alarm:clock euro: September 2006 Archives

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September 29, 2006

New Money For JobTV24

Some well-known investors and entrepreneurs have pumped an undisclosed amount of capital into JobTV24, a German satellite TV channel and web platform all about, um, jobs, according to PeopleAndDeals. New investors are Aurelia Private Equity, Roland Metzger (founder of Jobpilot.de), Tim Schwenke and Daniel Wild (founders of getmobile AG) and Falk F. Strascheg, who founded VC firm TechnologieHolding and sold it 3i, and now invests as a business angel, as well as running Extorel, a fund of fund.

Read- Frische Finanzierung fuer jobtv24 (peopleanddeals)

Spain's Amadeus Acquires VC-backed TravelTainment

Amadeus, the travel booking and ticketing giant, has received approval from the cartel authorities to acquire Aachen, Germany-based TravelTainment, a VC-backed application service and content provider, in order to help its customers better serve travellers seeking offers via the Internet. No disclosure on the price paid.

TravelTainment, which employs about 85 people, is poised to expand its position across Europe. Being part of Amadeus will allow the company to achieve this goal even faster, said exiting VC and board member Hans Schreck a general partner at TVM Capital of Munich in a statement.

Founded in 2000, TravelTainment has developed an Internet booking engine that uses unique “fuzzy logic” software technology to find suitable alternative travel offers. It has been working with Amadeus for more than a year in a strategic partnership.

Posted at 01:58 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Online services | TrackBack | Permalink

September 28, 2006

November AG's Biotech And Nanotech Holdings Up For Sale

November AG, a German biotech and nanotechnology holding company, has filed for insolvency. The company owned a lab on a chip subsidiary and an optically readable adhesive strips and coating that uniquely identifies packaged goods. Volker Böhm von Schultze & Braun has been mandated to find new investors for the firm's assets.
Read - Nachrichten: november AG meldet Insolvenz an (GSC Research)

Posted at 06:00 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

On the Internet, Nobody Knows Your French

That one liner came from Olivier Ezratty, a variation on the Peter Steiner classic cartoon, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”. The context was a chat about the chances of startups over here becoming dominant, or global players, on the Web. He is just one of the many people we met this week at an event organized by IE Club in Paris. (Thanks to Julien Cordoniou for the invite.)

Also on hand was Tariq Krim, founder of Netvibes (who still owns the majority of his company – we learned) along with Pierre Chappaz, founder of Wikio and Kelkoo....

They talked about what it is like to go from garage mode to building an organization, something every startup has to go through if it is in it for the long run, as well as Pascal Lorne, CEO of mobile messaging startup Miyowa who spends most of his time travelling to mobile network operator customers – he actually likes the selling game. Interestingly, he based his R&D in the Southern French port city of Marseille, where wages are 30 percent lower than in Paris and employee loyalty higher.

Also Philippe Berner, of Kayentis, whose company is doing some neat things in the e-Health area with pen and paper computing (it’s like Anoto but you don’t need to buy special paper). The startup has some pretty big name life science customers using its applications.

And Modelabs founder, Stephane Bohbot, impressed us with the financial performance of his company which floated in April – there are not too many that go from zero to €140M in sales in a couple of years, even if they are able to execute on acquisitions with the alacrity that Bohbot has done.

Bohbot’s prior venture, mobile audio technology firm Digiplug, was acquired by Japan's Faith Group in 2002 and his tales of trying and failing to raise VC had a few of the moneymen squirming we noted.

Marc Simoncini, the founder of publicly-traded dating company Meetic, who has exceptional public speaking skills, talked about web technology trends that have impacted business. He said that what made the Web really viable for business was not hypertext but the emergence of photos and images "… pictures of people, books, products, that is what was the big thing.”

He added that video and wireless are the next things but that it is still early. In other words, it might be another five years before we see the real benefit to businesses of online video and connecting cellphones to the cloud.

Ezratty told us about several startups he is working with, eHealth software firm Voluntis, u-lik, user generated shopping application, and n-generate, which is a Franco-US startup developing software to make the use of corporate design easier . He worked in marketing and biz dev for Microsoft for 15 years and has a popular blog that has some meaty insights into Microsoft, digital technologies, and entrepreneurship.

The panel members posited the idea of a “mondiale” player emering here. Who knows if that will happen, but if it doesn’t, it is not going to be due to lack of founder ambition at the early stage. We get the feeling these entrepreneurs won't be content selling their companies to the likes of Yahoo this time, or even floating to become a French success story, rather the desire is to go further and try for a seat at the table with Google, eBay and Co.

The IE Club is kind of like First Tuesday of old. If we say it’s like First Tuesday, we mean it in the sense that it is an open and relaxed place to meet high quality entrepreneurs to learn more about building a successful tech venture and hook up with potential business partners.

We also eyeballed a couple of partners from French VC firms. So for entrepreneurs it’s worth going to make some contacts and set up meetings.

It doesn’t have the same feeding frenzy that FT used to have. For one thing the management consultant types are not swarming trying to make a buck off over-funded startups or over-enthusiastic investors. In fact, we met a couple of advisers that told us that they are working gratis for startups in the hopes that their investment in time will pay off in fees or valuable shares when the company hits its stride– we can assure you that this was not the case during the bubble era. There’s optimism in Paris, but no euphoria.

Posted at 05:09 PM | Posted to Events | TrackBack | Permalink

VCs Back Qype's Web 2.0 Local Search Play

Qype, a Hamburg, Germany-based local online search startup, wrote in to say that it has raised a first round from Advent Venture Partners and Partech International, as well as angel investors. The size of the round was undisclosed but it is meant to be enough to roll out across Europe.

Since Qype is one of the new breed of tightly run web startups, the hopes that one funding round might suffice to cover Europe may be more than wishful thinking.

