The Latvian American Business Association of California (LABACA) announced today of the opening of its office in Silicon Valley based in the Plug & Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale.
LABACA’s presence in Silicon Valley will help create tighter connections between the Silicon Valley community and Latvia, an innovation-based economy in Northern Europe.
Establishment of a presence in Silicon Valley will help to accomplish LABACA key Tasks:
– to create in Silicon Valley a base of Latvian high tech companies, projects and ideas;
– to bring fresh innovative ideas from Latvia and Northern Europe to Silicon Valley enabling transformation and exchange between economies;
– to use the SV ecosystem, business angels and venture capital for launching Latvian startups;
– to transfer to the US European and particularly Latvian Internet security solutions, which have the potential to boost core technologies used in US (such as the HITECH Act, HIPAA Healthcare Digital security programs and the White House’s “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace”);
– to create mutual benefit for all parties, helping to bring fresh technological ideas to Silicon Valley to catalyze economic growth and leave behind the “new phase of uncertainty”.
“ I am confident that the Plug and Play Tech Center community is the right place to initiate exposure and networking for Latvian startups”, said Richard Grant – Gailums, Board Member of LABACA . “I anticipate that the Plug and Play community and its valued partners, like Silicon Valley Bank, Greenberg Traurig, Berger Lewis and others will help create long-term relationships for successful high-growth young businesses from Latvia.”
Saeed Amidi, President/CEO of Plug and Play Tech Center : “We are very pleased to work together with LABACA to initiate the relationship with Latvia. We have been very successful working with the Trade Commission of Canada in building Silicon Valley Bridges between Toronto, Vancouver, all the major cities in Canada and Silicon Valley. We have also been successful working with the Belgium Ministry of Science, and the Belgium Trade Commission, which initiated in January 2011. We have just received our first three companies after visiting Brussels in November and reviewing 50 exciting companies without VC friends and Executives in Residence for three days. This Silicon Valley Bridge had been proven to improve the chances of success and make the entrepreneurs from Europe think more globally, execute in a larger scale and create jobs in their home country.”
Among LABACA’s contributors and supporters are several successful Latvian high tech startups and some more mature IT companies, like draugiem.lv, e-Tag, Real Sound Lab, DEAC, VeriTweet and Desktime.
About LABACA. LABACA is a non-profit, member-driven organization enhancing the efforts of passionate entrepreneurs who share a vision of making the World a better and more secure place in the digital age.
LABACA aims to narrow the Digital Divide between the two economies, facilitate transatlantic knowledge-sharing and networking among Latvian-American and Californian business and tech communities, based on core technology priorities of social networking and digital security. LABACA’s intention is to bridge Silicon Valley and Northern Europe by leveraging competencies between the two economies and markets.
About Plug and Play Tech Center. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, PlugandPlayTechCenter.com is a community of over 280 technology startup companies in the areas of Web 2.0, software (SaaS), systems, semiconductor and telecomm verticals. Since its inception in January 2006 the center has helped startups raise in excess of $400 million in venture funding. The start-up companies themselves have created cumulative value of $2 billion.
For more information please contact:
LABACA,
440 N Wolfe Road,
Sunnyvale, CA 94085,
e-mail : info@labaca.org ; www.labaca.org