Archive for October 2011
by Mike Butcher on October 27, 2011

It seems like Tariq Krim, founder of the early ‘organise your digital life’ play that was NetVibes has been on a journey – a journey to tackling fundamental problems about our online life, like how to interface and organise it all. Seems like he just can’t let go of that idea. And the Atomico and Mangrove Capital backed Jolicloud has been an ambitious evolution of this, to create an apps-based interface to the cloud, as well as a Netbook OS, which 600,000 users responded to. But today Krim unveiled a major pivot for Jolicloud in the form of a new product which seems to bring all of that learning into a new place which very much speaks to the proliferation of social networks, photo apps and other services.

by Robin Wauters on October 27, 2011

Social media analytics firm Socialbakers has acquired Social RSS, a popular feed reader app for Facebook. The deal follows on the heels of the company’s earlier acquisition of Checkfacebook.com, which was completed last month. Looks like they’re putting that $2 million they just raised to work.

The company, which says it’s already profitable, is also announcing support for the Google+ service (in addition to previously supported social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn).

by Robin Wauters on October 27, 2011

We hear Radionomy, which provides a platform for creating and broadcasting online radio stations here in Europe, is out raising a $15 million round of funding with the help of French investment bank Bryan Garnier.

The financing round is expected to close later this year.

by Mike Butcher on October 26, 2011

Voting in The Europas Awards has gone live. Held annually, The Europas are the main European Awards for early stage Internet and Mobile technology startups. The are selected by a combination of an expert Advisory Board (which changes every year) and voting by the industry itself. The whole thing comes together on a special awards night in London, on November 17.

Of course, out of the sheer need to filter the thousands of people in tech startups across Europe, the Awards can’t cover every single startup and entrepreneur. But what you see below are the ones this year’s Board picked out as representing the best new early stage startups in Europe, and the people making it all happen.

Everyone here is a winner already. Not a single company or person here is not amazing at what they do already. But in the end, there is always a filter. So this is your chance to feed in your choices for the best in Europe. From this will come the final finalists for the awards on November 17 in London. Voting ends on November 1st. You can vote only once in each category. So get voting!

by Mike Butcher on October 26, 2011

Zingaya, a Russian VOIP startup HQ-in London has raised $1.15 million in a Series A funding. Investors include Esther Dyson and Russian private investors. I one “Untitled Venture Capital Company”. I kid not. Zingaya, founded in 2009 by the three young Russian geeks who previously developed flaphone, a web-based VOIP app, is effectively a click-to-call service aimed at support calls for e-commerce sites. They are by no means the only player in this market but are getting traction with customer at a reasonable click with over 100 paying customers including the largest Russian payment system – Qiwi, and major Russian airline S7 Airlines.

by Natasha Starkell on October 26, 2011

English turned out to be an official language at IDCEE, which took place over the past two days in Kiev, Ukraine. The conference organizers proved to have what it takes to challenge Startup Week Vienna and How to Web to become the leading eastern European startup conference.

Familiar faces seen at Startup Week Vienna were pitching at IDCEE competition. Four finalists made it to the final, and the jury was asked to rate the finalists. Here is the result.

by Vanessa Zainzinger on October 26, 2011

Telecommunications has moved to the cloud, inevitably. We have a tele-cloud in East London now, where Twilio has opened its first office outside the U.S. today. The reason I’m excited about this is that telephony infrastructure in the cloud is as technically simple as economically cheap. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Twilio, as you might know, is a simple API for developers that allows them to integrate phone calls, text messages and IP voice communications into their phone applications. Through that it has becomes something of an enabling layer on top of telecommunications, allowing for innovation in the field. One of the key things about Twilio is its simplicity. Developers with no background in telecom whatsoever can build sophisticated applications using their existing skills faster than you can say API. Well, pretty fast anyway – airbnb built their Voice Connect service on top of Twilio in 48 hours.

by Vanessa Zainzinger on October 26, 2011


Targeted advertising goes real-time: Onsite targeting solutions provider Cognitive Match has teamed up with independent advertising technology company Adnetik to increase the effectiveness of online campaigns.

The partnership builds on Adnetik’s Audience Investment Management (AIM) system for display advertising and enhances its capabilities through combination with Dynamic Creative Targeting™. While AIM helps advertisers to buy targeted display ads on an impression by impression basis, this collaboration places the solution in a real-time environment. It provides a dynamic creative solution that is capable of targeting different elements of creative for each user. The goal is to maximise user engagement and increase the effectiveness of online campaigns.

by Vanessa Zainzinger on October 26, 2011

The ticketing industry’s arguably most disruptive start-up Eventbrite has today opened the doors of its London office. This is the first international expansion of the U.S. based business and they’re only just getting started.

The event platform has passed one milestone after another in the past two years as ticket gross sales jumped up to $400 million in December 2010 from $100 million in January 2009. Up to this expansion Eventbrite was used in 147 countries and has issued nearly 40 million tickets since it was founded in 2006. A recent Series E round of funding worth $50 million will be used to aim for bigger events, invest in mobile products and build more analytics and social media tools.

by Robin Wauters on October 26, 2011

Red Gate this morning announced that it has acquired Cerebrata, an India-based maker of tools that helps developers build applications that run on Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform. In fact, Cerebrate is not only a Microsoft partner but also one of their BizSpark startups.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we’re told Cerebrata will continue to operate its own website and services, and its development team will be kept in place for the ‘foreseeable future’.

by Mike Butcher on October 25, 2011

Tradeshift, the social invoicing startup we broke in 2009, has secured $17 million in funding, a move which values it at $137 million in a round led by Moscow based funds ru-Net and Kite Ventures. Existing investor, Notion Capital, also participated.