Founded in early 2006 by Stephan Uhrenbacher, who established travelchannel.de and also had senior positions at lastminute.com and online pharmacy, DocMorris, Qype launched in April. Since then we've written about it a couple of times, mainly because of its low-budget approach to developing an Web-based online directories service. We recommend its corporate blog for Web entrepreneurs.

Alexa Offers An Indication Of How Qype Compares To Incumbent GoYellow, Which Has Taken A More Expensive Marketing Route

Qype recently added a Boolean-like search feature. Some typical searches shown here.
• “Nichtraucher + Restaurant” findet 30 Empfehlungen
• “Lecker + Pizza” findet 80 Beiträge
• “zuverlässig + Werkstatt” leider nur zehn.
• “Kinder + Sonne” findet fast 50 Empfehlungen.
• “günstig + Hotel” findet 30 Empfehlungen

The firm’s blog explains how it works, pointing out that there are 80 recommendations for Tasty and Pizza, 50 recommendations of place to enjoy the outdoors with your kids, and 30 tips on cheap hotesl and no-smoking restaurants. But there are only 10 tips on reliable auto repair shops, which means either there are not the many mechanics that people would recommend, or they don’t want to put it out there who the good ones are for fear of never being able to get an appointment.

Then again it could also mean that it never occurred to Qype users to write about the topic.
Read - The New Tightness of Euro Founders (a:c euro)
Read- Qype and Wiki Receive Early Stage Attention (a:c euro)

September 27, 2006

German Startup Offers P2P Syncing For Outlook Apps

Germany's High Tech Gruender Fund has invested €500K in yet another university startup. This time it is Snyncing.NET Technologies, which sells software for synchronizing multiple PCs and PDAs running Outlook apps. (This is something like the German fund's 25th deal since it started up last year. Its very early stage dealflow is impressive.)

This looks like a neat way to enable syncing without requiring a Microsoft Exchange server to manage it.

The startup is a spinoff of the TU Berlin, which is selling its software - kind of a refreshing concept these days - and tells users to use either Groove Networks or Foldershare for the P2P stuff. It has some customer case studies up on its website, so it looks like the founding team is not just innovative, they can sell too. The only thing is the company name. The way it is now it sounds like the firm plans on sinking .NET, which we are sure it's not. Besides, the pun potential is too rich.

A name change is probably inevitable as it will have to add more products in order to grow to a decent size, or maybe it is planning to sell software to synchronize other applications on other platforms. We didn't get a hold of the founders to find out.

Read - Berliner SYNCING.NET Technologies GmbH wird vom High-Tech Gründerfonds finanziert

Posted at 09:55 PM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink

Crowdstorm, Facebox, And Other Fresh Betas

hotstuff.php.gif
Image source: The Warning Sign Generator
We'd have to give up our freelance journalist jobs to keep interviewing and profiling newco's coming out of Europe these days, so we hope you'll settle for briefs on what we think is hot. The criteria to be in the list is purely subjective. Either we've tried the product and liked it, or we think the founders are smart guys, or it's their backers who have been prescient in the past.

Incrowd, a Belgian bootstrapped developer of online communities, wrote in to tell us of its launch of Facebox, a new Europe-oriented online community platform targeted at young people. It is not in Beta mode so doesn't exactly fit with our title but we're pressed for time here. Like some of the other social networking sites out there, users make personal webpage, share video, music-likes, and photos with each other. It looks like it handles the Pan European traffic by reading browser setting for users that land on its homepage, offering up the appropriate country-specific languages. That will be important for advertisers. Incrowd claims it already has more than 15 million members throughout Europe on its other sites, namely Gentebox (Spanish market, 5 million members), Bingbox (English market, 3.5 million members), Redbox (Flemish market, 1 million members), Coolbox (French market, 2 million members). The company was founded in 2003 by Toon Coppens and Lorenz Bogaert and is self-funded.

Alexaholic Says Its Traffic Is Getting Up There
Read -Facebox - A new online community platform (press release)

Crowdstorm - Newfangled shopping engine whose registered users recommend consumer goods. It is in Beta mode. Both of the founders were previously with venture-backed startups that were acquired by big Internet names. CEO Philip Wilkinson, founded Shopgenie, a comparison shopping engine, and then merged it with Kelkoo and built up the UK biz, and his co-founder is a former Ciao.com man. British.
Read - CrowdStorm goes live
Read - Philip Wilkinson On Social Shopping (econsultancy news)

Nooked - Selling software to marketing types at businesses to complement email marketing tactics. Irish. We know that email marketing technology developers are closely looking at RSS as a complementary feature to add to their software product lines. That means pioneering companies like Nooked will either expand and add email marketing to satisfy all the online marketing requirements of businesses, or firms they will be acquired if they are able to rapidly validate the RSS-for-biz market by winning some big name customers. Email marketing engine developers will likely be keen to do bolt-on acquisitions.
Read -Interview Fergus Burns (webpronews)

Posted at 09:07 PM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink

Embedded Sensor-Maker DeepStream Raises GBP8M

3i has switched on to the rapid growth at Welsch startup Deepstream Technologies, a developer of embedded sensor components that offer the systems that host them significant energy savings. The UK venture firm led an £8M series B round, joining early investor Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures.

DeepStream, which is based in Bangor, Wales, has won customers in the building automation market that use its sensor components in lighting switches. The plan is to use the new capital to expand its range of products for new markets in energy management, medical and appliance sectors, as well as expanding its operations to increase capacity.

The startup was founded in early 2003 under another name and bootstrapped itself until it got a £1.2M government grant to be spread out over three years. A few months later Doughty Hanson invested and the startup was re-named DeepStream. It now employs about 50 people and has raised total equity, debt and government grant funding of £25m, including this new VC round.

