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October 31, 2006
Netvibes, Pageflakes, and Videojug Are The Hot Betas
Image source:
The Warning Sign Generator
We've been looking at the Museum Of Modern Beta's "The Hot 100" list, which ranks the "biggest" new beta-versions of applications in the "webosphere", based on the number of bookmarks at del.icio.us. It is updated weekly.
We think it's a pretty good way to measure popularity of new (mainly) Web 2.0 projects. So which Euro startups continue to place in the ranking over the past couple of weeks?
Netvibes (2),
Pageflakes (34)
CoComment (56)
VideoJug (84).
These are just the ones we recognize and that have companies behind them. There could be others but we don't know them yet.
Link -The Museum of Modern Betas The Top 100
Posted at 03:45 PM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink
French Digital Games Swapping Site Raises Capital
SplitGames, a French operator of a site for swapping video games, has raised €2M from Credit Agricole Private Equity, according to TechCrunch's French editon.
Credit Agricole PE is the same fund manager that is backing EVE Online, Keljob and Glowria. They are the startup's only backer in this round.
Read - Splitgames-leve-2 (techcrunch.fr)
Posted at 11:47 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Dutch Startup With Online English Chinese Translations
Dutch entrepreneur, Marius van Bergen, has launched Chinglish to provide machine translation of Chinese and English, reports Reuters.
The founder uses the word Chinglish not in the same way that we use words like Genglish or Spanglish to signify speech that combines words from German and English or Spanish and English, rather he says he is trying to link English and Chinese linguistically in the site name.
If there is real money to be made over the long term in having a popular web site around translation, then we think that the founder is probably onto a good thing.
We notice a distinct uptick in friends and family learning Chinese because they find it helps at work. And courses in Zurich for example, teach Chinese courses in English even if it is a mainly German-speaking group of students.
And if the translations are as good as press reports suggest, then it will also likely be popular with Chinese users too.
Its PR says it is venture-backed but we don't have more information than that to hand.
Read - Lost in translation: Chinglish.com steps into fray (reuters)
Posted at 07:59 AM | Posted to Online services | TrackBack | Permalink
October 30, 2006
Garages For Future Millionaires
The Financial Times Deutschland has a tongue-in-cheek article in its weekend edition about how unsuitable Germany's garages are for startups, alluding to the legendary origin of some of Silicon Valley tech giants.
In all our years of interviewing tech business founders, we have never had one complain that the lack of a garage, or cheap office space, was his biggest challenge and the FTD is clearly aware of that. Who knew it had a sense of humor too -- we translated a bit of it here:
The FTD says Germany's garages don't have windows, many get used as a sauna, and while Zapf's Clou garage (shown here) has some windows, there's only room for a car. (image source: Zapf)
In Germany's garages nothing gets started - except for the car. It is a purpose-built construction without charm. The best idea you can get in such a spot is "get me out of here". 'In this country you go into the garage and end up in a black hole,' complained the Hamburg Architekt Stephan Heymann. If you live in Flensburg, Bochum or Leipzig and have a business idea, you use a hobby room or scrape the money together to rent an office in a Startup Center."
Besides, a recent post about a startup called box.net on our sister blog, the alarm:clock, shows that garages are uncommon and that this image is more like the reality for West Coast startups.
Read - Garagen für künftige Milliardäre (ftd)
Posted at 07:08 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink
Swiss/German Angel Network's First IPO Is A Fishy One
The floatation this month of Codfarmers, a Norwegian cod fish farm gives Brains-to-Ventures (b-to-v) , a corporate finance boutique that specializes in dealflow for business angels here, its first IPO of a company funded through its network this month.
Although b-to-v has a portfolio dominated by tech ventures, its first floation since founding in 2001 is an agribusiness called Codfarmers, one of the first companies to enter the cod farming industry in Norway. Founded in 2002, the company spents its first few years in R&D, selling its first generation of cod last year.
Its listing on the Oslo stock exchange in mid-October gave it a valuation of €44.5M.
Read - Erfolgreicher IPO von Codfarmers ASA (b-to-v)
Posted at 06:45 AM | Posted to entrepreneurship | TrackBack | Permalink
AOL Looks To Buy Eutubes
Now that AOL has shed its Internet access businesses in Europe, it is looking to buy popular video and IPTV "properties" in Europe to expand the reach of its online advertising business, according to an exclusive interview AOL's chief Jonathan Miller gave to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung last week.
Why? AOLs margins in the access business were at 20 percent, compared to the 50 to 70 percent margin he can get by adding well-trafficked web sites to its "reach".
Miller talked about AOL's missed chance to buy YouTube (the popular video clip sharing site in the US), "visibly" expressing his frustration at his parent company's refusal to support an acquisition, said the reporter.
Miller also said that traditional media is not going to disappear in light of the growth of web-based advertising and the domination of it by the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, but the "critical question" is "will they be able to make enough money with Interent advertising to keep their core business afloat.
His view is that it's an either-or question for media companies: move content to the net to develop a new channel, or create an entirely new business. He added, while most media companies have Internet activites, only a few are consequent about it, says Miller.
The last couple of sentences sound a bit 1999ish to - not that it matters - the point is AOL is looking to pay some serious money for new properties in Europe.
It will be interesting to see what it can snag. Europe's VCs only very recently invested in video clip web sites, such as DailyMotion and Metacafe. Maybe Sulake Labs's animated chat world HabboHotel is the right size - it's not video clips but its popular. But its price may be too high for AOL - we hear that its last financing round gave it a valuation above $300M.
