and
§
others who have shaped the world we live
in today.
We have
worked with successful companies such as Skype,
Kashya and Espotting as advisors
in their early stages and well in advance of their exits. We have a roster of private, high-growth,
“tipping point” companies, in which we have equity stakes in 15, including:
Digital Media
and Music
§
Independent IP – Digital Music
Supply Chain
§
Generator X – Lifestyle
Recommendation Engine
§
Otodio – Personal Audio Information
§
Bizmo – Making Artists and their Fans Business
Partners
Financial Services
§
DebtResolve – Consumer Debt
Settlement and Negotiation
§
Monitise –
§
Zopa – Peer to Peer Lending and Borrowing
§
SquareCash – pre-paid debit cards
Communications Applications
§
Momail – Free Mobile Email
§
SpinVox – Voice-to-Text
§
ROK – mobile entertainment group
§
CoreBridge – unified communications
Ariadne Companies are both clients and portfolio companies where we
have equity stakes, both private and public companies across Europe and
THE LINE-UP FOR THE DAY - PROGRAM
The Ariadne
Capital Investor Forum will bring together for the day, the senior management
of Ariadne’s portfolio companies, leading investors, entrepreneurs, analysts,
media and other important members of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Last year we
hosted the Forum at the
The envisaged
agenda for the day is as follows:
|
Breakfast |
|
|
Morning Keynotes from Leading Entrepreneurs David Rowe, Founder of EasyNet, will speak about Growing a
Successful Business David founded
Easynet, as a Stefan Glaenzer, Chairman of last.fm, will speak
about the last.fm success story Former
executive chairman and first investor of Last.fm, Stefan Glaenzer is also
actively involved as founder and CEO with myblog.de, the largest blogging
community in Stefan lives
in Mark Rowland,
Chairman of the Indie Media Group, will speak about the MediaTech Revolution Mark has achieved commercial and
creative success in media on both sides of the In 2007 he is overseeing the rapid
expansion of Indie activities, including the newly launched online investment
venture, Virtual Indie and the rapid growth of Indie Music. Mark is also Executive Producer of the
shows Indie TV has brought to the In 2005/6 alongside the growth of Indie TV, he launched Tamares Media, for the Tamares investment group and
has specifically been advising Tamares on media and entertainment
opportunities relating to their real estate holdings in In 2004 Mark combined the launch of Indie TV with becoming the CEO of the participation TV company Red Fig
Ltd. Mark completed the sale of Red Fig to ETV in 2005. Until the end of 2003, Mark was
Managing Director of Television Corporation International and Mentorn
International. At the TV Corporation he developed the global interests of its
two production companies, Mentorn and Sunset + Vine. In 2003 he landed the
year’s biggest reality order from a Mark was also responsible for building
the hugely successful Robot Wars franchise which
between 1998 and 2003 reached over 50 countries and was produced for both the
BBC and Nickelodeon in the Through the nineties as a Director of
Mentorn Films, Mark devised and managed diverse programme and business
ventures – launching Mentorn’s subsidiaries Worldwide Entertainment News and
Mentorn Radio. Mark also launched and produced Today’s
the Day the award-winning daily game show which ran for 7 years and
over 850 episodes on BBC2. Mark started his career as BBC producer and
journalist. Arjo
Ghosh, founder of SpannerWorks, acquired by
iCrossing, will speak about the intersection of social networking and search. Arjo Ghosh
is founder and Chief Executive of Spannerworks. He formed the company in 1997
- initially to provide innovative technical solutions for websites. He
quickly realised that the phenomenal growth of the internet would lead to
search becoming its natural gateway for consumers. So, a year after
Spannerworks’ inception, and prior Google’s rise to prominence, Arjo used his
company’s technical strength to develop search marketing strategies for major
brands including GSK, HBOS, Virgin, Woolworths and Standard Life. Today,
Spannerworks is responsible for keeping international blue-chip businesses at
the top of search engine listings. Arjo sees the growing influence of
personalisation tools, online audience segmentation, and burgeoning social
networks as key issues for the marketing-communications industry. This is why
Spannerworks has pioneered the integration of social network tools into its
search marketing strategies. Arjo has a
degree in English Literature, and lives with his wife and daughter in Find videos
from last Investor Forum’s keynotes at this link: http://www.ariadnecapital.com/journal/v6e3/ Candace Johnson Candace Johnson is an international
telecommunications expert and entrepreneur. She is co-initiator of the Astra
satellite system and SES Global, the largest satellite system in the world. She is also founding
President of Europe Online, the world’s first and largest Internet via
Satellite network, and founder of Loral Cyberstar-Teleport Europe, Candace has continued to be a long-time
Member of the Board of Directors of all of these companies and organizations
at various times throughout the years.
Currently, Ms. Johnson is also President of Johnson Paradigm Ventures
(JPV). JPV is a principal founding
shareholder with AXA, Caisse des Depots, Bayerische Landesbank, and the SPEF
in Sophia Euro Lab, In her personal capacity, Ms. Johnson is
a minority owner of FMN, a German telephone manufacturing company, and a
member of their Supervisory Council.