Read - 3i leads financing, joining Doughty Hanson to invest in DeepStream Technologies (press release)

Posted at 08:44 PM | Posted to Emdedded Systems | Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

September 26, 2006

Why Rebtel Raised So Much VC

The short answer probably would be, because it could. But we asked Index Ventures, which invested alongside Benchmark Capital's European fund in Rebtel's $20M A round, why a company offering global mobile calls at local rates, a service that has already launched with a system that routes much of its cellular voice service over IP networks, needed such a large first round.

Rebtel's Founders Hjalmar Winbladh (l) and Jonas Lindroth (r)
Did the size mean that the VCs took a big majority stake? They are not saying.

Does it need a lot of capital to market the service? We could understand FON, another Index Ventures investment, needing to raise a double digit million first round, afterall it is subsidizing its Wifi routers at €15 a pop. But as far as we know, Rebtel doesn't have that kind of expense, beyond the cost of buying a bunch of phone numbers in each of the countries in which it's active.

So we asked Index's Danny Rimer what's up. He answered:

It's a globally operating company and we want to grow into multiple territories quickly. And we want the management team to have enough capital to focus on the opportunity, and not have to go out in six to twelve months to raise another round of financing.

Rimer also said that some of the capital would be used to develop value-added services that will make using Rebtel more attractive.

We've been eyeing Rebtel since Innovate Europe earlier this year when vpod.tv’s Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz got

Chris Shipley, the organizer of the event, on video saying that the hottest company this year was Rebtel.

We figure that Benchmark and Index are counting on Rebtel’s founders, Hjalmar Winbladh and Jonas Lindroth, having a greater risk-taking appetite with Rebtel than the norm.

The founders might be eager to develop a longer lasting success than with an earlier venture, Sendit. The two co-founded in 1994 the mobile messaging software firm and took it public. It was then acquired by Microsoft Corp. in 1999, which did not do much with it afterwards.

In the meantime, Windbladh was involved with StartupFactory, a Swedish early stage venture firm that was active between 2000 and 2003 that backed some interesting early stage companies (it was acquired by its cornerstone LP, Investor AB, in 2004).

Rebtel's service is going to be a boon to mobilephone users that travel or that have people they want to communicate with frequently located abroad and don't want to go the WiFi Voip route.

It's complicated compared to state of the art PC-to-PC calling but the high rates charged for mobile international calls will probably give users a lot of motivation to go through the contortions.

The only real hurdle we see to this enjoying rapid take up is that users have have to pay to use it up front. Part of Skype's popularity, for example, was because it was free and you could use it immediately without digging out the credit card or tapping the PayPal account.

There are now several well-funded startups poised to make cellphone use cheaper, with a few more in the pipeline - like Swiss startup Vipera, which is currently focusing on making data service cheaper, and it has not raised venture capital yet.

Read - Rebtel's Mobile Calls At Local Rates (alarm:clock)
Read - Rebtel Dials UP $20M (press release)

Modelabs Does An Intriguing Acquisition

Modelabs, a French company that designs and develops mobilephones for brand-names to slap their badges on and manufacture in their own factories, it is a so-called ODM in consumer electronics parlance, has acquired WorldGSM, a website that publishes premium news, content, and reviews of mobilephones, as well as selling the gear directly to consumers. No disclosure on how much it paid.

WorldGSM Sells Cellphones And Accessories And Also Has Editorial Content Available to Subscribers

That's a really interesting acquisition - will we next see Nokia or Dell ponying up to buy the mobile or the PC channel on CNET news network? ModeLabs Group said the deal is meant to help it "develop its expertise in distribution via the Internet and its knowledge of clients' needs".
Read- Modelabs Acquires Majority Stake In WorldGSM
(pr)

Posted at 07:16 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

September 25, 2006

Mobile Cohesion Grows With Mobile Value Added Service Boom

Mobile Cohesion, a Belfast-based developer of software used to manage partners of mobile network operators, has raised $4.8M in a second round of funding, ledby Enterprise Equiy and joined by existing investors Cross Atlantic Partners, Accel Partners and Viridian Growth Fund.

As mobile network operators add more multimedia content, more estoreric text messaging services, and value added features for customers, they have to manage all the suppliers of these new services, share the revenues with them, and that kind of thing. That is where Mobile Cohesion's software comes.

It's software is in demand by established telcos, but also MVNOs which are sprouting up all over the world. The new capital is to help it meet demand abroad.

Sigurdur Saevarsson, VP Product management, Richard McConnell, COO, Mobile Cohesion; Denis Murphy, Chairman, Mobile Cohesion; Brian Cummings, Investment Manager, Enterprise Equity (l to r)

Posted at 02:57 PM | Posted to Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink

VCs Load Up On Swedish Networking Software

VCs can't seem to get enough of Swedish software companies churning out broadband network management code. Three deals have been announced in the last week, the latest being bandwidth management specialist Operax, which raised $15 million in its third round of funding, according to LightReading.

The other two are Telepo, developer of a mobility-enabling software platform targeted at businesses, and NetAdmin, which offers Internet Service Providers and network operators software to manage the devices and components in their networks regardless of the hardware manufacturer.

Operax software is hot because it offers a standards-based way to prioritze gaming and video traffic within an IP network, say the trade pub's editors.

The six year old company is headed up by Anders Lindén (CEO) and Olov Schelén (CFO and co-founder)

Read - Operax Scores $15M (LightReading)
Read - Telepo Funding By Accel (alarm:clock euro)
Read - NetAdmin Net Management Neutraliy Backed By Eqvitec (alarm:clock euro)

OpenBC Name Change To Xing

Business social networking application, OpenBC is getting a name change to Xing.

We're not sure if there is more to it than just a more globally appealing and zingier moniker because the name change is confirmed only in the firm's blog (no official press release). The announcement apparently came out sooner than OpenBC management had planned after Swiss blogger and OpenBC member, Remo Uherek, undertook some sleuthing and discovered the startup's new domain name registration.

