TechCrunch Baltics Agenda and Livestream

TechCrunch Baltics is live and kicking!

• Read about TechCrunch Baltics opening and background here;

• Follow TechCrunch Baltics in Twitter - @TCBaltics and #TCBaltics;

• Watch live stream from TechCrunch Baltics website or here (if the 1st link is not working);

• TechCrunch Baltic is on lunch break right now, here is what we are going to hear and see after it:

13.45 – 14.15  Fireside chat with Mike Butcher

• Lars Hinrichs (Executive Geek & Founder, HackFwd)
  After serving as CEO of Xing, the professional business network based in Germany, Lars founded HackFwd, a startup accelerator program that is focused on engineers – “geeks”. HackFwd has attracted a range of startups including several from the Baltics and Central & Eastern Europe.

14.15 – 15.00  Panel discussion: Go West: Scaling startups to Europe and the USA. 

Ambitious Baltic startups know that their home markets are small, so they focus on global markets from day one. This discussion will aim to tease out the reasons for choosing Europe or the USA as the first larger target market, as well as identify the challenges and pitfalls in scaling fast to the West.

• Kris Hiiemaa, CEO Erply
  Kris has led Erply to rapidly expand their iPad-based mobile point of sale business to the USA and Europe, leveraging $2M in funding, Seedcamp accelerator participation and high profile angel investors including Dave McClure and Saul Klein.
• James York – Global Partnerships Manager, Fits.meThe Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room provides an online tool for fashion retailers to help customers get the perfect fit, thus increasing sales, online and offline. Based on biorobotics technology, it is CNBC's Top 20 Breakout Brand for 2011 and Innovator 2010 recipient.
• Kristina Narusk - Member of Supervisory Board, GrabCAD
  GrabCAD provides a global online community for over 80,000 mechanical engineers who can share 3D CAD files with each other. They recently raised a $4M funding round from Matrix Partners and Atlas Ventures.
• Kristo Ovaska, Founder, StartupSauna
  StartupSauna has coached many Baltic startups and brought them to the Valley to help kick-start their businesses. The accelerator, organized under Aalto Venture Garage in Aalto University, Helsinki, is a key destination for startups from the Baltics wanting to go global.
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  Rain Rannu, CEO & Co-Founder, Fortumo

  
  

  Rain Rannu is responsible for the company’s strategy and new business development. Rain has been involved in the mobile industry for 10 years. Prior to founding Fortumo, he was also the founder and head of business development for the leading Baltic mobile service provider Mobi Solutions.

15.00 – 15.20 Fireside chat with Mike Butcher

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  Ilya Shirokov  (Vice-president of Mail.Ru Group, Head of Social Networks' business unit)

  
  

  Since graduating Stanford Business School, Ilya has led Odnoklassniki, one of the Mail.ru Group's largest and fastest-growing business. Previously, he co-founded Moi Krug, Russia's professional social network, which was sold to Yandex, Russia's leading search engine company. 

15.30 – 16.00 Panel discussion: Go East: Are the Baltic States a good launch pad for entering the Russian market?

• Andres Susi – CEO, Flirtic
  At Flirtic, Andres has led rapid growth in the Russian and Ukranian markets for this new social network for meeting new people.  He is also a partner in the Baltic venture capital firm MTVP and co-founder of Cherry Media.
• Vitaly Rubstein – Co-Founder and Partner, RubyLight
  RubyLight is an early stage investment fund focused on startups in the areas of social networking, content sharing and communications. Prior to RubyLight, Vitaly was Co-Founder and CEO of Forticom, owner of the largest social networks in Central and Eastern Europe with more than 100m active monthly users in total, including Odnoklassniki.ru and Nasza-Klasa.pl.  Forticom was acquired by Yuri Milner’s DST Group and merged with Mail.ru.

16.00 – 16.30  Coffee break

16.30 – 18.00  TechCrunch Baltics pitch contest

We have selected 8 Baltic startups to pitch to a jury and audience that includes many key investors in the region and beyond. The list of startups is: BusyFlow (LT), GateMe (EE), Infogram (LV),Mokipay (LT), Pozitel (LV), Priienergia (EE), Pult (EE), Sellfy (LV).

The jury includes Lars Hinrichs, (HackFwd), Johan Lorenzen (Sunstone Capital), Jon Bradford(Springboard), Juha Ruohonen (StartupSauna / Aalto Venture Garage) and Moaffak Ahmed(Venturi Venture Accelerator).

20.30 – late: TechHub Riga official launch party

Participants in TechCrunch Baltics are invited to join TechHub in celebrating the opening of its first international location outside London. Be ready to party into the night!

Eddy

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