Greenely Expands in the USA
Since 2010, KTH Innovation is running the KTH student incubator, Student Inc. Focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship, the selected student cases are afforded unique support during the development on their ideas. Greenely is one of these cases and this is the story of their experiences and how they found a completely new market for their idea during an inspirational trip to the USA, as told by one of the founders.
Tanmoy Bari is one of three founders of Greenely, the app that makes it easy for tenants to get an overview of their electricity and water consumption, joined Student Inc. in December 2013. He says there is great support both from the coaches and the other entrepreneurs who are on the same road to developing their startup companies.
‑ It is an inspiring atmosphere and you can get tips and advise all the time.
The close connection to KTH Innovation has been important and Donnie SC Lygonis, business coach to Greenely, has contributed coaching and comprehensive support along the way. Tanmoy Bari still maintains that there are a lot of things that the team behind the startup must get better at. This summer Student Inc., in collaboration with SVForum, arranged Startup Inspire. This is a program for startups where they get to travel to Californa and experience an entrepreneur's Mecca - Silicon Valley. The ambitious schedule included inspirational meetings at, among others, Microsoft and Google, as well as plenty of opportunity for the startups to hone their pitching technique. For Greenely, the trip provided tips and advise as well as practical training, which will serve them well in the future.
- As we scale up we are going to need to improve our pitching to investors. We got a lot of practice during Startup Inspire and came away with lots of useful information from the external meetings, says Tanmoy Bari.
During the trip to Silicon Valley, Greenely also came into contact with a prospering market outside of Sweden. Their budding interest involved a lot of extra work. At the same time as they are launching a pilot project with the Energy Board and Mälarenergi in Sweden, they are also developing a subsidiary on the American market.
- We had no idea that the market was so large in the USA within our field. That's why we want to get going straight away while there is a great chance that this will work over there too, says Tanmoy Bari.
STARTUP INSPIRE
Startup Inspire is arranged by KTH Innovation in close collaboration with SVForum and is a program for companies in the KTH Innovation support process, that are deemed to have great potential for expaning on the American market. Workshops, site visits and meetings are arranged to give the companies an idea of their opportunities to scale up and develop outside of the Swedish market.
SVFORUM
For over thirty years, SVForum has been the leading not-for-profit organization in the Bay Area, providing unbiased source of information and insight to the technology community. Through the efforts of its dedicated staff and volunteers, SVForum’s wealth of programs and groups create networks and relationships, as well as providing education and access to resources both in person and digitally to a global audience. The organization reaches over 20,000 of the most important thought leaders, VCs, innovators and CEOs in technology. Its partners include global leaders IBM, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Siemens, and SAP, as well as leading venture capital firms and service providers.
Read more about SVForum here!
Would you like to find out more about Student Inc. orStartup Inspire? Contact the Student Inc. manager, My Klint on 08-790 66 81 or email myklint@kth.se