Read - Ooops (openbc blog)
Read - Heisst OpenBC bald Xing (Chuchichaestli blog)

Posted at 07:38 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

Telepo Real Mobility With Nokia Phones

On the back of satisfying the toughest customer in the mobilephone market, namely Nokia, Telepo has raised €4M from Accel Partners in exchange for a minority stake.

The 3-year old startup's software converges fixed and wireless VOIP services for businesses all the way out to the smartphone, typically Symbian devices. It is profitable, had sales of €3M last year and expects to double that figure this year, according to co-founder and CEO Lars-Michaël Paqvalén, who was an early investor in Hotsip (acquired by Oracle) and its CFO for a while.

Before that, he was co-founder and CFO at Gambro AB and CEO of Hansa Business Solutions.

Companies like IBM host Telepo's software to sell as a service to businesses that want to add mobility to enterprise applications and to save on the costs of mobilephone use.

Nokia has also acquired licenses for Telepo's software, which enables some nice productivity and cost-saving features, such as over the air configuration, least cost routing, and seamless switching between WiFi, GSM, and fixed networks (users do not have to remember to change the phone settings to use a WiFi network, for example, the software does it for them automatically).

September 24, 2006

Computer-generated Toons Startup

One year old Cyber Ainmation Group, a French computer-generated short film and cartoon production company, has raised €2.2M from Viveris Management and Cyber Capital, backed by Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild, and private investors.

Cyber Group Animation has developed its own 3D animation technology and will use some of the capital to take that further. The rest wil go to merchandising products related to its content, and marketing distribution rights worldwide for its content.

The founders are former Walt Disney Company executives, Pierre Sissmann and Dominique Bourse. Accordingly, their company's TV series and movies are targeted at 2-12 year olds.
Read- Cyber Group Animation lève 2,2 millions d’euros pour financer sa croissance (mass media)

Posted at 07:02 PM | Posted to Media | News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

September 22, 2006

German eHealth Startup To Cross Borders

InterComponentWare AG, an eHealth software company, has a new strategic investor, the German utility, EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg. The utility acquired a minority stake for an undisclosed amount to provide cash for R&D and to push international marketing. (Note the blog and social-tagging-friendly press release this company sent out, below.)

It joins existing private investors already backing the 8 year old company, including SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp.

ICW has developed LifeSensor, an online personal health web site that can be used for storage of personal medical records, uploading data from things like glucose monitors (remote device monitoring), as well as keeping track of immunization and fitness goals. It also introduced an eCard for health in Austria and advised the German Ministry of Health on a German electronic health card.

The utility company said it was interested in InterComponentWare’s remote device data monitoring software that could also be applied to EnBW’s network.

Peter Vest, from EnBW joined the supervisory board of ICW, as well as Paul Wahl, the former CEO of SAP America and former President and COO of Siebel Systems.
Read - Energy for Electronic Health: EnBW Acquires Interest in eHealth Specialist ICW (press release)

Posted at 03:16 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Specialized Software | TrackBack | Permalink

Alt Energy's Big Exits Pumping VC-stage Valuations

At the recent European Energy Venture Fair talk on the sidelines was that the current valuation on some alternative energy startups was getting a bit pricey. We think that this slide from New Energy Finance showing the valuation at exit of such companies over the past 18 months or so explains why investors are keen to get in on venture rounds.

For example, Norway's Renewable Energy Corporation had an exit valuation of some $7.5B on an investment of $44.2M, and India's Suzlon had an IPO valuing the company at $3.3B. Its pre-IPO backers had invested $21.5M.

Recent New Energy Pe/VC-backed Exits

Image source: New Energy Finance
Another thing we notice in this slide is that 7 out of the top 10 exits in the sector dubbed “new energy” were European companies. It was part of a presentation by Michael Liebreich, of New Energy Finance, a specialized research and database publisher.

Posted at 01:18 PM | Posted to Alternative Energy | TrackBack | Permalink

This Time Around Europe Is Disruptive

When it comes to telecoms, finance, and Internet apps, Europe is more disruptive this time around. It is one conclusion that you can draw from a feature entitled, Disrupters: Eleven Companies Eleven Big Ideas That Will Change The World, developed by Business 2.0 journalists.

During the last big wave of investment in technology ventures, aka the bubble, we were writing more often about European followers that had innovated to serve the local markets here and companies that had a small part of new disruptive value-chain.

It is looking a little different this time around. Three out of eleven disrupters identified by Business 2.0 are European.

And in our pages here we've covered a few more in areas such as semiconductors, wireless voice and data, and ecommerce. The latest and one (which we haven't covered yet) is Zecco.com, a "financial community" startup founded by Dutch entrepreneurs that says it is going to offer free online trading for US stocks.

But let's get back to Business 2.0's list.

Internet: Netvibes
In the case of Netvibes, and its rivals, it should say "Yahoo's world".

Telecoms: Jajah (the founders are transplanted Austrians) Skype set the trend to shake up the telco voice world. Jajah is there, along with others like Rebtel out of Sweden, the UK's Truphone and Atelplus (Germany) in the mobile market. If telcos don't move really soon to offer competing services, they will be operating in a whole new, much smaller, world.

Finance: Zopa
A few more Zopa clones than Prosper, the only other one we know of, could indeed change the world of companies active in consumer lending.

Posted at 07:44 AM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink

September 21, 2006

Barcelona's Southwing Financed - Bluetooth Bonanza

Showing that not just France and the UK can create quick growing Bluetooth startups, Barcelona-based Southwing has raised €5M from funds managed by Riva Y Garcias, to finance expansion plans and for continued R&D. The investors sent us the news this morning.

