Chairman
Grow VC International
Jouko is serial-entrepreneur, co-founder of Grow VC, the first global peer-to-peer micro-funding service for startups, and Enreach Group Inc., online audience targeting company. He also co-founded Xtract, the world first social network analytics company. His background is an investor and entrepreneur across the US, Europe and Asia and is active at a senior level with many web and mobile enterprises. With more than 15 years experience in international business management and having been close to many VC deals in past, ranging from 150k USD to 15M USD, Jouko is passionate about the challenges in finding and supporting the next great venture. Starting his first software company at the age of 16, Jouko then held progressively senior positions at diverse technology firms including Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Powerwave Technologies Inc., Nokia, and Sonera. He is a pioneer in the field of social media marketing, and played a significant role in developing the first social marketing intelligence solutions for mobile and media companies. Jouko is on the boards of various start-up companies and is a co-founder or seed investor at seven companies. Jouko is a certified advisor for NasdaqOMX Stockholm and Helsinki early phase company lists. Jouko regularly speaks at marketing, start-up funding, mobile and web 2.0 conferences including Mobile World Congress, CTIA, Next Conference, Singapore Infocomm Industry Forum and Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Conference around Europe, Asia, and the US. He is also a co-author of the Social Media Marketing book (Futuretext, London, Feb 2009).