Microsoft for Startups is on a scale-ups hunt! Johnny Gorman is the Head of operations for the Microsoft for Startups of the Western Europe program. He explains what kind of startups Microsoft support and what is the definition of scale-up.

How did you manage to get so many startups to be here? And how Microsoft for Startups does help startups?

Well, it wasn’t us. It was Webit that invited the startups. We bought 5 startups with us that we are supporting. They are on our stand and that’s how many we brought with us.

So, how many people are they? What kind of technology do they use?

We got fintech. We got AI. The company that we have they called Smabbler. We have a company called FintechOS. We have another company called UIPath. Microsoft for Startups, we support any kind of startups. We are industry agnostic and it doesn’t matter what industry they are in as long as they a cloud based technology company. We support the companies with high potential, cloud-based startups.

What are the requirements to enter the MfS? For ex., I have a startup, how can I enter?

Microsoft for Startups is founded in 2011. This is the first time that Microsoft started to support entrepreneur. Over the 8 years the program evolves. In 2011 we were focused on very early stage startups. As the program evolved we are more focused on scale-up companies. We don’t say that we don’t support startups at all levels of the journey. But if want to get most of the Microsoft, then you have to be a scale-up.

Can you give any advice to the companies?

For us it’s all about the technology and the team. If you build a great piece of technology, then you got some level of traction and around that you have started to build a decent team, you get some good funding. You can just keep on going and you will actually get to the stage where we will support you. What we call a scale-up? This is a company that has an established piece of technology and they have built an awesome team around them. They will be ready to scale their business. When I say ready to scale, if Microsoft could introduce them to 3-4 corporate clients. Would they have the capacity to support these corporate clients not only in their country, but also globally. If they are at that level, that we call a scale-up. We can support them in many ways.