Moscow-based Heverest.ru, an online retailer of sportswear, leisure and travel goods, has scored $4.3 million in financing from an unnamed “large” Russian investment fund and previous backer eVenture Capital Partners, bringing its total raised to $6.7 million.
Exclusive - Internet publishing company Populis is expanding its network operations to South America with the acquisition of Cidade Internet, a popular Brazilian Web portal.
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