AOL-Chef Jon Miller: „Wir planen Akquisitionen in Europa“ - FAZ.NET - Wirtschaft
Posted at 04:00 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
alarm:clock Euro Quiz Winner - Questico's Bryan Leppi
Congratulations to Bryan Leppi, co-founder of German cross-media startup Questico. He was the first to write in with the correct answer to last week's Quiz Question:
Name the early stage VC based in Germany whose portfolio company just received authorization to float next month. If it goes off as planned it will make it the firm's sixth portfolio company to IPO in the past 13 months.
The answer: Earlybird Ventures - The Hamburg-based firm is floating one of its life science portfolio firms, Wilex, giving the VC firm its sixth IPO and seventh exit in the past year.
Leppi keeps an eye on Earlybird's vintage 2000 exits because his company also raised captial around the same time. Questico parlayed a VC-investment in its online horoscopes and fortune-telling site, into a call-center supported online business that now produces call-in television shows, and publishes books. Questico is backed by Earlybird rival, Wellington Capital Partners, based in Munich.
Posted at 03:17 AM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
October 27, 2006
Belgium's Flurl Acquired By Myspace Founder
Mashable, new media consultant Pete Cashmore's blog, says that MySpace founder Brad Greenspan has taken a majority stake in Flurl.com, a Belgium-based video sharing site and search engine. The acquisition was made by Greenspan’s Los Angeles investment firm, LiveUniverse, which focuses on video, entertainment and social networking.
Cashmore says that Greenspan's still looking for more acquisitions: "the type that haven't received VC funding and are completely off the radar for most journalists and bloggers".
He's right about that, Flurl was new to us.
Read - Myspace Founder Acquires (mashable)
Posted at 03:50 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz Question
Here's this week's quiz question.
Name the early stage VC based in Germany whose portfolio company just received authorization to float next month. If it goes off as planned it will make it the firm's sixth portfolio company to IPO in the past 13 months.
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.
Posted at 01:18 PM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
October 26, 2006
eBuddy Raises €5M (Yet) Another Messaging Site
Nimbuzz, Miyowa, and now eBuddy are tapping Europe's VCs in the hopes of making it to the big time. The Netherlands-based eBuddy said today it raised €5M from Lowland Capital Partners in what looks like a first round. Lowland is a two partner Dutch firm, one that the a:c euro has not come across before.
eBuddy offers web and cellphone-based instant messaging. It claims 35M users worldwide. If it is accurate, that's an astounding number of users.
Read - eBuddy Secures 5 Million Euro in Series A Funding (press rel.)
Posted at 12:34 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Online services | TrackBack | Permalink
Delticom Raises €30.6M In Successful IPO
Germany just gained two more millionaire online venture founders and the folks that bought Delticom's shares in the IPO bookbuilding just made a 5% gain as Delticom's shares debuted on the Deutsche Börse this morning.
Its IPO paper was sold at €36 a share is now trading at €38, giving it a market cap of about €150M. The company raised €30.6M to finance its growth.
Posted at 10:18 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
France's Medialive To Protect Content In Japan Mobile Deal
We've got our eye on Paris-based Medialive SA, a digital media copyright protection technology vendor. The startup impressed the a:c euro last year when it raised $4.2M from Reston, Virginia-based Nextel, a wireless operator, and a French seed stage fund, on the back of convincing Nextel of the value of its innovative content protection solution.
This kind of thing is happening more than it used with Euro startups, but it is still rare enough that we notice it.
Medialive's Founders Might Be Brainy But They Can Explain To The Rest Of Us How Their Tech Works
Founded in 2000, Medialive developed “heavily patented” copyright protection software that is cheaper and easier to implement than existing encryption-based technologies. What makes it stand out is that its “digital keys” are still slim enough to fit on the tiny chips that are used for security inside mobile phones (so-called SIM cards).
The company just announced that Primeworks, a Japanese mobile content platform provider has signed up to use its technology. There are a few competing solutuions for mobile networks out there and an agreement is not a guarantee of revenues, but the fact that it has a foot in the US market and one in Japan suggests that Medialive is getting somewhere in a global market.
Read - Medialive Signs Major Contract In Japan (press rel.)
Posted at 08:16 AM | Posted to Media | Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink
Accel Enters Alternate Reality
Mind Candy,a UK based interactive media startup that produces alternate reality games, has raised $7 million from new investor Accel Partners which joins existing investors Index Ventures and NewMedia Spark, less than a year since raising a $3M first round. According to CNET, it had also raised at least $1.5M prior to that in an angel round.
The cause of the anticipated cash burn is that Mind Candy is launching a "major expansion" adding products to be announced in early 2007.
Mind Candy runs real world treasure hunts. The clues are printed on cards (that people pay for) and the search is augmented by events, websites, text messages, TV, and print. As for its business model, there are a few clues about how it could generate sales -but we haven't solved that mystery yet. One thing we know is that It is not using a sponsorship model, like some of the other alternate reality games we've read about.
Its game clues sound pretty cerebral. Check out this excerpt from an interview by Rick_32 Footsteps_Healy with folks from MindCandy :
32: There are four cards as yet unsolved. A question on each:On Riemann - Some number theorists have conjectured that Riemann's General Hypothesis (the problem to be solved on this card) may in fact be impossible to prove. Others are actively working on disproving the hypothesis. Do you have any thoughts on this, and how it will affect solves for the card?
Dan: Our main aim with this card was to undermine the majority of encryption systems used worldwide. This way, we could covertly divert massive funds to our Swiss bank account.
