In a rather complicated Saturday we held our interview day. To give you some insights on what’s happened behind the curtains, let us share here a few more details regarding the procedure.

We managed to perform within a day interviews for all the selected teams, which consisted of any mix of people with physical or virtual presence. We also had to enable partners of ours who reside in different countries to observe and directly interact with the other participants. From a technical perspective, this meant two screens, one for the presentation, one for the video of the participants and of course voice for the interaction.

The participating teams generally belonged to any of these four groups:

• Entirely psysical, ie teams from Greece, which were requested to be there.
• Mostly physical, with 1 or 2 members that were participating from abroad.
• Mostly virtual, with just 1 member presenting live.
• Entirely virtual, where we had screen sharing, and a voice/video call.

Having performed in this kind of setup for 10 hours and with the entire Executive Board including the participants of each team, I think it’s honest to say that this kind of operation would never be possible outside the confines of a purely tech oriented organization.

Each of the teams got the chance to present and showcase or demo their idea in front of our Board, while also having an extended Q&A session. We are happy with the results, as we believe that, through the initial application, business plan and interview process, we’ve formed a clear view of each one of the applications, enabling what we consider a robust judgement.

That said, the teams securing a ticket to the next phase have been already informed, while we’ll also put time on providing further details to the teams that didn’t make it, trying to improve their value proposition, and chances to succeed in a future Openfund call or elsewhere. Let us also mention that to us, being entrusted with each one of the applications containing your dreams was an honour. We tried hard to repay you for this trust by replying back with reviews of on average 3 times the extent of the original idea submission, from a number of executives and advisors.

For those who succeeded getting that far, we will be working closely overtime to iron out their business plans and demos in order to improve their chances of getting finally selected, while more details on the procedure and the forthcoming selection eevent will follow soon.

Onic is presently focused on other matters that require his undivided attention. Consequently, he decided to resign from the OpenFund as he cannot devote the time he considers necessary to its affairs.

Onic thanks everyone that has helped-start this much needed ecosystem to Greek entrepreneurs and looks forward to maintaining a relationship with OpenFund’s members in the years to come.

Onic’s resignation was accepted by the executive board in terms of mutual understanding. The board thanks him for his considerable contribution in shaping the Openfund to what it is today, wishes him the best with his endeavors and looks forward to future cooperation.

Today we are announcing two partnerships that further expand the toolset of skills that our startups can tap into.

The first, is the addition of the the team of CSS3.grdesign experts.

CSS3.gr will work together with the selected start-ups to secure excellent  results from a design and user experience perspective. We really look forward to the results.

To further highlight the impact of our cooperation, we are equally excited to share with you that we are already working with CSS3.gr on a new version of the Openfund website, which is about to be released in the following weeks.

The second is a partnership with the Christopoulos and Associateslaw firm.

Having collaborated with the firm in the past, we are very pleased as they really get information technology, and as such we believe that they will be able to provide better services to the companies that we invest in.

The firm will advise on such issues as intellectual property protection and access, commerce law as well as day to day issues that arise.

As with all partnerships the companies that we invest in retain the right to use or not use the services of our partners. But should they choose to use them, we have secured that these will come at a reduced cost and handled in more friendly terms overall.

Persistent in our commitment to maintain a boardof trully commited and active advisors we are happy to announce the participations of several people that have undertaken this responsibility.

In this sprint we have mainly tried to establish more connections with people that hold experience with more practical skills rather than strategy and business positioning.

As always we will keep tending to the pool of available advice. The list of additions is after the jump.

More...

The OpenFund has launched - we are now accepting proposals! Feel free to check the various sections of our main website for details regarding the OpenFund's operation - and if you have any questions don't hesitate to contact us!