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April 05, 2006
Qype and Wikio receive early stage attention
It is changed days in Europe. Startup are getting a warm reception in the mainstream and general IT press these days. We can remember not too long ago when an early stage tech venture didn’t stand a chance of getting covered in business newspapers, and even trade press editors were rejecting the sector following the dotcom/telecom bubble.
But with the capital markets coming back, some high profile acquisitions of young European startups, and a re-awakened interest in the Web, startups are getting a lot of attention.
The most recent examples are Qype and Wikio, two Web 2.0 startups.
We mention the press coverage, not just because it is a big change, but because it is important to the development of both startups. They have both chosen a low-budget, viral marketing strategy.
Therefore, things like free publicity, blogs, and word of mouth are important. (We know they want to do viral marketing based on the founders’ blogs.)
Neither has raised venture capital, although we hear that Qype is seeking funding from angel networks in Switzerland and Germany.
Wikio is a news aggregator and search application that also provides ranking or relevance support. Currently targeted at the French market with some 10,000 news sources in its database, the plan is to expand it internationally. It launched in Beta this week. Its founder is Pierre Chappaz who is also an entrepreneur-in-residence at Index Ventures. He is in our blogroll to the right.
We tried Wikio and had a few questions about the functionality and business model for Chappaz but he has not yet responded.
Qype is the younger of the two. It is German and will be a local search application where users generate the content. It is currently only taking email addresses for those that have not been invited to a beta test. Its business model has not bee announced yet.
We note that we learned about Qype a few months ago via a VC blog, Christian Leyblod’s, which is also on our blogroll, although the fund he works for has not invested in Qype.
Read - Naeher Ran Bitte! (Die Zeit)
Read - Web 2.0 Nimmt Gestalt An (FAZ)
Read - Pierre Chappaz Interview (neteco)
Read - Web 2.0: let moteur (ZDNet)
Posted on April 5, 2006 11:27 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | Permalink
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