32: Yeah, but the problem there is that the cryptographical uses of the Riemann Zeta Function are so far fairly obscure, and the hypothesis mostly concerns number theory and not cryptography. And distracting number theorists isn't exactly a route to fantastic riches, Clay Mathematics Institute prizes nonwithstanding. So how does the Riemann Zeta Function undermine encryption systems?
Read -Mind Candy Announces $7M in Funding (press rel.)
Read - $3M For Sente's Lost Cube (the a:c)
Posted at 06:36 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink
October 25, 2006
Virtensys Raises $12M First Round_ Updated
Manchester-based Virtensys is throwing its hat into the ring to create components for makers of virtualization or utility computing systems. Scottish Equity Partners, which backed Wolfson Microelectronics and Cambridge Semiconductor, is leading a pack of backers that include Canada's Celtic House and Belgium's GIMV in a $12M first round.
he majority of the team was most recently with the Integrated System Division of Xyratex, which is developing PCI Express and switching interconnect products.
The company doesn't reveal its specs to the public so it's impossible to say who it might end up competing with, as both the product and technology areas on its website are password protected. But we'll follow up in due course.
Update: Byte And Switch's reporters got an interview with Virtensys and have some details about the market and the competition. Two of this startups rivals are PLX and NextIO. They are all developing small form factor PCI Express-based technologies that can be deployed in server and storage systems, it says.
Read - VirtenSys Secures (press rel.)
Read - Virtualization startup raises (ByteandSwitch)
Posted at 04:10 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
IPO Buzz For Germany's Asknet
Reuters quotes an unnamed source that an IPO is in the works for Asknet, the German online software distribution platform provider. The report said Asknet declined to comment on the rumour. It's on a growth path and an IPO would be reasonable to expect. It also has sales and operating data and some market analysis.
The bookbuilder's analyst said Asknet should be valued at 15 times earnings - with losses on the book well that might be tricky.
Asknet is backed by AdAstra and two other German funds, as well as Softbank.
Due to heavy investment, particularly in the key U.S. market, Asknet would make a loss this year but was likely to break even in 2007 and reach an operating margin of above 20 percent in 2008, Hasler said.Asknet shares ought to be valued at around 15 times 2008 earnings, Hasler said. At Tuesday's close, Digital River was priced at just over 20 times projected 2008 earnings, according to Reuters Estimates.
Asknet, which had revenues of 35 million euros ($44 million) in 2005 and made an operating loss of 1.2 million euros, has increased its workforce to 117 this year from 66 at end-2005.
Read Software download firm Asknet eyes Nov IPO-source (Reuters.com)
Read Softbank Invests In Asknet's Japanese Market Expansion Archives(the a:c euro)
Posted at 02:38 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Online services | TrackBack | Permalink
Neuf Cegetel IPO Bouyant
Neuf Cegetel went out at the high end of the bookbuilding range
According to Euronext's quotes Neuf is currently trading 6% above its IPO price.
We relied on MarketWatch to do the math on the IPO details today instead of our own grey matter. It was an €818 million($1.03 billion) initial public offering, valuing the company at around €4.6B, says MarketWatch. It also said the book was 15 times oversubscribed, an over-allotment option was granted, and employees were able to buy shares at 17.67 euros. Neuf earlier this month purchased the subscriber base of AOL France for $365 million.
If we have time we will compare Neuf's valuation multiples to Iliad and France Telecom - is it being valued like an innovative ISP/broadband operator or a fixed network telco?
Read - Telecom Neuf Cegetel's shares take off after IPO (MarketWatch)
Read - Buzz Buildup For Neuf Cegetel IPO Archives(alarm:clock euro)
Posted at 02:00 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Euro VC-Backed IPOs Still Outpacing US Says VentureOne
VentureOne published its latest European liquidity report card today. VC backed firms in Europe have raised €441M in 56 IPOs. Here's what was announced...
With 14 initial public offerings occurring in the third quarter of 2006, the level of IPO activity for European venture-backed companies continues to outpace that of their U.S. counterparts, according to the European Liquidity Report from Dow Jones VentureOne [the publisher of the VentureSource database.]
So far this year the IPO figures are ahead of 2004, when €368M was raised by VC-backed companies. It is not clear yet whether the final quarter will enable 2006 to outpunch 2005 when €627M was raised.
Reading on, the good news is that VC-backed firms continue to be able to raise money on the capital markets, especially entrepreneurial firms who are tapping AIM, Alternext and Entry Standard, Europe's various junior market. The bad news, at least for VCs, is that the IPOs are not exactly giving them exits.
Stephen Harmston, director of global research for VentureOne in London said:
“In fact, these IPOs are serving more as another capital raising option for start-up companies in Europe, rather than as true exits from their investors’ portfolios.”
Without those exits, VCs are typically reluctant to make new investments in early stage firms and it will be difficult to do uprounds, we guess too.
Read- VENTURE-BACKED EUROPEAN IPOS SLOW BUT CONTINUE TO OUTPACE U.S. IPO ACTIVITY IN THIRD QUARTER OF 2006 (press rel.)
Posted at 01:21 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
French VC-Backed Boonty Acquires China's Gamehub
Five year old Boonty (www.boonty.net), an online casual games distributor, said it acquired Beijing-based Gamehub, a one year old multiplayer casual digital game title developer and publisher. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Boonty was founded in France but has its legal HQ in New York. It is backed by syndicate of French VCs and raised $10M a few months ago. It operates in the US, European, and Asian market and makes it money by leveraging the popularity of its games by selling advertising. It also runs a micro-transaction platform selling personalized avatars or game play items.
