ReadWriteWeb

The following is one in a series of guest posts we're running here on ReadWriteWeb. This one is by Reshma Sohoni, CEO of Seedcamp, the global organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs grow successful businesses. Prior to her role at Seedcamp, she was an associate at 3i and Softbank's eVentures India, and Senior Manager in Commercial Strategy at Vodafone.

Having listened to pitches from over 140 startups from all over Europe, working with 14 of our companies during the past two years, and reviewing applications for our annual event in the next few weeks, I am struck by just how different the requirements of early-stage investment are (for both investor and entrepreneur) compared to those of venture capital or private equity.

When PR agencies encourage corporate executives to engage in public dialogue, they tell them to "embrace the chaos". As of today, chaos has a measurement API, and its name is ContextVoice. Romanian SeedCamp winner UberVU just launched ContextVoice in the hopes that inquisitive companies will "track the web's conversational graph". In other words, we're about to see a smorgasbord of brand commentary and all the social media trimmings will be there.

They say imitation the most sincere form of flattery. If that's true, then Paul Graham must be about to drown from all the praise. His Y Combinator project, which has funded nearly 60 startups since 2005 and has arguably inspired a new emphasis on smaller scale investments at traditional venture capital firms, has collected a cadre of imitators. Lots of them, from all over the world. While Graham may not like it, there are a large number of start up incubators following the model he created with Y Combinator and handing out microinvestments in web startups in return for a small stake.