We are
Technology Business Architects
Silicon Castles is a Tech Company Builder and Strategic Business Accelerator for technology intellectual property (IP) licensing businesses.
We focus on European Diamonds: Technology startups with a unique business idea, scalable technology and outstanding intellectual property – the key to global success.
We invest in talents and their ideas, early-stage startups with a great team, a promising idea, and innovative technology – we like pain killers, not vitamins.
We support global business development with our own global sales team – identify the target market and get the first deal.
We assist with the creation of a legal framework for licensing businesses – from the NDA to the licensing agreement.
We coach Diamonds during their scale-up phase in various areas, such as marketing, strategic teaming and executive coaching.
We provide access to a global network in all major technology hotspots in Europe, the US and Asia – leverage the global Silicon Castles network.
Our network
Silicon Castles is operating a global network with access to hotspots in Europe (Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, etc.), the United States (Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, New York etc.) and Asia (Tokyo, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hongkong, Seoul, Singapore, Mumbai etc.).
Acceleration
We accelerate startups by transforming ideas, leading growth, mentoring, and educating talents & teams.
Our Global Acceleration Program (GAP) encompasses all mission-critical elements to develop an idea into a solid investment proposal. Among others, this includes product definition, storytelling, brand-building, sales development, legal matters, and talent management.
Telling Your Story & Building Your Brand
Developing a clear marketing and brand strategy is as essential as the financial forecasts and product roadmaps and provides clarity, context and a powerful message.
By using basic building blocks such as a company mission, vision, and positioning statement and combining it with a strong company story, clarity and context are provided and a powerful message is created.
Selling Globally Through Our Network
A network including major technology players can be the key to successful sales for startups. Silicon Castles offers access to its global network in the US and Asian markets and immediately introduces its startups to relevant partners and customers. We support startups in building a skilled sales team to land the first big deal, which is crucial to find investors. Our strategic relationships include investment Silicon Valley VC firms, family offices, and corporate venture organizations worldwide.
Completing Your Team
A compact analysis helps founders understand the management approaches from the organizational- and the people-perspective to find the right team members with the necessary skills and experiences. The focus lies on the individual implementation of organizational learning to steer sustainable growth, harvest success, retain key people, and attract new talents.
Closing Successful Deals
Licensing agreements represent the bedrock of a successful startup but fail to realize their potential without the right structure and scheme in place.
Silicon Castles helps startups in deploying an international licensing scheme that is in accordance with accepted licensing practices and a strong negotiation strategy. This allows startups to fine-tune their engine, gather momentum, and secure successive deals.
Startup Executive Academy
The Startup Executive Academy (SEA), founded in 2017, is an international Go-to-Market program for early-stage (seed, A or B phase) technology startup executives and founders. The program aims to enable startups to accelerate their business by providing highly relevant and practical input. The program is delivered by a world-class faculty from academy and business.
The SEA incorporates aspects of both a face-to-face and an online program.
SESSIONS
The highly practical, hands-on Go-to-Market sessions cover topics such as business model & strategy, value proposition, story telling, pricing, negotiation, sales and investment. Alongside the sessions, the participants work on their startup’s challenges by completing e.g. the Business Model Canvas, Sales Canvas or the Investment Canvas.
FACULTY
The faculty includes executives and former leaders of global companies like Dolby, Sony, PWC, McKinsey, Napster, and Deutsche Telekom etc. Participants have the opportunity to meet experts from different fields in 1:1 meetings to discuss the current challenges of their startups.
VALUE
During the lectures, the 1:1 sessions with faculty members and the regular exchanges with their peers, the participants develop ideas, gather knowledge, and collect feedback. They can immediately use this input to accelerate their business and take their company to the next level.
SEA CIRCLE
The SEA CIRCLE is the alumni network of former SEA participants and enables continuous learning through regular SEA CIRCLE Sessions. In these sessions, participants get input from the SEA faculty on currently important startup topics, they can share their experiences on success and failure and receive advice from peers.
Our Diamonds
Selected Silicon Castles Diamonds
Diamonds are technology startups with a unique business idea, scalable technology and outstanding IP.
Their products are not incremental innovations but represent real stand-alone solutions that solve problems and create value worldwide.
Diamonds are global players.
Diamond Lab
Silicon Castles‘ aim is to discover gifted talents in Europe, lead them and their ideas to global success, and turn them into true Diamonds.
To identify and shape the ideas of people from different disciplines, experiences, ages, and cultures, Silicon Castles believes in the methods of Design Thinking – guided workshops, led by experts, and focused on developing new ideas in the field of new technologies.