Read -Boonty Accelerates Social Casual Games Strategy with Acquisition of Gamehub (press rel.)
Read - Boonty Profile circa August 2005 ( the a:c)
Posted at 08:58 AM | Posted to Games (PC and other) | News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Glowria Executes On VOD In Europe
French startup Glow Entertainment, the company behind the Glowria brand, has quietly been establishing a foothold in the European video-on-demand market. On the back of early deals in its home market, it is now crossing borders.
Glowria Easy On The Eyes And Easy On Users
Back in early 2005, we met Mihai Crasneau, founder and CEO of Glowria via our trusted industry insider Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz who was helping to raise capital for Glowria at the time. The two talked at length about Glowria's plans to deliver VOD in Europe.
It was a bit surprising to us at the time, considering the firm was established as a DVD rental play and VOD had fallen way, way out of favour. But we listened and filed it in our aging but reliable grey-matter-database.
MIhai Crasneau ModestlyBudding European VOD Business
That file was flagged "executing" the other day as we learned (via vpod.tv's coverage of the ETRE conference last week), that sure enough Glowria's CEO was doing what he said he would. We like to see execution, so here's a summary of what Crasneau has achieved.
- The online DVD rental business is still Glowria's core business, but it also has completed several acquisitions of smaller players in Germany and France
- It claims to be the Number 1 DVD rental provider in France and Number 2 in Germany.
- It's reaching breakeven in its home market (according to Crasneau).
- Acquired distribution deals with major Hollywood and 100 local content firms for several Euro markets. Users can buy or rent full length movies.
- Offers video on demand services as a white label service to Neuf-Cegetel's broadband customers and FNAC, the large retail chain and ecommerce vendor in France.
-Glowria has 80 employees and has done it all with a mere €12.5M in venture capital from French VCs.
The founder said he leveraged the DVD relationships with studios to create the VOD service. The next step is
Germany. Crasneau expects by 2008 to generate more than 70 percent of revenue from VOD.
VOD is one of those highly anticipated markets that has been "emerging" for more than ten years. So it feels kind of strange to actually see it happening and in such a low-key way. We first wrote about VOD in the mid-nineties, a time when players needed to buy bedroom-sized video servers, expensively acquire the content, get it into the right format for storage and delivery, develop software to manage the whole thing, and even if they had the cash and resources for all that, they faced the dilemna of the missing broadband pipes to deliver the hard-won digitized streams.
We asked a couple of our trusted VC experts about the "space", as they call it. From Paris to Munich, the sentiment is bullish and they all have different opinions on where the real money will be made. So with all that in mind, we'll be keeping our baby blues peeled for more signs of life in the VOD market in Europe.
Link- Mihai Etre Video
Posted at 07:58 AM | Posted to Broadband Services | TrackBack | Permalink
Study Finds VCs Are Not Really Investing In Good Industries
Swiss academic, Rolf Wüstenhagen, who we run into at venture conferences in Zurich, published in January a report entitled Do Venture Capitalists Really Invest In Good Industries?
It is a good study and has some informed analysis on the risks and rewards of alternative energy investing. At the risk of oversimplifying, here is our take on the content.
Premise: Energy sector is huge, alt energy is showing signs of hugeness and therefore VCs should be investing in it
Research Result: VCs are not investing in alt energy the way they should be.
The report came out in January and is based on a recent survey but some of the data is aging and may not reflect the current situation. We think he'd have a much better argument today. He could then use data on private equity and VC-backed exits such as Q-Cells, Conergy, and Renewable Energy Corporation.
This graphic from New Energy Finance would grab the VC's attention.
With that in mind, the results of a new survey would likely show more open-minded generalist VCs and the emergence of several new smartmoney driven cleantech funds in the works, such as zouk ventures and former 3i man, Partick Sheehan’s ETF Fund to boot.
Read - Do venture capitalists really invest in good industries? Risk-return perceptions and path dependence in the emerging European energy VC market
Posted at 06:56 AM | Posted to Alternative Energy | TrackBack | Permalink
Cleantech Europe Adds €15M And New Partners
There is a bit more money and more savvy for renewable and efficient energy startups in Europe now. zouk ventures has added Tom Singh as a new partner that brings in some renewable energy investment expertise, a track record in the retail biz, and some private equity savvy. Singh family office also committed €15m to Cleantech Europe, their largest cleantech fund investment to date.
It also added Alois Flatz, co-founder of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, a former partner at Zurich's SAM Group and he is on the board of BTS Investment Advisors, a specialist financial consultancy and investment boutique focusing on private equity investments in India.
zouk's strategy is to invest in expansion stage deals, as opposed to early stage. It aims to raise €150M for this fund and it is now at about €40M if our sources are correct.
Read - zouk ventures is Pleased to Announce Two Senior Appointments (press rel.)
Posted at 06:13 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
October 24, 2006
Pigsback.com Raises €4M For UK Growth
Pigsback.com, a consumer website that distributes coupons and discounts, raised €4m from Hotbed, a UK private investor network, and other shareholders.
The firm was founded in Ireland in 2000 and launched in the UK last year. The new capital will be used to intensify UK marketing activity. It claims over 340,000 active UK members, forecasting 500,000 by year end and a million by the end of 2007.