Founded in 2000, Southwing makes Bluetooth headsets and hands-free kits for cars. Like Parrot SA in France, which makes the same category of Bluetooth product and recently floated, Southwing is also reporting strong growth. It had sales of €9.5M in 2005, a figure that is expected to double this year. Headquarters are in Barcelona, with offices in France, UK, Germany and USA and the company has 45 employees.

It has earlier investors, namely Nauta Capital and Debaeque Venture Capital. The new investor said it acquired a minority stake.

New Investor For Rotundus' Rolling Robocop

Looks like mobile robots are rolling out a niche for themselves in the building security market. We came across news this week on the Aerospace Corporation website announcing its taking a stake in Swedish startup Rotundus AB to give itself what it calls a "front seat" in the security market. The amount invested was undisclosed.

Ångström, which has contracts with a Canadian satellite manufacturer and Swedish space equipment manufacturers, said it would be delivering microcomponents to two year old Rotundus whose mobile robots are aimed at both space exploration and industrial security surveillance.

The Rotundus Rolling Eyeball

Its apparently robust, motorized surveillance robots were originally developed for Mars exploration, but are now also being honed to deliver security functions at power plants, airports, ports and military sites, the same market that another Euro startup, Berlin-based Robowatch, is targeting with its mobile robots.

Ångström Aerospace looks like it was set up to spin off technology, mainly micro-electromechanical subsystems used in spacecraft and unmanned vehicles, from Swedish research institutes. It has backing from Uppsala University, which owns a stake in Rotundus. RP Ventures, a Swedish venture firm, is also a shareholder in Rotundus.

We like this kind of high-tech wizardry, but we know it’s going to be a challenge to create anything bigger than a niche market for this one, especially considering that the startup's primary strategic investor so far is not an established name in the security surveillance industry.

Read - Ångström Aerospace Corporation acquires an equity stake in the mobile security robot company Rotundus (press release)
Read - German firm bring robocops to makret (a:c euro)

Vendor-Neutral Broadband Management Gets Cash To Expand

Nordic venture capital firm, Eqvitec has invested $6M (SEK 44 million) in Netadmin, a Swedish developer of broadband networking management software. The new capital in what looks like a first round is meant to finance the Linkopig-based startup's international expansion.

Founded in 2004, Netadmin is commercializing software originally developed in-house by Wasadata System AB, a Swedish ISP. It claims some 40 installations at operators and city networks running in Sweden and Denmark, with GothNet and TeliaSonera being some of its early customers.

The company's new backer said Netadmin's advantage over competing appolications is that it is equipment-vendor-neutral. It claims compatibility with Cisco, HP, D-Link, AlliedTelesyn, Nortel, and Alcatel gear.

It enables operators to manage, supervise, handle billing data, and make changes to the network, but also to configure components down to the end-user's gear, typically set-top boxes and home gateways.

Read - EQVITEC PARTNERS: Eqvitec Technology Fund III invests SEK 44 million in Netadmin
(press release)

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Posted at 06:56 AM | Posted to Sponsored Post | TrackBack | Permalink

Spreading Of Netnoldege's PAIN Financed

French startup Netnoledge has developed software to make Internet file transfers and communications more secure based on the public key encryption (PKI) protocols. It is the kind of software that enables privacy, authentification, integrity and non-repudiation (PAIN) of data and email exchanges via the Internet.

Screenshot From Netnoledge Showing Non-repudiable Transfers In Progress
The two year old company, which is a Delaware-registered company with offices in Sceaux, France, announced that it raised a first round of financing from DGME FINANCES of an undisclosed amount this week. The new money is for R&D and to expand its efforts in the UK and German markets.

A couple of Swiss banks and French research institutes are the types of organizations that are its early customers, according CEO and founder Michel Doric. He told us that Netnoledge launched the product in February and he's forecasting for end of 2007 sales of €5M.

We checked with one of our VC contacts who has had some healthy liquidity events, as they say, with security software companies over the last ten years and he confirms that PKI and security software in general is still a "vibrant" market.

And that it is indeed possible for a PKI company to reach the kinds of revenues Doric is forecasting if, for example, it manages to get a few large institutions as customers.

PKI has been around for a while and there are products on the market from names like Entrust and DigiCert. What makes this one different is its claim that it is the only one to offer a solution where no third party certificate authority is required.

We don't know the other products well enough in this market to validate that, but what we do see is that Netnoledge is smart in the way that it is securing early stage cashflow.

It is making it easy for companies large and small to make a decision to buy. Customers are offered three ways to purchase: traditional software licensing, full rental model, or subscrition to a hosted PKI platform from Netnoledge.

The latter two sales models mean that it can sign customers up without having to wait until several layers of management in the customer organization agree to write a big cheque for a full-blown client-server software license. That strategy can give startups that all-important inflow of cash to keep it going until it makes some long term licensing deals.

The company founder told the alarm:clock euro that Netnoledge had been self-financed until DGME stepped in. It is currently building up channel partners and OEM deals several countries, including the US.

Read - NETNOLEDGE réalise une première levée de fonds auprès de DGME FINANCES (prminds)

September 19, 2006

Analog Devices Buys Denmark's VC-backed AudioAsics

Analog Devices announced that it acquired AudioAsics A/S, which makes low-power microphone and audio signal conditioning chip designs for approx $19M in cash. An additional $8M is payable to the shareholders if the Roskilde, Denmark-based startup meets milestones.

AudioAsics' tech is expected to improve sound quality in MP3 players, cell phones and PDAs that rely on Analog Devices chips. It was founded in 2003 with funding from Danish investors Vaekstfonden, SEED Capital Denmark, and Hvista. The founders will stay on post-acquisition and Analog Devices will invest in its operations in Denmark and Bratislava, the firms said in a statement.

Read - Analog Devices Acquires Audio IC Specialist, AudioAsics (press release)

Posted at 07:13 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

Baytech Backs Open Source Alternative To Microsoft Exchange Server

Open-Xchange, an open source messaging and collaboration server software startup based in Tarrytown, NY has raised a first round from Baytech Venture Capital in Munich. The investment in the company, which is rooted in Olper and Nurenberg, was announced last week.

