A lot of people might not know it, but the frontman’s interest in tech goes beyond U2’s recent and controversial deal with Apple where they gave their latest album away for free on iTunes.
The singer is also an investor
Image: Eduardo Verdugo/Associated Press
Bono, real name Paul Hewson, is a managing director of Elevation Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in large entertainment, media and technology businesses, which he co-founded with former Apple Chief Financial Officer, Fred Anderson. Elevation Partners invested in Facebook in 2010, taking a 1% stake, which it was believed to have paid $90 million for.
His company has also invested in Forbes, the parent company of Forbes magazine and Forbes.com, Palm, a smartphone manufacturer, Yelp, a business ratings website and Marketshare, which specializes in market analysis.
The singer has been a long-time supporter of his native Ireland’s Web Summit, attending three of the four previous events. Bono has even led pub crawls around Dublin city on three occasions.
“I think he’s a guy who always has his ear to the ground he’s always looking to invest whether that’s at The Web Summit or elsewhere,” The Web Summit cofounder Daire Hickey says when asked if he thinks Bono will have his eye out for companies to invest in.
But aside from an event with Bono speaking at it, what is the Web Summit and why are 22,000 tech people in Dublin for it?
Delegates wait near a digital image wall during the Dublin Web Summit in Dublin, Ireland, on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013.
Image: Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Web Summit, itself a start-up, was co-founded by three Irish men Paddy Cosgrave, Daire Hickey and David Kelly in 2010. It’s just one of many startups operating in Dublin, which has in recent years transformed itself into destination for both small and large tech firms.
It’s not known how many technology startups there are in Ireland but Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, which produces a report that measures entrepreneurial activity, says Ireland is ranked 9th among the 28 European Union countries. One in 11 people in the country is involved in entrepreneurial activity.
Dublin city centre, the European base for many large tech firms
Attracted in by the low tax rate of 12.5%, the ease of doing business here, and a young, educated workforce helped by the free movement of travel of people within the European Union, several of the leading tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Dropbox, have located their European headquarters in Dublin.
But for startups and small businesses, it’s the infrastructure that makes Ireland stand out, says Alan Hobbs spokesperson for Enterprise Ireland, the Irish government’s agency for supporting Irish businesses and attracting international firms to locate here.
Enterprise Ireland invested modestly in the Web Summit, then the Dublin Web Summit, four years ago when it was a much smaller event, organised, like so many early projects are, out of one of the founder’s bedrooms.
“In the first year, we approached it with some skepticism and trepidation,” Hobbs said.
Four years on and it seems they shouldn’t have been so worried.
Grand Canal Docks dubbed “Silicon Docks” because of nearby tech giants like Google
Spread out across a complex of buildings and temporary structures on the grounds of the Royal Dublin Society – a 40 acre site – in the affluent south Dublin suburb of Ballsbridge, the event has come a long way from what the organisers now call a meet-up in a room attended by 400 people in 2010.
Back then the only food the organisers could afford to serve to attendees were deep fried sausages from the local pizza shop. This year, attendees will be fed by an army of 250 artisan Irish food producers.
But it’s the heavyweight speakers that show how far the Web Summit has come.
In the past three years speakers who have journeyed to Dublin for the event have included Tesla, SpaceX boss and all-round real life Iron Man Elon Musk, Skype founder Niklas Zennström, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, and YouTube cofounders Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim among others.
Jack Dorsey, chief executive officer of Square Inc. and cofounder and chairman of Twitter, arrives for the New Economy Summit 2013
Image: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
This year the number of speakers at the Web Summit exceeds the first event’s total attendance. At least 600 people will take to one of 10 stages over the three days.
Among the speakers are cofounder of Paypal and Facebook’s first outside investor Peter Thiel, Dropbox founder Drew Houston, Amazon Chief Technology Officer, Werner Vogels and Google’s Vice President of Engineering, Anna Patterson.
And the celebrities don’t stop at Bono.
There are a number of other tech-loving celebrities thrown in for good measure including angel investing Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, and Entourage actor and founder of lifestyle platform SHFT Adrian Grenier.
DUBLIN, IRELAND – NOVEMBER 04: Eva Longoria of The Eva Longoria Foundation attends the 4th annual Web Summit on November 4, 2014 in Dublin, Ireland.
Image: Photo by Clodagh Kilcoyne/Getty Images
Great to be on stage at the Dublin #WebSummit talking about my new documentary #FoodChains avail on ITunes now! http://t.co/O6uMmnpB4A
— Eva Longoria (@EvaLongoria) November 4, 2014
The event has been broadly welcomed by the establishment in Ireland, with the leader of the Irish government, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, coming to the event on Tuesday to ring the NASDAQ’s opening bell.
However, one area where The Web Summit has been criticised repeatedly is the proportionally smaller number of female speakers.
Even though 40% of people attending this year are female, only 15% of the speakers are women.
“I think that reflects the number of women who are CEOs of tech companies,” Hickey says. “There simply aren’t enough women at the top of the tech industry.”
Hickey says the issue is one that the technology industry is having generally and that’s reflected in the Web Summit.
Responding to criticism, the event gave away more than $300,000 worth of tickets to female developers and designers.
While the speakers are interesting and often inspiring it’s the conversations and casual chats over drinks, usually pints in a city centre pub, where the real business of the event gets done.
DUBLIN, IRELAND – SEPTEMBER 26: Emeli Sande performs at the Dakota as part of the fifth annual Arthur’s Day celebrations on September 26, 2013 in Dublin, Ireland.
Image: Ian Gavan/Getty Images
“What the Web Summit does is create an environment for people to do deals and for serendipity to occur,” Hickey told Mashable.
“Last year the top 25 startups that came to the Web Summit raised $400 million in the subsequent 12 months and some of those people would have met their investors at the Web Summit … when you bring that kind of calibre of person into to one place something kind of magical happens.”
In fact it was a conversation over a pint in a Dublin pub that led to investor Shervin Pishevar signing a deal to invest $26.5 million in U.S. entrepreneur Travis Kalanick’s ride-sharing startup Uber, which now has a valuation of more than $15 billion.
“Entry to the Web Summit isn’t a guarantee of success although we do have some great success stories,” Hickey says, knowing that with 3,000 start-ups attending not all will have similar journeys.
The plane from London to Dublin on Monday night was packed with eager twenty-somethings, wearing sneakers, hoodies, and minimalist black and grey outfits en route to the event.
Sitting in Gatwick Airport, I met Raphael Levy of Atos, a London-based digital services company that frequently works with startups building a bridge between them and big companies.
While waiting for the gate number for his Ryanair flight to be posted, Levy told me that it’s his first time going to the event and he’ll be spending his time at the conference searching for new startups to work with.
Prompted by friends in the industry he said that for him this year it moved from something he was aware of to his small list of must-attend tech conferences.
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