Posted at 05:18 PM | Posted to News And Updates | eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink
Dutch DocZone For A Multi-Lingual World
In his Lunch Over IP blog, journalist Bruno Giussani, writes about the battle that Systran, the French translation software company behind Babblefish, is having with the European Commission over unauthorized modification of its code. It is a dramatic reminder of some of the unexpected risks of protecting valuable IP (as in intellectual property).
It also reminded us to publish our profile of DocZone, a Dutch software company that wants to mitigate the costs of producing multi-lingual documentation with an XML solution, which it sells via the software as a service model.
DocZone's has already invested its own money in the development of the application, offering it to those that have to publish product documentation, training manuals, and web sites in multiple languages and want output to "any format" cheaper and faster.
Doczone's Cool Showcase Customer is Spyker, The Dutch Supercar Maker. (image: SpykerCars)
It calls its software an "all inclusive XML solution" that has among others things, a built in content management system (based on X-Hive CMS software - Docato) and workflow support, as well as integrated translation technology. It is sold as a service at a monthly fee - which means it's easy for customers large and small to begin to use it, according to co-founder Frank Ter Reehorst.
The three-man founding team have all run businesses in the content management or translation areas before starting up. Along with Reehorst, the founders are Henk de Jonge, who established and still owns translation agency Scriptware and Dan Dube who is the managing director of the US operations, who has experience in implementing standards-based CMS systems.
Read - The EU Commission's intellectual property problem (lunch over IP)
Read - Spyker Cars signs 5-year contract with DocZone.com | DITA
Posted at 06:56 AM | Posted to Specialized Software | TrackBack | Permalink
EuTubes - The Venice Project And VideoJug
Over at sister-site the alarm:clock there's some commentary on mainstream media's current interest in finding the next YouTube, highlighting Venice Project, one from Europe, and US-based BitTorrent's new service.
One that we have our eye on is the VideoJug project, also coming out of Europe. It launched in September. It's different in that it only contains "how to" videos. Most are created by VideoJug and they are well-produced, nice and short too.
A look at the list of "most viewed" videos suggests that viewers are worried about diseased sexual organs, their appearance, how well they play (golf and juggling), and are fascinated by sushi.
There is also some amusing content created by users on topics such as "How To Fold a T-Shirt" and a Ginglish (German English mixed) video on "How To Cook And Eat White Bavarian Sausages".
A Top Ten List That Let's You Know What Others Find Interesting
We agree with what some of its users have said, that it is a good use of the Internet for video, with plenty of user feedback and features you can only offer if content is being accessed on the Web, as opposed to broadcast TV, but it looks like an expensive business to run.
We haven't interviewed the founders to learn how they intend to sustain the business over the medium term. But they have deep pockets, we assume, which will give them time. We say deep pockets because the founders are Dan Thompson (no relation to this a:c euro reporter), an entrepreneur that sold his computer games company Renegade to Time Warner. He also co-founded 365 Corporation and took it public, along with VideoJug co-founder David Tabizel.
Tabiziel also co-founded Durlacher, an English investment banking firm whose incredibly optimistic research reports were for European Internet, telecoms, and mobile sectors what Mark Meeker/Morgan Stanley's were for the Internet in the US.
Read - New website that shows you how to perform everyday tasks (DailyMail)
Read - The Biggest Venture Story In Mainstream Media: The Next YouTube? (a:c)
Posted at 06:28 AM | Posted to Interactive TV | News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
October 23, 2006
Tele2 Takes Stake In VC-Backed Spring Mobile
Tele2, an alternative telecoms operator active across Europe, has acquired 49% of Spring Mobil for €16M (SEK 150M) with an option to acquire the remaining shares in the first quarter of 2009.
Spring Mobil is an innovator in the mobile networking market. On the back of acquiring a GSM licence in Sweden, it launched a service providing businesses with their own dedicated digital cellular basestation. The "OnePhone" solution works with standard GSM/3G phones, in combination with a small GSM/3G network inside the customer’s office. Calls outside the office are served via an MVNO agreement with Tele2. To date, Spring Mobil has signed long term contracts with around 400 enterprises, the firms said.
Spring Mobil was founded by BrainHeart Capital in 2002 and is headquartered in Stockholm.
Read - WebWire® | TELE2 Acquires 49% Of The Shares In Spring Mobil
Posted at 04:54 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink
Online Tire Vendor To Raise €38M In IPO
VC-backed Delticom, the German tire ecommerce company, plans to float this week on the Prime Standard in Germany. The IPO is expected to raise about €38M, if it goes out in the middle of the bookbuilding range. The companies implied valuation will be €131M. If demand is strong, old shareholders will sell about €14M worth of shares (including greenshoe).
This seems like a fairly low valuation for a company that did €129M in sales last year with a 60 percent growth rate. Maybe it was a relatively narrow margin that brought it down: its pre-tax profit was €5.6M.
Founded in 1999, this one has been very much a founder driven company, despite it raising €3M in 2000 in venture capital from DVC (Deutsche Venture Capital) back in 2000. The two founders plan to remain major shareholders post-IPO. DVC owns 10 percent of the company's shares. The founders together own about 78 percent.
Read - Price range for Delticom shares fixed between 33 and 45 EUR (euro adhoc)
Read - Delticom Mulls IPO (a:c euro)
Posted at 06:24 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Online services | eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink
October 22, 2006
Fast Companies: Gameloft, Spreadshirt, lliotec And Others
BusinessWeek has published this year's fastest growing company ranking (includes both jobs and sales figures in the calculations) Out of the 500 fastest growing companies, a couple of them are tech ventures we recognized, such as mobile games developer Gameloft (1), online t-shirt personalization startup, Spreadshirt, which was number 5, while three solar energy companies Illiotec, Q-Cells and Conergy, made it into the top 40, along with Sophos, a security software firm.