Diamond Lab Split
From May 12-13, 2023, the first-ever Diamond Lab was held in Split. This two-day Design Thinking workshop united a motivated group of more than 20 creative individuals who worked on visionary ideas with global potential, focusing on the following areas:
Culture & Tourism; Metaverse & Web3; and GreenTech.
The ultimate goal? To create innovative ideas that transform into regionally and globally successful startups in order to establish Split as an attractive startup region and living space.
ON THE FIRST DAY, the primary focus was on identifying and defining problem areas within the respective domain, while concurrently formulating potential solutions. With the help of Design Thinking methods, participants were encouraged to think outside the box and approach challenges from new angles. This phase also entailed initial prototyping activities, encouraging participants to actively engage in the process.
ON THE SECOND DAY, the teams delved deeper into their selected projects, engaging in comprehensive work that involved expert input on the different aspects of building up a successful startup. This input encompassed aspects such as market research, business model & Go-to-Market, product & value proposition, storytelling, and more. The final highlight of this intensive Design Thinking workshop was the creation of a 2-minutes video in which the teams presented their projects to the Diamond Lab Split jury.
Evaluation of the Startups
The final video presentations, complemented by questions from the jury members of the Diamond Lab Split: Lana Ugrčić (Student Business Incubator Split), Maja Ćukušić (EFST), Andreas Spechtler (Silicon Castles), Toni Trivković (Split Tech City) and Catherine Ogilvie (Silicon Castles), confirmed the dedication and hard work that the teams had put into their projects.
The Top 3 teams:
MatchKo — a sports community app that helps people find missing teammates for sports activities and provides a one-stop shop for organizers of competitions with an incorporated AI model for
player matching
BeBee — a smart beehive solution to digitally track and optimize beekeeping and honey production
using AI
cleAIners — a solution for autonomous cleaning of solar panels making use of drones and AI
The winning teams will have the opportunity to work with the Silicon Castles team on their ideas and turn their rough drafts into a real product with global market potential.
Project Partners
Our Team
Andreas Spechtler
Founder & CEO
Pascal Levensohn
Senior Strategic Advisor
Catherine Ogilvie
Senior Marketing Advisor
Jasmin Hopf
Acceleration Manager
Salzburg
Ivana Perić
Acceleration Manager
Split
Dr. Eva Weigt
Acceleration Manager
Anna Bruckermayr
Graphic Designer
Lisa Lytvyn
Business Analyst
James Perkins
Program Director for Startup Executive Academy
Associate Director for Executive Education Programs at Stanford Graduate School of Business
David Kinsella
General Counsel
Thomas Weiss
Senior Technology Advisor
Mahesh Sundaram
Senior Strategic Advisor
for Global Growth
Castles
Silicon Castles believes in the innovation power of regions around smaller cities. Often, such regions are the home of very innovative companies and are seen as hidden technology champions.
The first castles of Silicon Castles are based in the town of Puch, south of Salzburg and in Split, Croatia. More castles are to come in the future.
Salzburg, Austria
Salzburg is a unique European region with an attractive high-tech ecosystem. Salzburg developed its business culture centuries ago through its flourishing salt, gold and silver mines that was then traded across the Alps. The city is known all over the world being for being Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birthplace, the setting of Sound of Music, home to the world famous Salzburg Festival for classical music as well as the Karajan Institute.
Today, the Salzburg region has developed into an internationally known hub for both for global players like Red Bull, Porsche, Spar Austria Group, Sony DADC, Skidata, Palfinger, KTM, Atomic, Kaindl, Kiska, Sirona, Vale, RealNetworks, Carbo Tech as well as unique start-ups like Authentic Vision, Findologic and NativeWaves. Salzburg’s educational and research infrastructure is impressive for a city with a population of some 150.000 people as it is home to five universities and two research organizations.
Split, Croatia
Split has become the center of the startup scene in Dalmatia with a developed entrepreneurial and technological ecosystem. In the last few years, the technology startup scene in Split has gotten stronger in every segment: excellent coworking spaces are opened, top-class conferences are organized, and there are also regular meetups. Every month something happens, which proves to us that the community is more and more active. The University of Split consists of 11 faculties, one art academy and four university departments. Students can choose from more than 180 study programs in all fields of science and art.
All these factors and the high quality of life in both Salzburg and Split attract many entrepreneurs and are the reason for the constant growth in the number of startups in these regions. Silicon Castles supports these innovation ecosystems and engages with high-potential startups to help them accelerate to global success.
