The UK’s Technology Strategy Board has unveiled a new £1m fund to support “digital businesses” in the Tech City area around Old Street and Shoreditch in east London (‘Silicon Roundabout’ to you and me). The initiative will be announced by Universities and Science Minister David Willetts, while visiting the co-working space and startup community TechHub.

The Tech City Launchpad will be targeting “small or micro companies” in Silicon Roundabout – although applicants from anywhere in the UK can apply as long as the project will be predominantly Tech City-based – with up to £100,000 in match funding. In other words, a requirement of the competition is to partner this public money with that of the private sector.

Remember that pesky volcanic cloud from last year? Yes, the one that caused all kinds of transportation trouble all over Europe and was coming from the Icelandic volcano with the impronouncable name, Eyjafjallajokull. Well, while many of us were frantically wondering how to get to where we needed to be, Covoiturage.fr came to the rescue with its online carpooling platform. And thanks to Iceland’s volcanic ash, Covoiturage.fr more than doubled its trafic.

Now, roughy one year later, Covoiturage.fr is officially announcing some 1 million carpoolers registered on the site. It’s leading in terms of stats alongside other French carpooling sites, like 13envoiture - which currently counts 400K users. With over 440K offers published daily, more and more internet users are turing to Covoiturage.fr as an eco-friendly way of getting to where they need to be.

London-based online restaurant reservations and marketing services company Livebookings says it has processed 1 million bookings for restaurants in a single month, marking the largest ever for the OpenTable rival.

In the same month the record was achieved (that would be March, 2011), Livebookings secured £6 million – or nearly $10 million – in a round of funding from existing shareholders, including VC firms Balderton Capital and Wellington Partners.

Why have one CEO when you can have two, right? That’s the thinking behind Bigpoint, the Hamburg-based online gaming company, which today announced that it has appointed Arthur Bastings as co-CEO. He’ll share the title with Bigpoint’s founder and CEO Heiko Hubertz.

Bastings will join the executive team in Hamburg, while Hubertz will focus on international expansion in the U.S., which probably makes sense given that each CEO will be operating on a different continent. Both Hubertz and Bastings will report directly to the board.

Online pawn broker Borro has raised £7.5m in a round led by Augmentum Capital, the growth capital fund launched by Tim Levene and Richard Mathews.

Existing investors Eden Ventures and Rockridge Investments have also participated, while the new investment will be used by Borro to “aggressively drive new customer acquisition” and raise awareness of the company’s offering. The company is also backed by The European Founders Fund.

Ividence, the email ad network, has raised $4.2 million in a series A round from A Plus Finance, the Paris-based investment fund. The new capital will be used by the company to consolidate its position in France and to accelerate international expansion, including hiring “around 20 people” in 2011.

I’ve been more skeptical than most about Spotify’s promise to launch in the US, but it looks like Europe’s favourite music service is ready to make good on all of its hype.

We’re hearing from multiple sources today that deals are finally in place with major US record labels and the company’s Valley investors are ready to provide the additional cash needed to pay for costly music licenses. Absent any last minute hiccups, the company’s US service is ready to go live as early as next week.

The catch? Those same sources tell us that in order to finance the cost of a US launch, Valley investors have demanded the company shut down its European service, effective noon on Friday (GMT). The brand new ‘Spotify USA‘ — unavailable to users in Europe — will launch on Monday morning.