Italy's Ferretti Yachts Also Made The Top Ten - It Isn't Tech But It Is Nice Design
Interestingly, Sophos is the only firm that raised VC money. It is backed by 3i. Surely some other VC-backed ventures should have made this list, or not? Anyway, hats off to these companies, especially Spreadshirt and Iliotec, both of which were started without venture capital, or even rich angel investors.
Read- BW Europe Hot Growth Companies
Posted at 06:36 PM | Posted to entrepreneurship | TrackBack | Permalink
alarm:clock Euro Quiz Winner
Thanks to the readers that wrote in to answer this week's quiz question: name the fund that recently hired one of the key people behind the ARM success story (which was not VC-backed but still grew to a significant size).
Pond Venture Partners with Jamie Urquhart is the answer. The first to respond with the correct answer was Sam Snelson, a content manager at Library House, the technology company database publisher.
Posted at 09:37 AM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
October 20, 2006
Swiss TV Seeks Startups For Reality TV Show
The Swiss national TV broadcaster is currently recruiting founders willing to take part in a reality TV show called, Startup to be broadcast next Spring in the German speaking region of the country. It's not a contest like the UKs Dragon's Den, rather the idea is that a couple of founders will have their participation in the coaching and biz plan development services that the Swiss government provides via an organization called CTI Startup. The climax of the show is making the pitch to VCs.
In reality that would just be the beginning of the story. But at least it's a sign of interest in entrepreneurship. A couple of years ago "startup" was almost a dirty word in this part of the world thanks to the tech boom and bust playing out on the stock markets here. If they make the videos available on the web, we'll provide links.
Read - SF sucht Schweizer Jungunternehmer mit Visionen und Biss (news.ch)
Link Startup TV Webpage
Posted at 05:18 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Germany's Itedo Acquired
Parametric Technology, a US engineering software company, has acquired Hennef, Germany-based Itedo Software GmbH and its US subsidiary, a technical-drawing software company, for $17 million. Itedo employs 34, launched its first product back in 1990, and is best known today for its IsoDraw software, used in creating and maintaining technical illustrations.
As far as we can see Itedo was a bootstrapped venture that grew over the years to establish itself a niche in CAD and tech illustrations in the aerospace, automotive, and manufacturing sectors. The company's founders are now newly minted millionaires, which made us think of something we read in Baytech Ventures' new newsletter this morning.
The founding partner writes that the issue with Germany is not a lack of entrpreneurs - it's that VCs have work to do in order to convince smart founders to take their money and make the case for a venture type growth (at least that's how we read it).
Contrary to popular opinion, there has always been a strong entrepreneurial culture in Germany, although perhaps not one attuned to the VC mindset. Don't forget that the "Mittelstand" - a term related not so much to the size of a company but to its private ownership status is still the backbone of the German economy. This was only made possible by a class of entrepreneurs.These start-ups are not confined to the VC-investment areas such as IT, communications and life sciences, but cover the whole business universe and many of them never grew to a dimension where venture capital become necessary while others had no inclination to attract it.
So I don't really see a shortage of capable founders and entrepreneurs, just the fact that not all of them have a propensity towards venture capital, because they intend to retain full ownership in the company or want only to answer to themselves. In my opinion, it's our industry’s challenge to sell the advantages of VC-backing to as many founders as possible.
Itedo is an example of what he is talking about, we'd say. And there are many others bootstrapped startups in Germany that one of these days we'll get around to profiling.
Read - Baytech Briefing 09/2006 · Interview
Read -PTC pays $17M for German software firm - Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology (bizjournals mass hightech)
Posted at 11:09 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Specialized Software | TrackBack | Permalink
Euro vs US Venturing: Investment Gap Still Huge - Does It Matter?
When it comes to putting money to work, the US outperforms Europe, by a ratio of five to one, but when it comes to getting money back European VCs argue that the same may not be true.
The latest numbers on VC investment from CalibreOne, the trans-Atlantic headhunter for tech companies, show that US VCs continue to invest 5 times the amount of money that Euro VC invest. (see image right)
Luckily for the European venture market the amount of money going into the sector does not necessarily come out at the same ratio, at least since 2003, and as long as you don't count Google.
We are referring to the study conducted by TLcom Capital (a slimmed-down version of which we now have available for readers below - thanks to TLcom). Earlier this year, the venture firm published a report that shows that Europe is delivering some US-style homeruns.
It says that 43 percent of the exits recorded by DowJones VentureSource between 2003 and 1Q2006 that generated 5 times money were European companies, and 51 percent of exits generating 10 times or more multiples were also European
We say it's not time to break out the Bollinger yet - afterall Google is still a huge US venture-success-story - better to grab a can of RedBull and get in gear to make this trend a long term one.
Download - TLcom European Exit Study
Read -CalibreOne Index 3Q06
Posted at 06:23 AM | Posted to Being European | Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink
October 19, 2006
alarm:clock Welcomes New Sponsors
The alarm:clock network is seeking sponsors to fund expansion of our coverage of the European venture capital and technology market. The plan is to add more editorial resources to boost our ability to report news and publish in-depth profiles of investors, entrepreneurs, and disruptors across the region, from Porto to Novosibirsk, and all points in between.
You won't find another independent publication that is as keen to put a spotlight on the dark arts of creating technology winners as the alarm:clock.
