MoneyTalks® Forum Premieres in Sunny Lappeenranta

The 11th Bi-Annual networking and matchmaking event, MoneyTalks® Forum, was held on the 14th of June, 2012 in the beautiful summer city of Lappeenranta in Southeast Finland. This was the second time the event was organized outside the Helsinki metropolitan area and gathered nearly 100 participants to partake in the pre-screened presentations and the ensuing pre-organized one-to-one entrepreneur-financier meetings at the Lappeenranta University of Technology. The event was organized in association with the EU Russia Innovation Forum 2012 and as such collected interesting cases from all over the Baltic Sea region, with foreign entrepreneurs and investors coming in from Estonia, Russia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The event started off with registration and coffee, after which Jukka Jokinen, Director of Funding and Innovation Services at Technopolis, acting as the moderator for this event gave his welcoming remarks. Gilles Bouchard, Vice President of Harvard Angels France, provided the keynote on the Harvard Angels Approach to Investing – Philosophy & Action, which was followed by two-sets of both 7-minute company presentations and 2-minute power pitches. Presenting a full 7-minutes were Suomen Ostohyvitys Ltd, IVY Robot, Newelo Ltd, TKA Scientific Instruments, Fairspectrum Ltd, Ekogen Ltd, Carspa Ltd, and Kuznech. 2-minute slots were given to VISmart Ltd, KwikPik, Octopod Ltd and Health-e-Living. The 7-minute presentation slides will be posted on Technopolis Online and they will also be accessible on the Technopolis’ SlideShare.

After the presentations a buffet lunch was served from 13.00 onwards and by 14.00 the attendees had the opportunity to listen a keynote speech on International Business directed to the whole EU Russian Innovation Forum audience at the Viipuri Hall. These proceeding made way to the Marketplace function of the event, which featured the pre-booked one-to-one meetings between the visitants from 15.00 to 18.30. The event was concluded with a Networking Reception that included awarding the three best pitches of the day. Marek Maido presenting Carspa Ltd was selected as the best pitch, with Micheal Progrebnyak of Kuznech coming in second, and Marko Karhunen representing Ekogen Ltd receiving third place.

For pictures of the event visit the Technopolis Plc Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/technopolisplc1. More pictures are available on further request.

The coming MoneyTalks® events are on the 30th of August in Espoo and on the 13th of September in Oulu. To sign-up and to see more upcoming events visit http://www.technopolisonline.com/events.