The Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel’s Bling Bar, in the proud century-old structure located near the Helsinki train station, was the site for the 1st Launchpad USA event, at Slush 2015. Hosted by Mike Klyszeiko, director of AmCham Finland’s Launchpad USA program, which helps prepare Nordic/Baltic ventures for the US market, and Erika Sauer, director of AmCham Finland New York, the official Slush side event, ‘Slush Investor Ingenuity,’ featured a one-on-one with Chris Pfaff and Urmas Peiker, co-founder of Funderbeam, the Estonian venture that provides a dashboard for start-up insights and a blockchain trading platform.
Watch video of the first part of the conversation at https://youtu.be/xHz8DiYoQO0.
Urmas Peiker and Chris Pfaff at the Slush Investor Ingenuity event
More than 90 entrepreneurs and investors crowded the Bling Bar for food, drink, and conversation. And the conversation with Pfaff and Peiker included the following topics and threads:
- Funderbeam, as an Estonian venture, combines the fearlessness of the “Estopreneur” with an innovative way to disrupt existing markets
- Urmas Peiker’s background as a regulator with Estonian’s financial supervisory group helped prepare him for the creation of the 2 1/2-year-old Funderbeam
- Funderbeam was described as “what would happen if Bloomberg Angellist and NASDAQ had a baby”
- Urmas Peiker described the opportunity for investors to trade, using blockchain, in their start-up investments almost immediately, thereby creating a more vibrant investment ecosyst
- Funderbeam is looking carefully at the U.S. market, and examining the vagaries of the U.S. regulatory market to try and disrupt the venture community
Pfaff gave a major shout-out to Tarmo Virki, founder and publisher of Co-Founder magazine, which had its launch at Slush 2014. The quarterly publication’s 5th issue arrived at Slush on Tuesday, and features the Slush 100 start-ups. Virki had introduced Pfaff to Peiker.
Mike Klyszeiko, director of the Launchpad USA program, and Erika Sauer, director of AmCham Finland New York/Launchpad USA, welcome the audience at the Slush Investor Ingenuity event at the Radisson Blu Plaza, Helsinki
Pfaff, who had coined the term “Finntrepreneur” in 2011 (initially to market his firm’s ex-Nokian clients who had made the plunge into forced entrepreneurship) coined the term “Estopreneur” at Garage 48 in Tallinn in 2014. Both classes of entrepreneurs are adept at creating essential start-ups with highly innovative concepts, and doing this with few resources.
Chris Pfaff and Urmas Peiker discuss Funderbeam’s forthcoming launch at the Launchpad USA event at Slush 2015
The conversation with Peiker also touched on the co-founder’s passion for extreme athletics; Peiker has competed in the Ironman triathlon competition, in Hawaii. He compared the triathlon experience with start-up experience, stating that endurance and focus is required for both pursuits.
Funderbeam (www.funderbeam.com) will launch a beta soon.
The inaugural Launchpad USA event was attended by more than 90 people during Slush 2015