The startup's software enables businesses and organizations to replace Microsoft Exchange Server for an open source alternative, as an example. It says it offers eleven different collaboration applications (calendars, document sharing, contacts etc.) and supports hot-desking and mobile access. It's targeted at the small and medium sized company.

What The User Sees On Their Open-Xchange Personal Portal Page

Baytech's Jochen Walter, told the a:c euro that the firm's product competes on scalability, greater integration features, and usability. His firm's opinion is that they are backing the market leader in the open source exchange and collaboration market.

We don't know how right he is on that because we haven't seen any trade rankings. There are certainly several competing open source packages, Zimbra, mentioned by Walter, but also OpenGroupware.org, exchange4linux and EGroupWare/PhpGroupWare, as well as commercial software from Scalix IBM/Lotus, Tobit, and Novel, according to Wikipedia (german version).

Given its competitive environment, this startup has appointed a board members that sounds like (on paper anyway) that could help it pull ahead. Take for example, Lee Dayton, a former IBM VP who particiapted in the Lotus, Tivoli, and Sequent acquisitions.

An angel investor, according to Computerwoche, and another board member is Richard Seibt, who after a stint as CEO of SUSE Linux eventually became European manager after it was acquired by Novell. He's also a former IBM man who is on the board at United Interent, a publicly traded German Internet service provider, and on the board of another venture-backed open source startup, Collax, which makes a Linux operating system that is meant to be easier to use than other Linux distribution on the market .

Another former SUSE exec, Rafael Laguna de la Vera, is chairman of the board. He was brought in as CEO of SUSE shortly before Novell acquired the company and left once the deal was done. And to help with future rounds, there is Bob Young, a former investment banker turned fund of fund manager that is in an LP in some big name US venture funds.

The startup raised a seed round when it was founded in 2005 from Laguna de la Vera, Young, and Seibt, according to Computerwoche.

The founders hail from Netline Internet Service, a German web-hosting firm. As we understand it they developed much of the software when Novell/SUSE was supporting it in open source development. After Novell acquired SUSE Linux, a German open source startup in late 2003 for $210M in cash, Novell eventually decided to use and market another software package for collaboration and email applications, and the Netline people started up Open-Xchange.

Read - Open-Xchange Closes Venture Funding(press release open-xchang)

Read- Open-Xchange hat weiteren Investor (computerwoche)

Posted at 05:23 AM | Posted to Open Source Software | Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

September 18, 2006

Scottish Interhyp Clone Raises Capital For Launch

Artemis, a British investment trust manager, has invested an estimated £5M in mform, an online mortgage shopping site, that is due to launch this Fall, reports The Scotsman. The article says the firm is entering a market with several competitors, including moneysupermarket.com, moneynet.co.uk, confused.com, and PeoplesChampion. We can't say much about the UK market but we do know that Interhyp has done well with this business concept in the German market.

It was venture-backed and floated last year giving its VCs a profitable partial exit at the time of the IPO. It's share price has had a bit of wild ride so far, though.

Wonder if that drop in May coincided with the end of the old shareholder lockups?

Read -Rice scores online start-up funding (scotsman)

Posted at 10:53 AM | Posted to | TrackBack | Permalink

German Web 2.0 Confab

Via Christian Leybold at BVCapital, we heard about a two-day Web 2.0 event in Germany. If we were not going to be on holiday that week, we'd be there too because the program has a good mix of startups and corporates. You've got the founders of Plazes, OpenBC, Spreadshirt, Qype, as well as managers from Skype (DACH region), GoYellow Media (which might have a nice rich geo-mapping application to enhance it yellowpages directory, but it's a cash burning machine - since it's publicly traded - we've seen the numbers), along with folks from Lycos.de (which has been quietly building up user-generated content portfolio), Yahoo (developer services), DaimlerChrysler (uses podcasting and music downloads for marketing comms) and Siemens (big internal blog user).

Posted at 06:58 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

September 17, 2006

Tech Venture Rebound - Tornado Insider Stats

Tornado Insider, which publishes a database tracking technology investment in Europe, notes that for the first time in the six years it has been in business, healthcare/biotech's share of the total amount of venture capital raised by startups declined in relation to other categories.

In other words, of the total €3.1 billion raised by high-tech companies this year to-date, the proportion of capital flowing to companies in the Information Technology, Communications, and other categories, has improved.

The news was in a free weekly newsletter from Tornado Insider, so it tantalizingly leaves out a breakdown of the figures for all investment categories. Neither did it state what percentage ICT actually raised this year compared to previous years.

It did say that the decrease in share by life science companies is apparent when measured by both the number of deals done and the volumes raised by life science companies. This year 26.5% of the total number of deals made were biotech/healthcare companies, down from 29% In the years 2004 and 2005.

In terms of volume raised, biotech/healthcare funding represented 35 % of the capital raised this year, down from 42% (in 2005) and 37% (in 2004).

It also said that early stage investment increased and it confirmed the increasing VC interest in online services.

"The big winners are Internet companies with 9% of all deals – up from 6% in 2005."

Read - Chasing the €4B Mark (tornado insider)

Posted at 01:09 PM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

September 15, 2006

Criteo and YouTube Working On Video Recommendation

Criteo the French company targeting its predictive recommendation engine at movie and video content, is working with YouTube, the popular US-based video publishing site. [via TechCrunch and Altaide blogs]. It is a technical demo that Criteo's management hopes to turn into a commercial deal.

Criteo's software adds a filtering based on users sharing their taste in videos with other users of YouTube's huge database of video clips.

