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by Mike Butcher on February 7, 2012

As I mentioned the other day, the startup competition aspect of GeeknRolla and the Dublin Web Summit, have come together to create the London Web Summit on March 19th in The Brewery Venue, London.

I’ll be co-curating the Summit along with Paddy Cosgrave and chairing the start up competition, which you can apply to enter by clicking here.

The first speakers for the event are below. We’ll be announcing more shortly.

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by Mike Butcher on February 7, 2012

Fits.me, the Estonian “biorobotics virtual fitting room” startup for e-commerce clothing retailers and shoppers, has been around for a while. We first covered them in 2010 when they secured €1.3 million, taking their total cash to €2.6 million. They’ve now taken another €1.5 million, taking their funding to €4.1 million.

Fits.me lets customers “try on” clothing before buying from online clothes retailers. They can see how different sized bodies fit the the clothes on sale – like in real-world fitting rooms. One barrier to fashion e-commerce growth is ensuring that customers can accurately select their body size and shape. The Fits.me robotic body does it for them.

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by Lukas Zinnagl on February 6, 2012

Last year’s Startup Week in Vienna was a great event, but we’ve heard tell that they are “pivoting”.

Apart from re-naming it to The Pioneers Festival, part of the programme will be crowd-sourced and will be moving a bigger location which has a capacity for “up to 3,000 people” over three days, according to StartEurope, the people behind it. There is no word on any speakers or event partners yet, but early bird tickets are available here if you feel like slapping down some cash early.

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by Robin Wauters on February 6, 2012

Israeli startup Appoxee has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from early-stage investment firm Cyhawk Ventures.

The company offers a service that helps app developers and publishers increase user engagement through rich push notifications and helps them with things like audience segmentation, targeting, analytics and reporting.

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by Mike Butcher on February 6, 2012

Early last year we pointed out that implementing the proposed EU cookie law would profoundly affect European technology companies and anyone running a business online out of Europe. Let’s review why.

First of all, it could mean that a staggering 90% of a site’s visitors would run a mile rather than saying yes to accepting a simple Google Analytics cookie. This is what happened when the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) implemented the EU advise on their own web site.

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by Mike Butcher on February 3, 2012

Bringing US business models to Europe might seem an obvious move for some – but it’s frequently far harder than it might appear. US incumbents can indeed try to expand, but some fall at the first hurdle. Exactly this happened on January 20 when Shoedazzle announced its closure in the UK. UK head Nigel Whiteoak has since admitted to me that the company was looking to make more of the continued opportunity in the US, versus trying to expand in the UK. Shades of the Romans over-reaching their borders? Maybe. Whatever the case, the news has been a boon to Stylistpick, the local UK player which is making hay in the UK and now heading to other markets with a war chest.

StylistPick has now raised an $11million B round led by Fidelity Growth Partners Europe. The subscription-based fast fashion brand, kept existing investors Accel Partners and Index Ventures on board, who invested $8 million in a Series A in April 2011. The board of directors is now Davor Hebel (Fidelity), Sonali de Rycker (Accel), Robin Klein (Index) and Eileen Burbidge (Passion Capital).

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by Vanessa Zainzinger on February 3, 2012


Help-desk software provider Zendesk today launched a series of partner programs in Europe, called Zendesk Ambassadors. Clients joining the program have the chance to earn money from referring new businesses to Zendesk.

The program is open to businesses of any size and includes access to private forums and meet-ups with the Zendesk team. Members would usually hope to go on to become Authorised Partners, a step up on the partner ladder. Being invited (and there’s no way in except by invitation) to join the Authorised Partners program means providing consulting, integration and migration services to Zendesk customers.

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by Mike Butcher on February 3, 2012

We covered the launch of Summly an application that summarises text last year, but I recently caught up with Nick D’Aloisio, the16 year year-old programmer who came up with the application for a video interview.

Its sounds almost boringly simple but the sheer amount of online content means the eco-system for these apps is rising. Formerly known as Trimit (which we covered back in July), Summly was developed by D’Aloisio from his bedroom in South London over a Summer break from school.

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by Lukas Zinnagl on February 2, 2012

German Media Conglomerate Axel Springer, which is next to Bertelsmann, one of Germany’s most important and diversified media companies, has invested an undisclosed amount into AirBnB. It’s an unusual deal, whereby the amount invested is based on the value of advertising space taken in Axel Springer media outlets, according to various German media reports.

Furthermore, AirBnB offers will be included in Springer’s real estate portals, such as Immonet. This seems to be a really intresting move, because psychologically AirBnB listings are now treated as professional real estate listings.

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by Lukas Zinnagl on February 1, 2012

WunderkitBerlin-based startup 6Wunderkinder has just launched their private beta for their productivity suite Wunderkit. This is an extension to their simple, yet well designed task list manager Wunderlist, which was acclaimed both by early adopters and users.

With Wunderkit the startup is now taking a next step. They’ve stuck to the user experience that, while beautifully crafted on the one hand is surely tricky to get used to, and have taken their core task manager several steps further by wrapping a fully fledged social network around it. Whereas RememberTheMilk had been their primary competitor until now, the company is now directly competing with full virtual workspace apps such as Podio or Asana, all of them trying to re-invent peoples’ work and organize their private and professional lives.