Entrepreneurship in the

European Cloud Market

António Miguel Ferreira

CEO & Founder, Lunacloud

Businesses

founded

Successfu

l

Failure

Non tech Tech

53

1

4

2

Sold or Closed

Ongoing Potential

• 1st to sell unlimited access for a flat fee in PT

• €4 million recurring revenues in 1999, EBITDA+

• Sold to an US-based ISP

• Still in operation as a managed service provider

1994 EsotericaInternet Service Provider

Opportunities

• Timing… Internet adoption curve was at the start

1994 EsotericaInternet Service Provider

Challenges

• Financing… or how to start a business with 10 000 €

• Management… need marketing, finance, sales, not only engineering

• After sale: Entrepreneur ≠ manager… Opportunities, Risk, Innovation, Speed, Growth

1994 EsotericaInternet Service Provider

2001 InternetworksServer appliances distributor & integrator

But

• Not tech

• No Scalability & Growth opportunities… The ability to leverage the business

2003 KidesignDesign furniture for Kids

2006 MyMomentPlastic Surgery

• Pure-play Cloud Server & Storage provider

• For Tech businesses, Start-ups, Developers,

SMEs

• Europe expansion in 2012/13 (UK, PT, FR, ES, DE,

NL, …)

• Outside Europe in 2014

• Local language, currency, support, …

2011 LunacloudCloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider

Opportunities

• Timing… Cloud adoption curve is at the start

• Uniqueness… Hot resize

… Fast server deployment (10 seconds)

… Highly flexible = 307,200 server combinations

… Simplicity

… Price

2011 LunacloudCloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider

Challenges

• Scale business… be bigger or be more efficient

• Growth in value… IaaS/PaaS focused

• Partners ecosystem… SaaS

2011 LunacloudCloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider

We are at a starting point in

the Cloud adoption curve!

=The same point of the

Internet access market 18

years ago!

Cloud

antonio@lunacloud.com

Thank you

On Entrepreneurship

• Lack of maturity of the entrepreneurial

ecosystem (compared to the US)

• Ingrained culture of low risk

• But European countries boast some of the

most advanced broadband infrastructures

European entrepreneurship

• Need ambition outside local markets

boundaries, to scale and compete globally

• Legislators needs to facilitate, simplify, not

over-regulate

European entrepreneurship

• New start-ups can use cloud services to

quickly test & scale-up (PaaS, SaaS)

without investing in building physical

infrastructure

• Cloud computing will be the new utility

• One of the industries with the most

opportunities for entrepreneurs

Cloud entrepreneurship