We profiled Criteo a few months ago and were intrigued enough by the news to check with CEO Jean Baptiste Rudelle. He confirmed that Criteo and YouTube are running a techical demo to test his firm's technology, adding that Criteo has invested in software development and a dedicated platform to support the trial.

The French entrepreneur contacted YouTube directly to initiate the trial. Rudelle sees it as investment and hopes to turn it into a commercial agreement with YouTube.

Criteo is backed by French venture firms, Elaia Partners and AGF Private Equity.
Read - Criteo With New Way To Recommend Films (alarm:clock)
Read - Criteo imposera t il son systeme de (Techcrunch Francais)
Read - Criteo annonce un partnerariat (Altaide blog)

Posted at 09:30 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz Winner

Chris Clothier1.JPG The winner of our quiz this week is Chris Clothier of MMC Ventures in the UK. He was the first to write in with the correct answer to this question:
Name the partner at an early stage British venture capital firm who is the son of the creator of George Smiley?

The answer: Simon Cornwell of Amadeus

Cornwell's father is Richard Cornwell whose pen-name is John Le Carre, the author that created the George Smiley character.

Honourable mention goes to Sam Snelson, a Research Associate at Library House whose answer landed in our inbox a few minutes later.

Posted at 07:48 AM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink

Survey Says: VCs Invest in Bloggers to Gain Media Influence

We ran a reader poll on the alarm:clock this week asking why VCs are investing in blogs. The results of are in.

Why VCs Invest in Bloggers?

Easy Single - 37%

Gain Media Influence - 43%

Blogging Is Tech Play - 20%

Posted at 07:46 AM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

September 14, 2006

Softbank Invests In Asknet's Japanese Market Expansion

Asknet, an online software distribution platform company, has sold a 10 percent equity stake to Softbank BB Corp of Tokyo. The investment was part of an increase in Asknet's capital. Further terms were undisclosed.

The two had announced a joint venture to cover the Japanese market a month ago.

Asknet is a spinoff from the University of Karlsruhe that was founded in 1995. It claims to be the number two independent supplier of integrated shop solutions for software producers. It also operates its own software download site.

Sales in 2005 were €35M. It is backed by German VCs, including AdAstra, HVB, and Süd Private Equity. Institutional investors plus Softbank own 65 percent of the company. Before this round it raised €12M in total, we believe.

Truphone's Cheese-y HQ And Its Wifi-VOIP Service Launch

Truphone, the British startup that offers VOIP software for WiFi enabled smartphones, launched in beta mode this week. We can't review it because we don't have a Nokia smartphone - we're either too cheap or too poor to buy one.

But we can write that it's hiring and that it might be an interesting place to work. For one thing it seems to have a dedicated early stage backer in the form of Alexander Straub of Straub Ventures, which definitely adds a bit of adrenaline to starting up the business. (More on that below.)

For another it offers good salaries (not sure if it also has stock options) and if you like cheese, its headquarters will appeal.

Truphone is (surely) the world's only tech start-up based on a working organic farm. Crockhamdale is a hand-made sheep's milk cheese, Wensleydale style. Delicious to eat, but quite tricky to find.

Truphone's HQ its located in Edenbridge, Kent in the South of England.
Image source: ecard hever hotel, edenbridge, kent

It has a brand manager job on offer. The requirements offer a clue about corporate culture. The manager should be "very new media savvy – you know your RSS from your elbow and can hold your own talking about blogs, Flickr, Digg et al; Smart and keen to learn/contribute; Marketing aware with two years experience" and there's a Product Test Manager job on offer that's paying about double what you'd get paid in Germany or south of France for the same title.

We wrote a post on Truphone a while ago and since then Straub informs us that of all the alpha-trial users, he's the one that has racked up the most minutes on his two Nokia smartphones.

The service, like others offering IP services on the phone, requires the user to download a free client and subsequently enables free phone calls to other Truphone users and to some fixed line numbers in the UK, US, Canada and a few other countries during the beta trial.

He also talks up Truphone at industry conferences and took the time to add to our first impression of Truphone.

This suggests to us that Straub is the kind of investor you'd want to have on board. There are not too many VCs in Europe that call themselves early stage investors who work like that. He's one of them.

Another is Mangrove Capital. Its partners, such as Mark Tluszcz who works closely with portfolio firm Allpeers, the company that recently lauched a P2P filesharing plugin for the Firefox browser, do it too. Just Google his name plus Allpeers and you'll see why we say that.

One other, who we see doing it is Barry Maloney of Benchmark who is racking up the air miles and talking up Bebo, the social networking site for teenies.
Read -Truphone Backer Touts Free Mobilephone Calls Over WiFi (alarm:clock euro)
Read - Barry Maloney On Bebo Business Models (e-consultancy newsletter)

Posted at 06:57 AM | Posted to VoIP | Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink

Tips On Creating A Billion Dollar Startup Or How To Be CSR

We've got some advice today excerpted from an article by John Hodgson, the former CEO of Cambridge Silicon Radio. It's the British company that went from zero to sales of greater than $700M in seven years, three of which were the worst to hit the tech sector in recent history.( Image source: Scottish Equity Partners Venturer newsletetter. Issue 4)

A couple of recent interviews with chip startup founders and their backers suggest that they might be the next CSR, with a bit of luck and lots of execution. To slant the odds a bit more in their favour we think that listening to what Hodgson has to say is worthwhile. He was CEO of CSR through its £20M pre-IPO VC round and its successful subsequent IPO.

Below is a quick stab at summarizing several points he makes in an article he wrote for Scottish Equity Partners' Venturer newsletter, followed by a link to the full text.

1. Raise more money than you think you need and spend carefully.

... raise far more money than you think you’ll need to avoid expensive and time-consuming additional rounds. The well-known cliché that “cash is king” is absolutely true, and the CFO needs to be a Scrooge at heart who can ensure that all levels of the organisation understand that each dollar raised can only be spent once.

