Between the 17th and 19th January 2013 the international startup conference hy! Berlin, in which Axel Springer AG is invested with a 49 percent stake in the organizer, was held. A total of 150 startup founders, key players and investors from the United States, Europe and Germany accepted the invitation to the German capital. Participants included Jawed Karim (founder YouTube video platform), Alexis Ohanian (founder reddit social network), Om Malik (founder American technology blog GigaOM), Fabian Heilemann (founder DailyDeal voucher platform), Lars Hinrichs (founder Xing business network) and Mathias Döpfner (Chief Executive Officer Axel Springer AG). In addition to the networking of the participants with Berlin’s creative scene, an extensive discussion program took place in Radialsystem V.
Founded by Berlin entrepreneurs Aydogan Ali Schosswald and Hans Raffauf, hy! Berlin was initially launched as part of the Axel Springer AG MEDIA ENTREPRENEURS DAY 2012 as a global startup competition. Through Axel Springer AG’s additional financial and substantive support, hy! is to be established for the future as an international network and series of conferences. The next event, to which a large number of company founders and designers will be invited to Berlin, was announced for the 3rd and 4th June 2013.