Thursday, 12 November 2009
Adconion shortlisted for Audemars Piguet ‘Changing Times’ European Technology Entrepreneur Of The Year Award
Adconion Media Group has won a place on the final shortlist of seven companies for the Audemars Piguet ‘Changing Times’ European Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Award, co-sponsored by Schroder & Co Banque and the European Tech Tour Association (ETT). The winner will be announced on November 19th 2009 at the award dinner in Geneva.
The Audemars Piguet awards have grown in popularity every year since their initial launch in 2006; this year saw more than 180 entrants. The 2009 entries were judged by a selection committee composed of representatives from Google, Good Energies, the European Tech Tour Association (ETT), Wellington Partners, Sofinnova, Go4Venture, Partech, Accel Partners, Index Ventures, Balderton Capital and Northzone Ventures. The final award will be presented to the high-tech company that has made the greatest impact on the largest number of people, in the least amount of time.
The Audemars Piguet awards are presented to companies that reflect the watchmaker's ideals of innovation, high technology, precision and audacity. Companies submitting entries must be able to demonstrate an annual growth rate of at least 50% for the past three years, be founded no more than 10 years ago and have revenue originating from several countries. European origin management is preferred and ideally the company should still be run by the founders.
Past winners have been consistently successful after achieving their prizes. The 2006 winner, MySQL, was sold for US$1 billion to Sun Microsystems soon after winning the award. QlikTech, the winner in 2008, has demonstrated revenue growth of 80% over the last three years. They have over 425,000 users at 9760 customers in 90 countries; are projecting to take US$500 million by the end of 2011 and they have an ecosystem that is generating another US$500 million in revenue.
Arndt Groth, Adconion’s president of Europe, says, “Over the past year, we have worked hard to distinguish ourselves from the crowd. Spurred on by the success of our new online video offering, carried under the banner of Adconion.TV, we have continued to expand our presence across Europe and spearhead the evolution of the traditional network model in a completely new direction. It’s great to see our achievements recognised by our peers and the industry at large, and we are honoured to be one of the seven finalists.”
Sven Lingjaerde, founder and president of European Tech Tour, says, "Entrepreneurship in Europe remains buoyant and the pipeline is very exciting. European companies are typically more capital efficient than their US counterparts, which helps particularly at a time when cash is a scarce resource. Online and mobile gaming are obviously big right now; software as a service, IT dematerialisation and cleantech are the hot areas to watch. Interestingly, many European e-commerce companies succeed at a national level but only a few are able to do a successful international roll out in that space."
Further details can be accessed at http://www.techtour.com