Many of us at CSR had to constantly travel around the world and we went everywhere in economy class. It meant miserable 10 hour trips squashed into a seat too small to even open your laptop but that was just the way it had to be. At the peak we were burning $5 million each quarter. There was no way we could justify extra expense where it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

2. Raise money before you need it

... and always set up a competitive process [he means make sure that more than two VCs are bidding for your equity] to ensure the valuation of a round is set by the market. Securing funding is more important than the source, although VCs and strategic investors with respected names do usefully lend their stature to an enterprise. The price of the money and consequent dilution is less important than getting enough resources to do the job, and it helps to remember that it always takes longer than you expect to deliver on the commitments made.

3. Hit milestones on schedule

Market, technology, and funding are only as useful as the practical execution. And here, timing is critical. The company must strive to hit its plans on schedule, and the solution that best meets the requirements as the market takes off is the one that will win. Being too early can be as disastrous as being too late. CSR was not the first to market. Pioneers Ericsson and Digianswer (acquired early on by Motorola) were first, but in the end failed to deliver competitive product when the market opened up.

4. Marketing costs more than product development, so be prepared

Technology and product development are relatively cheap compared to ramp-up costs for marketing and manufacturing where timing is essential and spending must be in phase with market developments. Setting up sales, marketing, and field applications organisations at the necessary locations around the world requires significant energy and money.

5. Know that getting design in wins is an order of magnitude harder than you think.

...Persuading customers, especially the high-volume, major corporations that you must win, is orders of magnitude harder than you can imagine. A new vendor is a major risk for a customer, and your products will be used only if you can deliver, and be seen to deliver, a significantly better solution than their traditional and trusted suppliers. Even that is not always sufficient to secure business.

Read - Smart venturing: CSR’s journey from Bluetooth to blue-chip (Scottish Equity Partners Venturer newsletetter )

Posted at 04:21 AM | Posted to entrepreneurship | TrackBack | Permalink

September 13, 2006

iLoop Acquires Danish Inaphone

San Jose, Calif-based iLoop Mobile has acquired Danish mobilephone marketing software company InAphone Group A/S. The size of the transaction was not disclosed. The two companies had been working closely for some time and already had an extensive product partnership in place.

Inaphone, based in Copenhagen, emerged as a result of a merger of SSG ApS and InAphone A/S. The former SSG founder and CEO is now head of European business for iLoop. Inaphone developed a platform that included a gateway, content management system (CMS), sales channel, and content library. We were unable to determine if either SSG or Inaphone had raised venture capital by the time we published today.
Read - iLoop Acquires (businesswire)

Posted at 06:20 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink

Why Are VCs Investing In Content?

Over at sister site, the alarm:clock, we're asking why VCs are investing in blogs - they are content companies not technology ventures. What started it was Seeking Alpha, a stock market expert blog, announcing that Benchmark Capital has invested. It is the latest in a string of blog deals. We are not sure yet how much Benchmark has invested. But we can't figure out how investors hope to make VC-like returns. Our colleagues have a couple of theories and put up a dpoll so readers can vote on which one makes sense or leave a comment.

Read - Why Do VCs Invest In Bloggers? (a:c)

Posted at 09:38 AM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

Google Europe's New M&A Man And Accel's ex-Yahoo Exec Hire

Fred Destin, a partner at Atlas Ventures, reports in his eponymous blog that Accel is adding Simon Levene to its team - announced in August but we missed it - along with some details on Google Europe's new M&A man, Anil Hansjee, most recently of GPBullhound, and some other corporate moves.

Read -Anil Hansjee and Russ Cummings latest in series of Corporate to VC moves (fred destin)
Read - Yahoo exec Simon says he will join Accel (pewnews)

Posted at 09:11 AM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

Photonics Startup Oxxius Raises $10M For Tiny Laser Tech

Lannion, France-based Oxxius, a manufacturer of ultra-small yellow, violet, and blue lasers, has raised $ 10 million in a second round, led by existing investor Sofinnova Partners, along with new investors AXA Private Equity, and San Francisco-based Sofinnova Ventures.

The new money is to be used to develop the commercial and industrial operations of the company. Its aims is to be a first-tier laser provider to instrumentation manufacturers serving the biophotonics, spectroscopy, and related markets. Using Oxxius lasers will enable its customers to make smaller, more energy-efficient, analytical and measurement instrumentation.

Read -Laser specialist to ramp up production and strengthen market position. (webitpr)

Posted at 06:59 AM | Posted to Semiconductors | Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

September 12, 2006

VC-Backed OneAccess Buys Telindus Division

Paris-based OneAccess, a manufacturer of routers and IP equipment, has acquired Telindus Access Products (TAP) division of Telindus Group in Belgium. The deal is meant to consolidate the French company's position in the broadband for business market and make it better equipped to compete with American and Chinese vendors, the firm's CEO said in a statement.

The Telindus broadband product division acquired by OneAccess consists of 113 employees that generate about €18.5M a year in sales. It includes R&D, manufacturing, logistics and sales staff used to selling niche-market access products. All current Telindus employees will continue their activities with the same conditions in the Telindus' premises in Haasrode, Belgium.

Founded in 2001, OneAccess is backed by Innovacom, T-com Venture (corporate VC unit of Deutsche Telekom), CDC Entreprises Innovation, Tempo Capital Partners, AGF Private Equity, and CIC Finance.

As a resutl of the acquisition, OneAccess will employ 230 and Telindus, the ICT Solutions and Services arm of Belgacom will be a strategic partner for the distribution and support.
Read - OneAccess Acquires Telindus Access Products Division (prnewswire)

Posted at 12:46 PM | Posted to Broadband Networks | News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz Question

Click the Contact Us link and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro venture quiz question this week.
Name the partner at an early stage British venture capital firm who is the son of the creator of George Smiley?
Hint: he is a media and communic