The final stage of a competition designed to kick-start Europe's start-ups and uncover a home-grown technology business to rival the likes of Google and Facebook begins in earnest today.

The Seedcamp contest attracted more than 260 entries from start-up businesses in some 40 countries. That field has now been whittled down to the twenty most promising candidates, ranging from a social network aimed at the over-50s, to a site that aims to list every known bookable restaurant.

The finalists today arrived in London to attend a weeklong series of workshops that will include coaching from tech heavyweights including Oracle, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, and the chance to sell their ideas to established investors. Three winners will be given €50,000 (£34,000) each and will stay in London for a further three months’ mentoring and pitching.

The initiative was founded by Saul Klein, a former marketing director at Skype, the internet telephony leader, who hopes this week’s Seedcamp will be the first of many. Mr Klein, who is also a partner at Index Ventures, the venture capital group, one of Seedcamp's potential investors, says the competition is designed to “create a catalysing event to encourage young entrepreneurs across Europe to think big in the technology and web spaces”.

The aim, he adds, is to engineer a creative and commercial hub to rival those in Seattle, San Francisco and Boston, the hotbeds of US technology entrepreneurship.

The availability of low-cost open source software – a kind of technological mechano that set-ups can use to build web-based tools and services – is slashing the investment and time needed to get a fledgling company off the ground, Mr Klein says. A European business that has to think about doing business in several languages and currencies from the outset, should be uniquely placed to sell to a global market, he adds.

What has been missing so far is the entrepreneurial brio – the willingness to fail – that Europe’s American cousins exhibit in spades. Last year, More than three times as much venture capital was committed in the US than in Europe, according to Library House, a specialist in the sector.

That situation, however, could be changing.

“We have the talent; now we also have the [US] West Coast-style venture capital in place,” Mr Klein says. "It's time for Europe to think big."

Seedcamp’s 20 finalists

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