[UK] The failure of BT Workspace, one of the usual pathetic corporate attempts to try and produce a collaborative working platform, has left a gaping whole for those small businesses that used it. It’s been overtaken by other products, notably those from startups like Huddle. But what should former customers do? US-based SMBLive which had run the BT Workspace, has decided to try and offer an alternative. So they are partnering with UK-based Glasscubes, offering former Workspace users a new Glasscube account.
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A little before 9pm on Wednesday night and I’m standing on the ‘VIP’ balcony of San Francisco’s Regency Ballroom, holding a can of something called ‘MySpace Buzz’ and waiting for Weezer to take to the stage. It’s a weird scene, all told, and not just because I thought Weezer was dead.
The bulk of the weirdness stems from the make-up of the crowd: a dozen feet below me in the main auditorium there are maybe a couple of thousand writhing teenagers – Weezer fans to a (wo)man, cheering and shouting and jumping and sweating and doing all the things I remember doing a little over a decade ago.
These are the invited fans; those lucky enough to have been chosen to attend this ’secret show’, organised by MySpace. You know, for kids. Every so often one of the stage lights picks out a tiny puff of smoke in the crowd. Ah, you crazy kids and your pot: I feel like I’ve been transported back in time.
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Last week we reported the rumors that VC-backed Playfish, the social games startup which has had phenomenal growth, was in the process of being acquired by games giant Electronic Arts for $250 million. However, nothing was confirmed at the time, and despite several press reports to that effect none of the companies involved has made a sound. That’s odd, because normally if an acquisition has really happened the companies get a statement out quick to quash the gossip mongers.
The $250m figure was equally odd because Playfish had not looked like it wanted an early exit by any stretch and was known to be looking for a much bigger figure. CEO Kristian Segerstrale has always said he wanted to “kill EA”, for instance. The startup has also raised $21m in funding from Accel Partners and Index Ventures.
In fact, we’ve learned that Playfish is still in play, and in all likelihood EA leaked the $250 million figure as a negotiating tactic, as this is more or less what it wants it wants to pay. Our sources say that Playfish is holding out for another offer, somewhere between $350m at the low end and $500m at the top end, either from EA or another suitor. Independently, Inside Social Games has uncovered similar chatter.
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[UK] Pitching in an elevator this week, we’ve got Adam Greenblatt, Managing Director of UK and Northern Europe at JobFact.com.
‘Erm…How much do you earn mate?’ It’s a question we all hate to ask, but all want to know the answer to. JobFact thinks they’ve found the solution to the problem so that talking about salaries is no longer a taboo.
They say: “With JobFact all you have to do to find out how much your peers are earning is to register and enter anonymously where you work, what you do and how much you earn. JobFact never asks for your name so nobody can know who you are.”
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European shoppers looking to purchase products from other EU countries on the Web are likely to fail three times out of five, according to a European Commission study on cross-border consumer e-commerce, published yesterday.
Such failures occur when an online retailer does not accept international payments or is simply not prepared to ship its products abroad.
To research the phenomenon, the Commission carried out a ‘mystery shopping’ study where shoppers across the EU attempted to buy a list of 100 popular products, ranging from cameras to CDs, books and clothing – from a retailer in a different Member state. In total, over 11,000 test orders were carried out and what the study found was that no less than 60% of transactions could not be completed because of inadequate payment options or limited shipping abilities.
Hence, the EC concludes that three out of five cross-border purchases fails, which it rightly identifies as a big problem.
This is a guest post by Chris Padfield, Investment Manager with London Business Angels and London Seed Capital. In it he reacts to our latest post from LondonVC, our VC columnist, who argues against startups attending pay-to-pitch events, which are often run by Angel networks.
There has been a lot of discussion on the web over the last week regarding the business angel network business model and in particular “pay to pitch”. While there are certainly elements of truth in some of these complaints, there is also a lot of misinformation and confusion over our actual role and business model.
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[Austria] Vooch provides location based vouchers accessible from your phone while you are on the move. It’s similar to VouChaCha in the UK and Yoose in Germany, however they seem to have gone one better as they’ve launched in beta and are catering to a few mobile platforms.
They have now added an Android app to their existing Windows mobile app and iPhone app. The site is also now available in English, the link to change languages is all the way at the bottom of the page and there is a mobile site for non smart phone users I guess, most of the current vouchers are centred around Vienna but I suspect they intend to expand the service.
However, as with all these voucher sites, it’s going to be really important to get a lot of retailers signed up to provide vouchers especially for different sort of products. The whole voucher game is about these deals and “Vooch.at” will shortly have to contend with lots of global players encroaching on their market.
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The French-born version of YouTube, DailyMotion – which has now grown into a global site with 60 million users – has officially confirmed its latest fundraising of €17 million, which was early reported as €15 million earlier this month. The new information is that there was an undisclosed €7.5 million investor in the round which turns out to be a French state-backed investment fund. According to Atlas VC Fred Destin on his blog today, Atlas Venture has participated “above pro-rata in this round and grows ownership”.
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[Germany] Berlin-based aka-aki, which offers a location-based social network for mobiles, has raised additional funding. The amount of this second round of financing was not disclosed, although the company did say it was ’several millions of euros’.
Investors were Creathor Venture and Innovacom.
Aka-aki has been running its mobile social networking service for about two years now and says its community is growing much faster than anticipated. With the extra capital, the startup aims to take its service beyond German borders and start building a solid international presence. Needless to say, they’ll be facing a lot of competition.
This is our second guest post (here was the first) written by a London-based VC. To allow them to speak plainly without jeopardising their fund or their career in the small village that is the London VC scene, I’m allowing them to post anonymously. FYI, LondonVC is a genuine VC and TechCrunch Europe has met them face to face.
There’s been a lot of tremendous discussion recently regarding the embarrassing practice of paying to pitch, such as here, by AVC Fred Wlson, Robert Scoble, all kicked off by Jason Calcanis here and later on here
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