I just found on techmeme.com a story about Stefan Glaenzer, a name I had never heard before, about the sale of last.fm to CBS. Last.fm is based in London and Stefan is German. He is now very rich and is probably going to become very famous for being the first one to invest on last.fm, as an angel investor.

Total profit for Stefan was around 22 million pounds (around $43m (US) if I’m not mistaken) after investing “a few hundred thousand” pounds in 2004 in last.fm.

I’m not familiar with the exact numbers but we don’t see many angel investors here in Europe. Risk taking is dealt so very conservatively in Europe that Stefan stands out as an amazingly brilliant investor. He invested some of his money in a start-up he liked! Really liked, because of his past as a DJ in the 70’s!

What's really funny is the way he became the chairman of last.fm. He emailed the guys who were building it! Then got to know each other... Then one thing lead to another:

Mr Glaenzer found Last.fm via a German blogging site that he had created and, with a love of music – “I’d been a DJ at university in Hamburg” – he signed up, and soon after sent the founders, a London-based German, Austrian and Brit, an e-mail.
...
Having German roots helped him to win confidence, and Mr Glaenzer became chairman of Last.fm in 2004,

I just have to quote some of Stefan’s words that depict so well the tech povera state of web entrepreneurship in Europe:

There was an approach about once a month for the last 12 months. All of them were US companies; it reflects the fact that Europe is two and a half years behind the US.

People like Mr Glaenzer is exactly what Europe needs. People with money should take the risks, and invest in internet start-ups. Mainly for things that they love (like music for Stefan) or even not! They just have to believe in it. It's all business in the end. And the potentials are huge.

Labels: angel investors