I didn’t know exactly what to expect from attending the London OpenCoffee, but now I can say that it was well worth the trip! Saul Klein and his wife are really doing a great job in keeping these events lively and relevant.
I was, of course, the exotic component of the last OpenCoffee, as exotic as it can be an Italian startup coming to London to demo an online password manager and discuss how it should be considered the first zero-knowledge web application.
Being that exotic, Clipperz fell under the radar of the Channel 4 crew that came to the Starbucks on Regent Street for a reportage about this strange gathering of people. It would be really nice to obtain the footage and see if my spoken English was good enough to be aired.
After a quite decent Cappuccino I opened my laptop and settled in a corner ready to demo Clipperz to everyone interested. Here is a partial list of the people that were kind enough to take a look at Clipperz and discuss with me the technology, the financial issues, the market perspectives: Andy Choi from DN Capital, Mike Butcher of Tbites, Mattias Ljungman of Atomico Investments, Maximilian Niederhofer from the Monaco office of Atlas Venture, Jad DeFanti from the London Business School, Greg Marsh of Index Ventures. Thanks to all of them!
A special thanks goes to Matt Mower for making me feel more comfortable in a foreign land and for introducing me to Sam Sethi of Vecosys.
The Italian Pilgramage to London...
I’m planning to make the trip up myself, but I wonder if I’ll be considered as exotic since I’m really just a New Yorker living in Rome. :)
The simple fact that there are two Italian Online Password Managers should be enough to turn some heads.
If nothing else, our dual pilgrimage to London should give investors a heads up that Italy is a ripe pickings for European investors - we’ve got plenty of talent, and no local investment ecosystem to compete with. It’s virgin grounds for finding new startups to fund.
Good luck to you. Cheers, Tara