If you want to see that happening now, then contact our business manager on advertising [at] thealarmclock [dot] com. He is happy to provide the details.
Posted at 08:50 AM | Posted to Sponsored Post | TrackBack | Permalink
Spodradio Raises $10M -Benchmark Joins BayTech
Spodradio's founder Mikko Linnamäki let us know that his startup has raised $10M in its second round of financing just ten months after closing the first round, bringing in new investor Benchmark's European fund. The deal wiil be announced today. Baytech its first round investor also came back for this one.
Stuttgart-based Spodradio has developed software and a platform that enables mobilephone users to listen to their favourite radio stations and view related content on their handsets.
Since its first round it has signed "hundreds" of German radio stations and is now set up to offer four kinds of radio content - traditional broadcast radio, podcasts by subscription, and two newfangled ones called radio on-demand, and personalized radio, according to the firm's CEO and founder.
The new investors were brought in to finance the expansion of the business beyond Germany. "We wanted a Trans Atlantic investor in this round," commented Linnamäki, reflecting a common sentiment among entrepreneurs that have taken VC money from Benchmark in the last year.
Linnamäki declined to give us revenue figures, but confirmed the startup is generating sales - and that he is finding demand among mobile network operators who want the service particularly because it gives them a revenue sharing agreement and one where they don't have to worry about managing the billing and delivery aspects.
Read - Spodradio = Digital Radio + Podshow + Swabian Dialect (a:c)
Posted at 07:58 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink
Buzz Buildup For Neuf Cegetel IPO
Yesterday Les Echos reported the IPO slated for next week of Neuf Cegetel, the French alternative telco and broadband operator, is meeting demand.
Telcos and ISPs traditionally do well on Europe's public markets. Its rival, Iliad, had a stellar IPO back in 2004 that woke us all up after three years of post-bubble gloom and doom. We hear that the early investors in Iliad returned about 75 times money on that exit.
Neuf Cegetel is a good-sized float: if our math is right, a mid-bookbuilding price means the company would raise about €800M, circa €200M of which will actually flow to its coffers as new money. The rest buys out old investors. It would suggest a valuation of €4B.
We don't know much about how customers feel about Neuf Cegetel but we think it is pretty innovative compared to rivals.
It has shown that IPTV is not just about delivering the same stuff we get over the cable or terrestrial networks on a broadband pipe. For example, it launched a VOD service (provided by French startup Glowria) in a simple format.
Through a subsidiary it offers free phone calls in a Skype-like service called Wengo, and its "Hitview" audience monitoring service shows promise too.
Hitview enables IPTV subscribers to "see" not only what channels everyone else is watching, but also which shows are more the most popular. It says it's real time but we notice a 12 hour delay in the data online this morning. Realtime or not, it is difficult to this kind of thing with ease on cable and over-the-air broadcasting networks.
Neuf Does Things With IPTV That Satellite and Cable TV Operators Just Can't
Read - Wengo Expects Breakeven (a:c euro)
Read - Vodafone affiliate Neuf Cegetel IPO two-times oversubscribed - report (afx news)
Posted at 07:35 AM | Posted to Broadband Services | Interactive TV | Internet infrastructure | News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
October 18, 2006
Nanogate Raised €19.3M In Float And Other Fresh Euro Deals
Investments
UK, Icera Semiconductor Has Added a 20M to its C Round, bringing in new investor 3i (semiconductors)
SWEDEN Zyb Taps Nordic Venture Partners raising an undisclosed amount (mobilephone data backup and storage)
Berlin, GERMANY Neva Media Taps German Publishers Burda and Holtzbrinck, amount undisclosed (mobile TV)
IPO
Saarbrucken, GERMANY VC-backed Nanogate floated at high-end of price range raising €19.3M (surface coatings)
Posted at 03:19 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
eCourier - Parcel Delivery In Color
Logispring, a specialized venture firm backed by TNT, the parcel post and logistics giant, as well as Booz Hamilton, has invested £2 million in eCourier, a two year old express parcel and post delivery startup to fund its international expansion.
The company was founded by Tom Allason, CEO, and Jay Bregman, who is the first CTO we've seen that's done time a Harvard Law School, as well as Dartmouth and the London School of Economics.
Allason writes that while working at a shipping firm, "courier-related stress routinely surpassed that of managing trading vessels and new-building projects" - which doesn't say a lot for eCourier's rivals.
The firm's founders have basically put the whole customer-courier interaction thing online, from order entry to courier allocation, route definition, tracking, alerting, and payment and it delivers it all up in a what looks like a state of the art web service.
If the demo reflects how the service really works then it's taking good advantage of self-service and artificial intelligence tech.
Couriers Gets Optimized Routing and Traffic Info In Real Time
It makes the DHL and FedEx's once innovative and pioneering parcel delivery gadgetry look old-fashioned, kind of like watching black and white TV.
Couriers Are Equipped With Nifty PDAs - But Give Them A Touch Screen - It's Too Easy To Lose a Stylus
Read - Logispring invests in eCourier, London’s most innovative same-day courier company(press rel.)
Posted at 11:50 AM | Posted to Online services | Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink
October 17, 2006
PacketVideo Acquires Berlin Startup TwonkyVision
PacketVideo, a San Diego-based mobilephone software company, has acquired Berlin-based TwonkyVision, a developer of middleware for home entertainment networking. The US startup says it intends to continue to support TwonkyVision's products, as well as to add to the capacity its own product line to enable mobilephone and home entertainment electronics “convergence”.
