[UK] Anything that makes the form-filling associated with claiming a refund less tedious is a win for consumers. But it’s also a potential nightmare for governments and companies that provide the services we rely on. Les paper work, more claims.
Enter Tube Refund, an iPhone app that aims to significantly reduce the time and effort it takes to file for a refund for a delayed train journey on London’s Underground (metro).
[France] French start-up Regioneo launched a participative investment program yesterday to help the company raise the €200,000 it needs for development. The company has already raised more than €20,000 by merely turning its users into investors and allowing them to invest directly on their site.
Regioneo’s e-commerce platform provides local producers a marketplace to sell their products online. Thus, the once inaccessible independent foie gras producer can now sell directly to consumers, by opening an online boutique with Regioneo. And for producers that don’t have internet access, Regioneo offers to take care of the boutique and simply relay online orders to the producers.
[France] France’s MyERP has just announced a partnership deal with Google, in which the company’s platform will be one of the first available in Google’s new Apps Marketplace.
MyERP, which was founded in 2000, provides an all-in-one cloud-based business suite for small and medium-sized businesses. Aiming to substitute for a patchwork of business applications – like Salesforce, ACT! and Quickbooks – the platform includes modules for CRM, sales, projects, purchasing, inventory and accounting.
[France] France-based eXo has just raised a €4 million series A round with Auriga Partners and XAnge Capital to expand their business in the US.
The company, a provider of open source java middleware for cloud-based services, first set-up shop in San Francisco in October 2009. The opening of their US office followed a partnership deal they made with Red Hat, which led to the joint-development of GateIn. eXo’s new round of funding will go towards sales, marketing and R&D efforts, as well as establishing additional partnerships throughout the US.
Later this week, thousands of ironic t-shirts will be arriving in Austin for the 16th annual South By Southwest Interactive festival.
At about this time, it’s traditional for tech publications to publish handy guides to “surviving SXSWi” – packed with useful advice that’s basically interchangeable with that for any other festival since the beginning of time.
“Drink plenty of water!” “Prepare for some late nights!” “Plan ahead to make sure you don’t miss anything!” “Pack sturdy shoes!” “Always use a condom!”. Useful advice for SXSWi, certainly, but also applicable for Oktoberfest, Glastonbury, Woodstock and the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia (although for the latter, replace ’shoes’ with ’sandals’ and ‘condom’ with ’sprig of silphium’).
This year, though, I decided to use my experience of past SXSWi’s to produce something more useful. A very specific and completely foolproof guide on surviving this year’s event. And here it is…
Tip One: Don’t go to South by Southwest Interactive.
[Finland] This is exactly the type of distribution that Spotify needs to achieve the kind of economies of scale that should reduce the cost to end-users with regards to its Premium offering. And of course, generate much needed revenue. The music streaming startup has signed up telco TeliaSonera as its exclusive partner in Finland to market and sell Spotify Premium. The two companies already have a similar arrangement in Sweden which started at the end of last year.
[Germany] Team Europe Ventures, the Berlin-based VC firm, has launched a new €6 million fund for early stage startups in the Internet and mobile Internet space. The fund is mainly targeting companies in Germany and Europe, but also in the USA, and the focus will be on the seed stage, with 4-5 startups being invested in per-year for a maximum of €500K per company.
This is bound to be good news for startups in Europe, and particularly in Germany where seed funding is seen to be a problem for early stage companies in the Internet space. Pawel Chudzinski, one of the partners of Team Europe Ventures comments:
[UK] Now this is getting a little silly. Snippa, another UK-based Groupon clone launches today, this time from two experienced entrepreneurs: Tim O’Shea, founder of Blurtit, and David Hobart, founder of PureContent. The company is self funded by O’Shea and Hobart from their existing businesses, operating with a six person team headquartered in North Walsham, Norfolk.
Snippa, which is focusing on London initially, pretty much follows the usual group buying model: Each day various deals are on offer for things to do in the city, with a minimum number of buyers required for the deal to go through. If not enough people sign-up within the allotted time period then the offer is withdrawn and no money changes hands. The idea is that those interested will spread the word via email and social networks so as to increase their own chances of getting a bargain.
Although it’s here where I’m beginning to question the Groupon model as a whole, whereby the perception may be far more important than reality with the tipping point required, arguably, nothing more than a marketing gimmick designed to make the offers go viral – see below.
Autoquake, an online used car retailer in the UK, has raised another £6 million round of venture capital and venture debt financing from existing investors Accel Partners and Highland Capital Partners. The debt is being provided by Kreos Capital. This is after raising £4m from Accel and Highland only last year. That takes its total funding so far to £20 million.
Autoquake’s plan is to disrupt the car retail industry by selling quality used cars on behalf of large corporate fleets and leasing companies direct to consumers via virtual showrooms. High quality pictures of the actual cars on sale appear instead of the usual fuzzy pictures on the average second hand advert.
[France] I first learned of Allmyapps at Le Web ‘09 when the company’s CEO Thibauld Favre, and co-Founder Aranud Coulondre, grabbed my attention and enticed me into a demo. I nearly missed my flight. Allmyapps, a small but ambitious startup based in France, aims to become the “iTunes for software applications” as Thibauld puts it, bringing simple 1 click multi-application install to end-users. The company is backed by undisclosed business angels.