She is also a minority owner of Alpha Com, a wireless data manufacturing
company. Ms. Johnson is also a Member of the Board of Tornado Technologies, a
3D “Power Point” technology company, as well as a member of the Advisory
Board of numerous European and Ms. Johnson was also Vice President
Worldwide of Iridium and brought it into the GSM MoU, the ITU and ETSI, and
was Director of Marketing for the German manufacturing company Fuba. |
|
|
Lunch |
|
|
Afternoon |
|
|
Panel
Discussions in Key Industry Sectors: ·
Programme I – Digital
Music (Appendix 1) ·
Programme II – Mobile
Content (Appendix 2) ·
Programme III – The future of search (Appendix
3) |
Corporate Presentations by the CEO’s of leading high-growth firms |
Appendix 1
PROGRAMME I – DIGITAL MUSIC –
Chaired by
"Reasons to be cheerful" - A new value chain for music
Subjects:
1.
Where has the record industry gone wrong?
Possible
subjects for discussion:
- Erosion of CD market – is it a result of
illegal file-sharing?
- Failure to quickly embrace the digital revolution.
- Insistence on DRM.
- Failure to engage consumers.
- Slow to embrace new business models.
- Ceding of distribution control to
Apple/i-pod, etc.
- Inefficient digital supply chain.
2.
Why is it that the Music Industry - as opposed to the Record
Business- remains in rude health?
Possible
subjects for discussion:
- Music has
never been more popular - over 500 legitimate Digital Music Platforms exist in
- The Live
Music sector is powering ahead.
- Convergence
of platforms and channels creates many opportunities for Music as different
services seek to distinguish themselves from the competition (eg MNOs,
Broadcasters, handset manufacturers, game-device manufacturers).
- Brands are
prepared increasingly to recognise Music's power to engage consumers and pay
for it – e.g. Prince/Mail on Sunday tie-up.
- Artists can
now reach market directly - through MySpace, Bebo, YouTube etc.
- Other
entrants are creating new partnerships for Music – e.g. Live Nation/Madonna
tie-up, Channel 4/Sony Ericsson and 3 unsigned artist platforms.
3.
Where are the big wins for the Music Business generally going
forward?
Possible
subjects for discussion:
-
Curation/navigation services (eg Pandora, Lastfm and now Gen X)
- Stand-out
User experiences with perceived Quality (eg Artistlog)
- Creation of
360 degree Artist experiences (Gen X, Lickerish, Artistlog)
- Involvement
of consumer armies to marshal marketing and distribution through `word of
mouth` (eg Bizmo)
- Empowerment
of Artists to reach market directly (Artistlog, IndependentIP)
- Use of the
power of celebrity to cut through the digital clutter (Gen X, Lickerish,
Artistlog)
- Use of
Music and Artists as a source of highly-targeted data for Brands (Gen X,
Lickerish, Bizmo, Artistlog)
- Use of
Music platforms as a trail blazer for other content services such as TV
distribution (Gen X, Artistlog)
-
Sophisticated digital distribution platforms that can embrace all these new
channels/partners more effectively and/or at lower cost (IndependentIP,
Lickerish)
Appendix 2
PROGRAMME II – MOBILE CONTENT –
Chaired by
Mobile content: upload, download, sideload….loads of expectation,
but who will make the money going forward?
Subjects;
1.
“The market for premium mobile content has hit a brick wall…. the
growth from traditional revenue generators like ringtones and images has ground
to a shuddering halt in a number of advanced markets.” – Informa
Possible
subjects for discussion:
- Are ring tones, wallpapers etc despite have
enjoyed a surprisingly good run, running out of steam?
- Is it
because consumers have new ways to personalise?
- Is it
because consumers increasingly have other means of capturing, creating and
enabling
personalisation?
- What will
be the impact of flat rate data tariffs opening the door to a wider world of
content (‘3’s X-series with slingbox/orb)
- What will
be the new engines for growth?
- Mobile TV
- Music
- News and
informational services
- Other
personalised and personalisation services
2.
Who will be the new king pins in content discovery and delivery?
Up until 2007
this has largely been the mobile network operators through their portals,
however things are changing and fast.
Who will lead the space in future?
Possible
subjects for discussion:
- Nokia and
other handset manufacturers
-
iPhone/iTunes
- Google and
other search engines/portals
- ROK and
other Innovative specialists
- Facebook
and other social networks?
3.
Mobile content has largely followed a “traditional” publishing
model where content providers, deal with aggregators who package and distribute
through portals. Will this continue to predominate?
Possible
subjects for discussion:
- Will adhoc
user networks such as MoMail take over as distribution means?
- With more
sophisticated users and devices, will content creators go direct? (like in the
music industry)
- Will social
network platforms or specialists such as the Bizmo support this trend?
4.
How will value be extracted and who will get the lion’s share?
Possible
subjects for discussion:
- Operators are no longer the gatekeeper so who can