CEO Christian Lanng says the fact the money was raised outside the Valley show’s the power balance is shifting towards Europe. We have a different view: this is a deal struck where the wheels were probably greased by existing investor Morten Lund and close associate Edwrad Shenderovich of Kite Ventures. It’s highly significant that Russian investors are starting to flesh their muscles outside Russia, and not just DST for a change.

by Robin Wauters on October 25, 2011

From Russia with love: two Moscow-based investment firms have led a $17 million funding round for B2B social networking and e-invoicing company Tradeshift, valuing the company at $137 million according to a press statement distributed earlier this morning.

The investors are ru-Net and Kite Ventures, with earlier backer Notion Capital also participating.

by Mike Butcher on October 24, 2011

One of the annoying things about the movie industry is that if you blink while the promotion for a new release is on – about 48 hours in marketing terms – you effectively miss the launch. It’s a bizarre scenario that much of this marketing dollars are spent in inly a few days before a new film hits the screens are are aimed at the ‘first weekender’ fans. But many people – myself included – follow actors and their IMDB profiles to see what is ‘to be released’. So there’s a behaviour there industry is just not capitalising one.

Stepforward today MoviePilot. This new recommendation and discovery platform brings upcoming films to fans based on their taste. That twists the old marketing model on its head and makes the whole process much more efficient.

by Robin Wauters on October 24, 2011

Vistaprint this morning announced that it is buying European photobook software solutions provider Albumprinter for €60 million (~$83.3 million) in cash, with up to €5 million (~$9 million) in earn-out, if certain performance-based requirements are met in 2012.

Albumprinter, based in Amsterdam, with a manufacturing presence in the Hague, has generated roughly €37 million (~$51.5 million) in revenue in the trailing twelve months ended September 30, 2011, according to a statement. Net income margin for the same period was about 8%, and EBITDA was approximately 16% (approximately €6 million).

by Guest Author on October 24, 2011

TechCrunch recently featured post by TechCrunch TV featuring Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Third Industrial Revolution, who argues that Europe will be the next cradle of innovation. To that end, we’re increasingly finding VCs in Europe looking for the best hubs for those innovators. And we recently argued that the axis of power was swinging behind both London and Berlin. But EarlyBird Capital was the first VC to open an office in Berlin this year and others like Accel and Index have become regular visitors. Below, Roberto Bonanzinga, partner at Balderton Capital, argues why he thinks Berlin could produce the next Facebook.

Whilst we don’t know when or where the next Facebook will be created, we do know where to start looking: Berlin. It’s a city which defines ingenuity and creativity. Walking between Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte, you could easily believe you were in South of Market (SOMA) in San Francisco during the nineties. There’s the same energy, the same passion and the same creative atmosphere which is transforming Germany’s ‘capital of cool’ into Germany’s ‘capital of start ups’.

by Mike Butcher on October 24, 2011

So far Twitter users have gotten by with Direct Messaging when they want to be more intimate with their friends. But what if they could do Facebook-chat style instant messaging? That’s the offering today from Bonfire.im, a brand new disruptive startup which promises to change the Twitter experience in quite a fundamental way, by adding IM-syle Presence. Suddenly you could now know if your friends were online or ont. However, they hope Twitter will like this new plugin since it keeps users stuck to the web site. That means ad dollars for Twitter.

by Monty Munford on October 24, 2011

In Accra, the capital of Ghana, it’s not about who you know, what you know, which member’s club you belong to or even which school you used to go to. It’s all about which church you belong to.

Ghana is nearly 70% Christian and on Sundays anybody who is anybody heads off to church, not only to worship their God, but also to be part of the country’s biggest networking event. This is where business is done… and business is booming.

The country also has a sizeable Muslim minority, but relations between Islam and Christianity, unlike surrounding countries such as Nigeria, are cordial and are often mixed in with tribal beliefs. The country is also home to diverse religions such as Shintoism, Jehovah’s Witnesses and even Rastafarianism.

by Mike Butcher on October 24, 2011


Movie and TV streaming service Netflix is to launch in the UK and Ireland in early 2012, according to the company today. Pricing will be announced closer to launch but the company says it will launch on a range of consumer electronics devices capable of streaming from Netflix, as well as on PCs, Macs and mobile tablets and phones.

In the UK it will go head to head with Amazon-owned Lovefilm, the well established streaming service. Amazon acquired LoveFilm in January for £200m, having previously held a 42 per cent stake in LoveFilm from since 2008 when Lovefilm acquired its European DVD rental business.

by Mike Butcher on October 21, 2011

Last night London’s technology startup community – entrepreneurs and startups were invited to Buckingham Palace, the official home of Queen Elizabeth The Second. To say this was an unusual event wold be a significant understatement. But it is better understood in the context of the incredible outreach the UK government has made to technology entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in the last 18 months. There is more context to this in terms of Europe: at EG8 recently, I happen to know that the French Government had to scramble to find French startups to attend. They simply didn’t know who they were – despite a thriving scene covered by my colleagues at TechCrunch France. By contrast, Her Majesty’s government managed to come up with a guest list which pretty much mapped to the startup ecosystem in London. No small achievement.

by Natasha Starkell on October 21, 2011

If the mountain will not come to Mohammed then Mohammed will come to the mountain. The team of the London-based accelerator Seedcamp is on the go, visiting various locations in Europe to select best tech startups for investment and mentorship. If there is one thing other European accelerators – HackFWD, LeCamping, Springboard, you name it – could learn from this operation it’s this: Get out there! Startups aren;t happening under your desk, right? So get on a plane.