This year’s Summer Start-up Tour ‘SSUP! kicked off in June for the fourth year in a row. Each year, the Hoffmann Institute collaborates with ‘SSUP! students to support INSEAD MBA students touring global start-up ecosystems to learn from entrepreneurs at the cutting edge of business and walk-the-talk in their own impact projects. In 2022, the... Continue Reading →
We spent 4 weeks exploring the metaverse ecosystem in Europe and here’s what we found: Part 2
In case you missed it, here’s Part 1 with our first 5 findings about the metaverse ecosystem. Now let’s continue! 6. Where's the money going? In the first 5 months of 2022, over $120 billion was invested in metaverse technologies and infrastructure, but where did that go exactly? VC investment trends indicate that there is... Continue Reading →
We spent 4 weeks exploring the metaverse ecosystem in Europe and here’s what we found: Part 1
✨Metaverse✨. . . it's got to mean something more than various iterations of Mark Zuckerberg's avatar, right? As part of INSEAD's SSUP, we – Chelcie Poole, Nikita Bokil and Cameron Smith – formed a team with the mission of cutting through the hype and exploring how the metaverse and extended reality (XR) ecosystem is developing... Continue Reading →
Digital, Gaming, Blockchain and Fashion?
Thursday last week we spent the entire day exploring Fashion Tech Conference in Berlin. It is an event solely focussing on the intersection of Tech and Fashion organised by Premium Group who is also organising the two fairs NEONYT and Premium. The conference showcased a number of new tech innovations in fashion that aim to push... Continue Reading →
APX: Acceleration and early-stage funding by Axel Springer and Porsche
‘SSUP! Team 53°N interviewed Jörg Rheinboldt, former business angel and Managing Director of Berlin-based APX – a joint venture between Axel Springer and Porsche. We met Jörg in an almost empty APX office in Berlin, that houses several of their participating start-ups. “Normally there are a lot more people here, but you come here in... Continue Reading →
Hackerbay – Hacking as a source of good
‘SSUP!’s team 53°N interviewed CEO and co-founder Christian Strobl, and Head of Demand Roman Rittmann of Hackerbay, a software and services company from Berlin We got an hour with Christian and Roman, both self-taught hackers with backgrounds in law and communication respectively, about starting up a tech services company in a tech booming era. Hackerbay... Continue Reading →
Wayfair – Finding the right furniture was never more techy than now
‘SSUP!’s team 53°N interviewed Philipp von Falkenhausen (right), Associate Director Marketing EU, and Konrad Schade (left), Associate Director Category Management at Wayfair EU – a hyper fast growing American e-commerce platform for furniture. “This is not a start-up anymore!”, was our first thought when we entered Wayfair’s Germany headquarters in Berlin… naive as we were... Continue Reading →
Holoplot – “Hearing is believing” – a new audio-technology to control sound
53 Degrees North interviewed Roman Sick, CEO of Holoplot, in his office in a warehouse building in Berlin, and got a demo of this brilliant new sound technology in their own showroom. It’s not the first time Roman has been participating in innovative projects as an entrepreneur, but this one is definitely one of his... Continue Reading →