by Natasha Friis Saxberg on November 3, 2009

[Denmark] The Danish startup YouCalc launched their realtime analytics for SaaS in December last year. Today they say they get a new user every hour. It’s that success that means they are now considering more funding and that – often inevitable for successful European startups – move to Silicon Valley and the big US market.

Sunstone Capital has invested $5 milion in YouCalc since 2007, and with 5,000 company sign-ups and a further 170 new users per week – YouCalc is focusing on partnership with SaaS providers – the company reckons it’s best bet now is to seek expansion in the US with a US VC.

  • 1 Comment
by Ivan Brezak Brkan on November 3, 2009

[Croatia] Croatian startup Trillenium is to launched their web-based 3D shopping mall and social network with financial backing from a local angel investor and partnerships with a dozen local and international brands that will offer their products.

While the hype over 3D experiences started by Second Life has passed, Trillenium is betting its future on what they see as a more realistic shopping experience, closer to real shopping malls. Users will be able to move freely between shelves and products as well as talk to salesmen and each other, but since the project hasn’t launched yet, we’ll have to wait a while to see the user experience. With web shopping still in its infancy in the region, a 3D shopping experience goes leaps and bounds in terms of technology.

by Mike Butcher on November 3, 2009

[Germany] Yahoo is claiming it has “displaced” Google search in Germany. Let’s just check that again. What has happened is that Yahoo has entered into an exclusive, multi-year, partnership with O2 Germany to become the preferred partner for mobile search and services. Who was the previous partner? Google. So that’s not actually the same thing at all.

The deal means O2 users there can now access to Yahoo!’s mobile-optimized search engine on O2s mobile portals. Users also will be able to sync their PC and mobile homepages. Yahoo! will also deliver sponsored search results for O2. It also includes links to and content from other Yahoo properties.

[Update] Yahoo tells me that it is not paying O2 through the nose for this deal and it’s not the continuation of a any kind of contractual arrangement. (In 2007 Yahoo made a deal with Telefonica, which owns O2, that put Yahoo search on Telefonica phones in Latin America and O2 in the UK. O2 Germany had at the time just signed a deal with Google). So O2 consciously chose Yahoo over Google as O2 Germany was not part of any over-arching Telefonica deal. It’s also fair to point out that T-Mobile has also more or less displaced Google’s search for its mobile services in Europe for Yahoo’s.

by Markus Goebel on November 2, 2009

SkypeSkype’s Linux version will soon become open source software – and maybe run on every smartphone, TV set-top box or other gadget powered by the free operating system.

It could also become part of multi-protocol messengers like Pidgin or eBuddy or Meebo.

Or at least that was the hope for some hours today after a French user got the following answer from Skype customer support.

  • 3 Comments
by Steve O'Hear on November 2, 2009

[UK] Orange UK will begin selling the iPhone on November 10th, just eight days time. But it won’t usher in the price war that many had predicted (although I wasn’t one of them) now that 02’s exclusive has ended. Instead, Orange have chosen almost without exception to match its rival’s existing iPhone pricing. The retail monopoly has been broken but Apple’s supply monopoly remains in place and it shows.

  • 5 Comments
by Steve O'Hear on November 2, 2009

katieprice[UK] The fashion industry prides itself on being able to predict what will be hot next season. Get it right and there’s serious money to be made. Get it wrong and warehouses and clearance stores are left with stock that nobody wants.

Up until now, however, making that call hasn’t been an exact science but thanks to Twitter that could be about to change. Or so says London-based Stylesignal, whose newly launched software-as-a-service (SaaS) product Trend Science claims to be “the world’s most accurate forecasting service”, and it’s, in part, powered by Twitter.

  • 4 Comments
by Steve O'Hear on November 2, 2009

twinity-berlin-wall[Germany] With only days away from the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, how best to mark the occasion? Rebuild it or at least a virtual two kilometer stretch. That’s the approach being taken by Metaversum, the Berlin-based company behind virtual world Twinity, who have constructed a replica section of the wall in-world.

Visitors to Twinity’s virtual Berlin will be able to travel back to 1989 to explore a two km-long, true-to-scale section of the Berlin Wall, from the Reichstag, past the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz, ending with a realistic replica of Checkpoint Charlie. Along with the wall itself, visitors can also access various multimedia content, including video and audio guides at seven key points describing the building of the wall, important dates in its history, witness accounts and, of course, the climatic events of 1989. The exhibition is a collaboration between Metaversum, the Berlin Senate and media partner Berlin.de.

  • 2 Comments
by Steve O'Hear on November 2, 2009

videoplaza[Sweden/UK] Stockholm-based Videoplaza have recruited blinkx’s former European Director of Business Development, Gavin Morgan, as its new UK Commercial Director. In his new role, Morgan will be charged with growing the ad server company’s client base and increasing revenue in the UK.

While at AIM-listed blinkx, which claims to be the largest video search engine, Morgan helped forge partnerships with the BBC, MSN, Ask.com, Miniweb, Rambler and Radian6, among others, and so certainly from the outside he looks to be a good catch.

And potentially, a significant loss for blinkx, a company that, let’s just say, we haven’t heard much from of late.

  • 4 Comments
by Marina Zaliznyak on November 2, 2009

[Spain] A few weeks back, I met with Ícaro Moyano, in Tuenti’s Euro-chic offices – free drinks, comfy sofas, and game room included. I had just had lunch with a friend, who doesn’t have a lot of knowledge about the Web. However, as I mentioned Tuenti in passing, she lit up. “Oh, Tuenti? I know Tuenti. My daughter spends hours online on Tuenti”. Her daughter is 15 and Tuenti is without a doubt, the social network on the tip of every Spanish youth’s tongue. If you’re 15-25 in Spain, you and you’re social life reside and play in Tuenti. Facebook is for the slightly older crowd (sorry Mark!).

Tuenti is a Spanish grown start-up that’s seen exponential growth. Note I haven’t said successful. I believe they have yet to reach that point. But they appear to be on their way.

by Natasha Friis Saxberg on November 2, 2009


[Denmark] Despite the recession, ecommerce online is booming, especially in fashion, as consumers are flooding online to bag bargains and fashion sites too are getting better and better at presenting their wares.

Nordic consumers (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) have put fashion on the top of their shopping list, with 13 million online shoppers in this region, with double-digit growth rates

Now Danish company Boozt is now benefiting from this upswing as fashion retail brands increasingly find it hard to keep up with the pace of technology. The Malmö-based Boozt, with a Danish CEO, Henrik Haagen, has also now secured €2 million in VC from SunStone Capital.

TC Europe Top 100