There was no disclosure on the price paid.
TwonkyVision is a six year spinoff of the Fraunhofer Institut in Germany. Its software is traditionally used to enables things like file transfers between an Xbox and a Mac, or streaming music and video to a Sony PSP from a PC.
The Berlin office of TwonkyVision will become a base for PacketVideo in Germany. The US company also has a base in Southern France and recently opened an office in Finland.
We think that the employees pushed for this deal because they felt silly saying that they worked at a company called Twonky.
Read - PacketVideo Acquires TwonkyVision (press rel.)
Posted at 05:16 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink
alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz
Our master quiz question generator has been on the blink, but it's back up now. Here's this week's quiz question.
Name the early stage VC that brought in about a year ago one of the key men that built ARM Holdings into a billion dollar chip sector company and an early UK VC success story.
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.
Posted at 02:59 PM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
German TV Takes Stake In Social Networking Startup
ProSiebenSat1, the same German TV broadcaster that just a few months ago took a stake in Myvideo.de, a German version of YouTube, has now taken a stake in Lokalisten.de, an invitation-only social networking site targeted at the youth market -- actually the PR said that it was targeted at the "myspace generation".
There was no disclosure on the amount paid for the 30 stake acquired. ProSieben said that it likes Lokalisten because it brings together "two opposites", on the one hand "a mass market" - it has 375K users - and on the other "individuality and interactivity".
The web startup was seed funded by the Samwer brothers' European Founders Fund and launched just in May.
Read - ProSiebenSat.1-Gruppe treibt Expansion im Internet .. Beteiligung am Social Network "Lokalisten"
Posted at 01:57 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Samwer's Back US Startup's European Entry
European early stage specialists have taken a stake in LA-based Leadpoint, an online "leads" exchange marketplace. In a Series C round, Leadpoint said it had raised $2M from the European Founders Fund, the Samwer brothers investment vehicle (via Josh Stomel ).
When we last spoke to the Samwers, they had mentioned a deal they were hoping to get in on in the US market. It looks like they are following through, which is good to see.
Founded in 2004, LeadPoint has developed a marketplace (B to B) to exchange business leads about potential borrowers looking to secure loans for real estate, as well as other consumer-oriented credit.
The company plans to tap its new investors' European know-how to drive growth in the UK and the rest of Europe. Early investors in LeadPoint are Redpoint Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
In a statement Oliver Samwer, principal of the European Founders Fund said:
"What is revolutionary about LeadPoint is that it brings an auction style model to the lead generation business. Buyers can bid for the specific types of leads they are looking for and lead sellers can reach the broadest possible range of pre-screened buyers in one location, making the entire lead gen value chain more efficient and profitable for all parties involved."
Read - LeadPoint Secures $2 Million in Series C Financing from European Founders Fund (press rel.)
Read - Samwers European Founders Fund Interview (a:c euro)
Posted at 08:26 AM | Posted to News And Updates | eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink
One-Year Old Gnutek Acquired By SimpleTech
US-based SimpleTech says it has acquired Cranleigh, England-based Gnutek in an all-cash transaction for its Flash memory storage devices. No disclosure on the amount paid.
Founded in June 2005, according to regulatory filings in the UK, Gnutek does not seem to have been venture-funded, which is surpirsing given how cool its Maracite boxes are (they're are targeted at the enterprise data storage market), and how much venture money is flowing in the UK, as well as the comparative ease of access to investors compared to other regions of Europe.
The company's HQ isn't that far from London's Mayfair district but still this venture managed to escape the clutches of VCs and a chance for a quick flip.
Read - >SimpleTech Acquires Gnutek Ltd., a Technology Innovator in Solid State Flash Drives (press rel.)
Posted at 08:13 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Peripherals | TrackBack | Permalink
Ireland's RedMere Taps Canuck VC For SCART Replacement Play
Drogheda, Ireland-based RedMere has raised $8.2M in a round led by Canada's Celtic House Venture Partners after about a year of fundraising, according to Electric News.
It looks like it is not just US VCs making moves when they see a good bet in Europe, Canadian VCs are at it too. The deal was apparently closed in the summer but we are just learning of it now. Co-investers on this round are Enterprise Ireland, 4th Level Ventures, Enterprise Equity, and smaller seed-round investors also contributed.
Founded in 2004, RedMere is a fabless play developing components that will eventually replace old Scart-standard, which will be driven by the emergence of a mass market for high definition TV.
The Scart cable market is a pretty huge one, covering the TVs themselves, media centres, media PCs, set-top-boxes, projection systems, home theatre systems, DVD recorders and personal video recorders.
The new capital will be invested in people. Some 15 new R&D hires are planned for US and Asia. RedMere currently employs 20 people in Cork and Drogheda.
Read - ElectricNews.net:News:Irish chip firm secures USD8.2m outlay (electric news)
Posted at 07:48 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Semiconductors | TrackBack | Permalink
October 16, 2006
Commercetools Finds Seed Capital For An eShop SaaS Play
Munich-based Commercetools, which offers eShop software delivered via the Software as a Service strategy has raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round from Astutia Ventures, a business angel network investment platform, the High Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Seed Fonds Bayern.
Offering eshop software as a service is not exactly new. And since Commercetools' website is still in development, we cannot tell you what is different about this one.
Read - High-Tech Gründerfonds, Seedfonds Bayern und Astutia Ventures unterstützen die commercetools GmbH durch eine Seedfinanzierung (press rel.)
Posted at 12:22 PM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink