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January 31, 2007
Eyesquad Acquired - Quick Exit For VCs Baytech And Adara
Tessera Technologies announced today it will acquire VC-backed Eyesquad for $20M in cash. The deal comes less than a year after the developer of cellphone lenses raised a €4M series A round from Munich-based Baytech Venture Capital and Adara (Spanish VC).
Eyesquad, which still had $2M in cash on its books, has its HQ in Munich and R&D in Israel.
The startup's technology is targeted initially at cellphones and enables things like continuous optical zoom, built-in auto-focus and a close-up imaging capability.
Read - Eyesquad's Cameraphone Lens Breakthrough Attracts Early Stage VC (a:c euro)
Read - EETimes.com - Tessera buys imaging startup for $24 million (eetimes)
Posted at 05:08 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Semiconductors | TrackBack | Permalink
Skype's Voice Engine Company Acquires Crystal Voice
Norway's Global IP Solutions (formerly known as Global IP Sound), which first came onto our radar because it provided audio processing technology to Skype, and now many others as the graphic above shows, has acquired Crystal Voice, based in California. The price was not disclosed.
The deal provides the acquirer with more IP (intellectual property) and know-how to target the enterprise market.
The company also recently signed a $2M deal to license video codecs from Espré Communications Inc, based in Texas. It is expanding its product line from voice to video over Internet.
Posted at 01:02 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
This week's question is a visual one.
Whose WeeMee is this?
Hint: He is a tech entrepreneur turned VC. He lives and works in London.
Send your answer in and win fame, if not fortune in this week's quiz question....
Posted at 12:33 PM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
Austrian Mashup Enabler On A Roll With New Money
Austria's Lixto Software GmbH, a five year old spinoff of the TU Wien has raised €2.5M from Austrian venture capital and private equity firm Pontis.
Lixto has some nice features for IT and business process people looking to harness online and web data for in-house or other types of applications. The firm claims that no programming knowledge is required, suuport for arbitrary XML, no HTML or DOM knowledge required, and integrating legacy web apps is a snap. Its output is portable to mobile phones, PDAs, Web browsers and voice browsers.
It typically sells through systems houses like IBM Global Services, Freudenbert IT and GFT.
Posted at 12:21 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Fuel Cellco P21 Adds Goldman Sachs
Last May we wrote that P21 GmbH was looking to raise about €10M and an announcement today says it has completed the financing round, although the amount was not disclosed. P21's Series C financing round, meant to fund its growth and international product roll-out plans, attracted new lead investor Goldman Sachs, London which joined existing investors Target Partners, Munich and Conduit Ventures Ltd., London.
Its fuel cells are targeted at the telco industry for power backup and supply.
The a:c euro notes this is the latest in a trend that sees the world largest investment banks participating in the financing of all sizes of privately owned alt energy companies. Follow the link(s) below.
Read - US Cleantech Funds Invest In Euro Alt Energy (a:c euro)
Posted at 12:08 PM | Posted to Alternative Energy | News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
How Well Do You Know Europe?
How Well Do You Know Europe? If you get a score better than our a:c euro correspondent, 36/45, let us know and we'll post your results.
More countries in Europe than ever before are involved in the current wave of tech venture growth. Luxembourg is the new Switzerland for Web 2.0 venture headquarters, Romania and Bulgaria are hot for R&D sites, Latvia and Estonia are attracting founder funds, and Russia and Poland are serviing up tech IPOs. So we're thinking that a:c euro readers might want to test their knowledge of the region in this online game, link below, next time you have a coffee break.
Link: Europe Drag and Drop Game
Posted at 10:23 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink
January 30, 2007
Whisher Funded To Take On FON?
Whisher, a Spanish startup making a Wi-Fi social networking community pitch, has raised an undisclosed amount from Benchmark Capital Europe, and Swisscom. The deal was brokered by new Benchmark venture partner Klaus Hommels, famous for backing Skype in the early days.
We don't know much about Whisher yet, but its PR suggests it is a lot like FON, and not just because it is based in Spain. Update: Wifi Networking News has a lot of details on the Whisher setup and compares it to other Wifi startups.
We originally thought that users install its software on their WiFi hardware, but this is incorrect according to Wifinetworking news, it is downloaded to the PC or destop computer, which then enables Internet access as well as a set of applications on top of access, such as Instant Messaging, file sharing, direct access to local services and the ability to set up a "micro community network".
We don't know whose IM service is the default or what "local services" are offered on the top menu.
Investment capital will be used to develop additional features and "to fuel global distribution of the service".
With Swisscom behind it, it's hard to believe that this is a low budget model. We recall Swisscom quietly buying up several Wireless ISP startups in Europe during the first wave of hotspot mania over here and has consistently charged a pretty steep price for usage.
Read - Whisher Offers Wi-Fi Buddy Lists and a Lot More (wifinetnews)
Posted at 02:20 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Germany's Triangle Invests In Video Search Company iPharro
Fraunhofer spinoff iPharro Media GmbH (formerly Semiotix) has raised €4M from Triangle Venture Capital in Germany.
The startup say it has developed software to identify video material using several search methods. What makes it special, it says, is that the system does "not depend on embedded information such as earmarks or fingerprints, but rather uses a content clip-to-clip comparison." It does not rely on metadata or text for the search.
And it claims to be able to detectin "specific sequences in the vast amounts of legacy motion picture material illegally stored on public sites..."
The company is targetting copyright owners. Nielsen Media Research was its first customer.
Posted at 01:46 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Atomico From Zennstrom and Ljungman Part Of Founder Fund Trend
Germany-based advertising tech company Wunderloop's announcement of its star-studded angel round was the first we'd heard of Atomico, a new investment vehicle from Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom and Mattias Ljungman.
Ljungman (below right) is not as well known as Zennstrom, but he worked with CLS Capital in the UK where he led investments in Swedish social networking startup Lunarstorm, IPTV set-top box provider Amino Technologies and Sit-Up TV, a producer of new types of TV content.
Atomico aims to invest in Internet, telecoms, technology and media companies. They say they "invest in entrepreneurs not business plans".
It has a lot in common with some of the other new entrepreneur-driven investment vehicles we've profiled here recently, like Lund Kenner, which invests sweat equity (as opposed to cash), European Founders Fund (Samwer brothers), Ambient Sound Investments, and others that we've metioned like Bright Station Ventures (UK) and Brains To Ventures (Swiss capital pool formed with backing by a number of business angels).
They're basically investing their own money so it is more like getting money from a business angels than from a VC (which has a fund and a general partnership that is regulated and governed and has limited partners attached to it).
The Atomico portfolio contains:
Decentral.TV
Decentral.tv was founded in July 2005 by Erik Abair and Daniel Graf, creators of the world’s first MP3 Jukebox and key figures behind Philips Streamium product line.
Jott
Jott digitises your “to do” lists with mobile and email support and enables "jottcasts" to friends. Founders are John Pollard and Shreedhar Madhavapeddi "both of whom have +11 years at Microsoft. These guys have solved a simple need and the solution is simple and “just works”", writes Atomico.
IQube
Investment vehicle from Johan Stael von Holstein is a seasoned entrepreneur who has previously co-founded Icon MediaLab and Letsbuyit.com among many other companies.
As well as FON, Viagogo, Last.FM and Technorati, four that we are sure all our readers already know about.
Read - German Behavioural Ad Network Wunderloop Raises (alarm:clock)
Read - Who are Atomico Investments? (jooster blog)
Link Atomico website
Posted at 12:15 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Amadeus and 3i Back Cool Wireless PowerAmp Startup Nujira
UK-based Nujira, a maker of Wimax and 3G power amplifiers targeting original equipment manufacturers, has raised a $9.8M Series B funding round. The round was co-led by current investors 3i and Amadeus Capital Partners, and included further investment by Cambridge Gateway Fund, Cambridge Capital Group and the Cambridge Angels.
The startup currently has product with OEMs who are evaluating the tech before making the decision to design it in.
We recently interviewed 3i's Ian Lobley who had this to say about Nujira:
It’s founders are ex-Symbionics, which was acquired Cadence back in 1998. Nujira is delivering something that network equipment makers’ customers want : a cellular basestation that consumes less power and gives off less heat so meeting one of the operators’ environmental targets. You don’t need air conditioning in the basestation cabinet for one thing and the total cost of ownership is slashed. But it also enables a much smaller basestation, small enough to mount on a pole – so called remote radio heads.
Posted at 11:52 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink
US Cleantech Fund Invests in Sweden's Chemrec
Chemrec, a Swedish gasification technology startup, specialized in converting "black liquor" to energy, has raised an undisclosed amount of financing from a Vantage Point Ventures cleantech fund and from Volvo Technology Transfer, according to easier.com.
a:c euro Ed. This deal is just the latest in US investment into European alt energy companies. We've been covering the trend in recents posts listed below.
The tantalizingly named Black Liquor is a major by-product of pulp and paper mills and a highly concentrated form of biomass. It has been proven by Chemrec to be a a significant energy source, that can yield electric power, and potentially motor fuels or chemicals.
“Chemrec has shown that there is an efficient process for converting biomass into renewable fuels,” says Anders Brännström, President of Volvo Technology Transfer. “The Volvo Group has no intention of becoming a fuel supplier but wishes instead to continue to conduct engine development on a broad front. On the other hand, we do want to participate in the development of new processes for the production of alternative fuels.”
Read - Volvo investing in the development of renewable fuels (easier.com)
Read - Big Name Money For Sulfurcell and G24i (alarm:clock euro)
Read - Goldman Sachs To Invest in Solar Panel's Solel At A Valuation In Hundreds of Millions (a:c)
Read - Billions Of Reasons To Invest In Alt Energy (a:c euro)
Posted at 10:22 AM | Posted to Alternative Energy | TrackBack | Permalink
January 29, 2007
Self-Heating Ski Gloves The Latest In Wearable Tech
Reusch, a sporting apparel maker, is launching a new series of lightweight, self-heating ski gloves. The tech for heating the ski gloves was developed in close cooperation with Interactive Wear, a spinoff of Infineon that we like to keep our eye on.
Although it seems a bit untimely to introduce the ski gloves in one of the warmest winters we've had over here in decades where people are spending their weekend walking in the hills rather than skiing, but we do like the LEDs indicators on the gloves. And the technology could be useful in other types of apparel.
It sounds pretty flexible anyway.
The main components of the basic system include:* An electronics unit with a 16-bit microcontroller that manages the intelligent power and temperature control and executes custom and application-specific programmable heating algorithms.
* Special, highly flexible thermal conductors that can be attached to nearly any type of fabric/textile.
* Particularly flat and lightweight lithium ion batteries that feature a high degree of efficiency and – depending on the application and the requirements for heat/power – can be attached individually or distributed on/in the garment in a way that is nearly invisible and is very comfortable for the wearer. These rechargeable power sources supply heat energy for several hours at a time.
* Signaling and power lines that are integrated into the textile to link the temperature sensors, on/off switch, indicator LEDs and batteries with the central electronics and the heating elements.
Read - High Technology for Ski Gloves - Never Have Cold Fingers Again
Posted at 02:54 PM | Posted to Wearable Tech | TrackBack | Permalink
Holtzbrinck Ventures Wants To Fast-Forward Startups
Holtzbrinck Ventures put out a press release today announcing it is making up to €150K available to founders to finance their web-services and Internet project from prototype to market-entry. If the project proceeds to the point where a round of VC is raised, the cash converts to equity. They're looking for ventures not older than 12 months and ones that have not raised any institutional capital yet. There is an email address to contact in the page we linked to below.
While it's quite venturesome of Holtzbrinck Ventures to make such an offer, we're just wondering what's the rush? If someone can explain that one to us, please hit the contact us button in the right hand column and fire off an email.
Read - Holtzbrinck Ventures GmbH Schnellvorlauf statt Stotter-Start (presseportal.de)
Posted at 01:34 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Polish Action Games Publisher Prepares For IPO
Warsaw, Poland-based City Interactive, a publisher of entertainment software with two development studios, is heading for an IPO on the local exchange. Its PR says that it has mandated IDM SA for the transaction and the floatation should take place in the second quarte. We don't have any further details.
The company was founded in 2002 as a merger of a games publisher and two development studios.
Poland seems to have a lot of small games companies, according to The Polish Games Industry: A List of Polish Game Developers & Publishers, published by a student as a result of his Master's thesis, and now an employee of City Interactive. According to the list, City Interactive is number two, and Techland's number one.
Read - The Polish Games Industry: A List of Polish Game Developers & Publishers (umk.pl)
Posted at 09:06 AM | Posted to IPO | TrackBack | Permalink
Why Amadues' Hauser Thinks Euro VC Is Like Goldilocks And More (Interview)
At $100M, the UK organic displays company Plastic Logic raised this month one of the largest rounds of venture capital in Europe for some time. So we asked for an interview with Amadues Capital Partners' Hermann Hauser, an early investor in the company, to find out how the syndicate was built, which led to a discussion about his track record, and what kind of companies Amadeus is looking to invest in now, and why he thinks European venture is having a Goldilocks moment.
...Our report is below the jump.
On The Plastic Logic Syndicate
Plastic Logic did not use a corporate finance advisor to raise its $100M round. Hermann Hauser said that he brought in two US venture firms to Plastic Logic's equity, namely Oak Investment Partners and Tudor Investment Corporation. The two new investors acquired a 30 percent stake in the venture and are now the largest shareholders, followed by Amadeus.
The Amadeus co-founder tapped existing relationships that he has with partners at those firms to close the deal. For example, Oak co-invested with his firm on Virata, which floated and was then acquired Globespan, now called Conexant. "It generated $200M for an Oak fund," Hauser said.
It is that kind of track record that attracts venture industry peers to his portfolio, while others point to it as proof that valuable tech companies can be created in Europe.
For example, Benchmark Capital Europe general partner George Coelho said (during an interview with this reporter last year for an article printed in another publication):
"There are great local success stories. Look at Hermann Hauser who has built three billion dollar companies."
The three firms are ARM in Cambridge UK, Virata (now called Conexant) and Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR).
A more recent exit, although not quite a billion dollar deal, was achieved when portfolio firm Solexa was acquired by Illumina for $600M. "That is a great valuation for a company that is pre-profit," said Hauser. (a:c euro notes that Illumina now has the top rank in Forbes 25 Fast Growing Technology companies published this month)
His firm first invested in Solexa, a genetic analysis equipment company, back in 2001 at a $40M valuation. We remember wondering if Solexa's backers would ever get their money back on their investment, even if its equipment was ultra-fast in comparison to rivals. During the tech downturn the hype had all gone out of DNA sequencing. Most investors were not buying.
And yet the UK company's backers pumped in another $7M when they merged it with NASDAQ-traded Lynx Therapeutics, Inc of Hayward, Calif. in a stock swap valued at the time of the deal in 2005 at $55 million. It turns out to have been a smart move.
With Plastic Logic, Hermann Hauser is hoping to exceed his past achievements.
"I believe, Plastic Logic could be a $10B company," said Hauser.
Where to invest now?
Hauser said Amadeus is looking for companies with disruptive architectures that exploit trends in the market like Web 2.0 and wireless adoption, pointing to examples from the past and current portfolio, to illustrate what he means by that statement.
- CSR had a single chip Bluetooth system [when its rivals were delivering 2-chip solutions],
- Icera Semiconductor has a software-defined baseband chip [making systems its embedded in more flexible and able to handle changes in industry standards], and
- Plastic Logic has innovative, simple - albeit slower- polymer semiconductor technology that is being applied to displays that can be produced at a disruptive price.
A Demo Of The Plastic Logic Display
The latter two are recent investments, others include CacheLogic, benefitting from a new wave of video, audio and Web 2.0 type applications, IPTV gearmker Edgeware in Sweden, and Liquavista which is commercializing disruptive display technology for mobilephones.
This kind of top down approach is one way Amadeus shapes dealflow, the other is to be open to working with "proven entrepreneurs" to be able to back their next generation ideas, he said.
On Being European ---
Hauser is positive on the European market right now. He told the a:c euro it is a "Goldilocks environment". In other words, it's not too hot and not too cold; it's not too hard, nor too soft. And it isn't too big, nor too small - it's just right.
He also said that Europe still has to "prove itself":
"We never had any problem with technology, but there has been an issue about the quality of management. But that has changed. In Amadeus I, 15 percent of the portfolio had an experienced entrepreneur founder. In Amadeus II, it was 47 percent and in current investments it is now running at 90 percent," said Hauser, adding "We can now attract top management from around the world."
Globalization is expanding the scope and increasing opportunity for European ventures. Hauser said:
"It is an absolute must to achieve in the lead market, whether it is in the US, Europe, or Asia. In the past the US was the hurdle, still is for PC oriented startups, but when it comes to other technologies, mobile and wireless, for example, Europe and Asia are the key markets."
Posted at 09:00 AM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink
Hot Betas: Whisher, Total Immersion, And Collanos
Image source: The Warning Sign Generator
We burned our eyeballs looking through the long list of company's presenting at the upcoming DEMO conference in the US to find a couple of European startups that will be making their pitch - we found Whisher, which is a beta, and Total Immersion, which isn't. We also have an update on Collanos, the Swiss/US startup taking on Groove in the US. It's in the hot betas section because its got some interesting and even amusing marketing going on in its blog.
Whisher - Spanish WiFi network operator. Still in stealth mode but some blog posts suggest that it's a competitor for FON. Big in Balbao, apparently.
Total Immersion - French developer of augmented reality software. It plans to present at DEMO its ready to ship version of its platform D'Fusion.
Collanos
Collanos asked some folks to provide one liners to promote its upcoming marketing event.
As the father of 4 small children, nothing is more important to me than team collaboration. Alas, no matter how much I nag, my kids refuse to update the homework wiki. I really should force them all to use their Blackberry’s. Particularly my 5 year old. He’s such a luddite.
(Dave Hornik)
35% of the lessons learned in our class surround the cross-disciplinary nature of the innovation experience. Given that the class focuses on the innovation process and not on team dynamics, there must be something to the team collaboration thing.(Sara Beckman)
Often the coordination of a geographically distributed team is like herding virtual cats in Second Life!”(David Coleman)
Read - One Liners (collanos blog)
Read - DEMO 07 Participants
Posted at 06:30 AM | Posted to Specialized Software | Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
January 28, 2007
British Blog Network Shiny Media Funded - First Deal For Bright Station
Shiny Media, which publishes a slew of fashion, tech, sport, and lifestyle blogs, has raised $4.5M from Bright Station Ventures (BSV), according to a report on the Times Online.
Shiny owns titles, such as TechDigest, which we've linked to and is quite like engadget, TechScape, a new one that promises a sideways look at Web 2.0, as well as titles like Trashionista, which serves up "chick lit" book reviews and Who Ate All The Pies, a football (soccer) blog.
Shiny Media Blogs: A Dash Of British Wit And Popular Themes
Bright Station, which took a 50 percent stake in Shiny Media, was founded by Dan Wagner, who ran several online online publishers, MAID and Dialog Corp., and Shaa Wasmund (she founded of Mykindaplace, a website for teenage girls that is part of BSkyB and has been involved with Bebo).
The Times says that BSV has raised $100M for investment and was founded in part after its founding partners were " humiliated” by their treatment at the hands of British VC investors. That means they will hopefully do a better job. It is also good news that more entrepreneurs are turning their hand to VC activity in the region.
Read - e-Consultancy Dan Wagner Profile
Read - Jilted Tech Boss Tries Hand At Venture Capital (the times online)
Posted at 06:17 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
January 27, 2007
France's iWedia Raises €4M
Iwedia announced raising €4M from French venture firms for its digital TV zapper and middleware development. The two year old French firm provides middleware components and solutions for digital TV set-top boxes and engineering services "across the digital image chain".
The investors in what looks like a second round are CDC Entreprises Innovation, I-Source Gestion (C-Source fund), iXCore and Thales Corporate Ventures.
Milestones to be achieved with the funding include improving the quality and price of its zapper or remote control software to stand out from the competition, adding new features to the software for the mid-range to top-range set-top terminal market, enabling things like digital content-sharing within the home (transported using USB storage or over domestic networks) and storage. And to speed up product dev on software for digital TV operators, partiularly advanced security.
Partners and customers on Iwedia's website
The company has partnerships in place with a few electronic component manufacturers and conditional access system (CAS) suppliers. Customers have been announced in Poland and Uruguay and its system has been qualified for the UK market.
Posted at 06:13 AM | Posted to Interactive TV | News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
January 26, 2007
Startup Raising Capital To Juice TV Cameras For Multiviews
News.ch has a report that LiberoVision, which claims that its specially programmed boxes generate images from existing cameras, enabling TV broadcasters, to add multi-views and replays without adding more cameras around the statdium, is currently raising capital.
For television application, LiberoVision facilitates more insight into debatable or tactically exciting scenes. For example, we can move the magic camera directly onto the offside line to get the perfect perspective. Tactical analysis of game-deciding scenes during mid- and post-game discussions becomes more comprehensive, significant and much more interesting.
The founders spun the company out of the Computer Graphics Lab at Zurich's ETH. They want to win installations for the WorldCup next year. There's been interest from TV stations. But we think it will have to hurry if it wants to get the box into trials with users.
Read - Eins Zu Null Fuer LiberoVision (news.ch)
Posted at 10:19 AM | Posted to | TrackBack | Permalink
a:c euro Puzzler Too Puzzling?
This week's puzzler managed to generate zero responses, which just goes to show that the a:c euro has zero overlap in readership with eFinancialNews.com, or it could just be that you're too busy with serious business.
The puzzler:
Name the partner at a UK venture capital that made the latest Financial News Rising Star list who was the only VC to make the ranking.
The answer:
Frédéric Court now 36 was promoted as the youngest partner at his firm, Advent Venture Partners - founded in 1981.
Frédéric joined Advent from ETEXX, a VC-backed e-collaboration software and online services company which he co-founded in France in 1999. Before that he was at Lazard advising clients in the telecommunications and technology sectors.
Posted at 06:23 AM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
January 25, 2007
Siemens To Buy UGS For $3.5B And Other Fresh Euro Deals
Investments
+ UK Cellcrypt has raised $3.1M from Synergis Technologies (secure voice encryption for Symbian mobiles)
+FRANCE Brainsonic has raised an undisclosed amount from AXA Private Equity (corporate WebTV hosting and rich media consulting)
+ UK Over at the alarm:clock, our US colleagues report that MarketClusters has raised €3M in a round led by NewMedia Spark (market intelligence)
M&A
+ GERMANY Bloomberg reports Siemens Will Pay the Private Equity backers $3.5B for money-losing UGS. ( engineering and software company). Siemens also plans to float its subsidiary VDO Automotive
Posted at 02:34 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Online services | TrackBack | Permalink
CartoReso Seeks Entrepreneur
Image Source: Jeremy Fain blog
Here' something a bit different. Three French university students are seeking an entrepreneur to make a go of a business based on commercializing their network mapping software. They had some pretty reputable help from industry experts help putting the technology and a business plan together. It's all described in a venture proposition in their blog.
Back in beginning of October 2006, we came up with an idea resulting from a market gap yet to be filled in, convinced the very best network security audit company in France (namely, Ercom) to become our corporate sponsor, were coached by a researcher from research institution CEA for the technical aspects and an ex long-time marketing director at Microsoft (& blogger) for the idea validation and innovation strategy issues.The current situation of the project is the following:
• the business case we built our software around shows a clear pathway to profitability within 1 or 2 years depending on yours sales skills;
• a prototype is on its way and should be RTMed by mid-March 2007. . .
They hope to attract a techie entrepreneurs, that wants to establish the venture in the European Union, are willing to spend some time in France during the first year and have good command of French appreciated. It is up for grabs because the three techies want to work at big name software before they go out on their own.
Read - CartoReso Turnkey Project For An Entrepreneur Without An Idea (jeremyfain blog)Posted at 02:31 PM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink
Inside JaJah - Margins, Manpower, And More
In this month's edition of Brand Eins there's a feature on JaJah, the Austrian Internet telephony startup that tapped Sequoia as an early investo. (Brand Eins is the first print publication your a:c euro reporter has initiated a subscription to in many years -- it's Kapitalismus issue last March is what clinched the decision).
Image Source: JaJah Blog
There were a few pieces of info that caught our eye.
-Even with its low rates, it still made a margin on mobile calls. Conference calls and SMS delivered a 60 percent margin. (At least this was the case when they started up. Later comments suggest that case may have changed somewhat.)
- JaJah has 60 employees, half in Israel. Its founders are hoping to file for an IPO at the end of 2007.
- The startup is currently negotiating with a consumer electronics manufacturer to create a JaJah enabled handset for users that don't want to be tied to their PC to initiate calls.
- In 2006 the average turnover per JaJah registered was about €7 per month, an amount the founder expected to decline as the user base expands for its free call services. Volume and a new advertising platform will make up the difference, he told the Brand Eins reporter. The startup has already started to invest in customized ads technology.
- Incumbent operators are not as anti-JaJah as you might expect -- in contrast to pure play VoIP companies, JaJah needs the so-called last mile infrastructure to complete calls.
There's also some insight into how Sequoia operates. It brought in one of the co-founders of a previous success to help the team, the founder of ICQ, one of the earliest Internet chat startups and later acquired by AOL. It also would not sign an NDA. JaJah presented anyway and when the founder wanted to power up for slide presentation, the VCs told them they "don't like powerpoint - beamer off please".
Posted at 02:10 PM | Posted to VoIP | TrackBack | Permalink
Brainsonic Funded For Corporate TV Play
AXA Private Equity has taken a stake in corporate TV and audiocast enabler Brainsonic for an undisclosed amount. The French company said the capital will be used to invest in infrastructure and expand its already international corporate customer base. It is active in France, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland and lists customers, such as ABN Amro, Adobe Systems, Alcatel, Borland, Caisse Centrale de Fortis, GEAC, Groupe CCR-CommerzBank, Hewlett Packard, IBM, IDC, La Poste, and Meetic.
IBM France's Software TV portal is powered by Brainsonic
Brainsonic has two revenue streams, a consulting and video-making business, and a hosting business. We expect that the hosting biz is where AXA sees growth and scalability, not the delivery of camermen and consultants. IBM and Microsoft in France to deliver info, tutorials, and promo videos about their products. It seems to be a Flash specialist.
Read - AXA press rel.
Posted at 09:06 AM | Posted to Online services | TrackBack | Permalink
January 24, 2007
Poland's Gadu Gadu Set For IPO
Poland's largest Internet chat provider Gadu-Gadu has set its IPO share price and plans to issue up to 3.71M new shares aiming to raise PLN 75.1M (about €20M) to finance foreign acquisitions and a possible entry into the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) phone business, reports Interfax, referencing the company's prospectus published Monday. It also said the startup is looking to expand Eastwards, Ukraine and then Russia.
Since we only have limited access to Interfax (the free bits), we couldn't find out what the implied valuation is for Gadu Gadu, or what date in February the IPO is slated for.
There's some good background on the company on the eurotelco blog in a post that said way back in September that Gadu Gadu was going for an IPO. Among other interesting items, it says that Internet users in Poland opted for a homegrown Internet communications platform rather than others, such as MSN Messenger or AIM.
Read - Polish Power (eurotelco blog)
Read - Polish online communicator Gadu-Gadu eyes PLN 75.1 mln in IPO proceeds, foreign expansion(Interfax Central Europe)
Posted at 04:36 PM | Posted to IPO | News And Updates | VoIP | TrackBack | Permalink
Germany's Sulfurcell and Welsch G24i Pull Big Name Money
Some big name investors are reaching across the Atlantic to invest in Euro solar cell companies. Two deals this week came across our screens.
G24i - In an upbeat report, the International Herald Tribune hails European cleantech innovation and within the report is the news nugget that G24i has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from Renewable Capital, a California-based investment firm.
G24i is based in Wales and is commercializing Grätzel (named after the Swiss professor that discovered the technology) cells. We recall that there are several other licensees of this type of photovoltaic, such as Konarka in the US/Austria and DyeSol. These are not as efficient as traditional solar cells but they can be produced more cheaply and don't rely on silicon.
Sulfurcell Solartechnik - Germany's Sulfurcell Solartechnik GmbH attracted a Credit Suisse managed fund known as Masdar Clean Tech as a new investor, along with exisitng investors Vattenfall Europe, Ventegis Capital, IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft and industrialist Engelbert Giesen to its latest round for expansion of its solar module biz (it's cells are based on copper indium sulfide films, which also alleviates a reliance on silicon).
Glass Is Coated With Layers Of Light Absorbing Material Using A Simpler Manufacturing And Assembly Process
We heard about the i-bank interest a few months ago at the European Energy Venture Fair in Zurich. The investment banks, like Credit Suisse and Citibank, are interested in solar firms because they have seen how well their colleagues in corporate finance have done on IPOs in the sector.
Read - Ventegis Capital AG: Solarunternehmen Sulfurcell erhält Wachstumsfinanzierung (FAZ.NET)
Read - Europe Creates Attractive Clean Energy (IHT)
Posted at 02:32 PM | Posted to Alternative Energy | News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Nasper's Investment Value Russia's Mail.ru At $550M
Source: Goldman Sachs
A South African media company Naspers Limited announced yesterday that it has acquired a 30% minority stake in Russian internet service provider, Mail.ru, mainly email, as the name suggests, for a consideration of $165M. The price paid for the stake implies a valuation of $550M.
The shares have been acquired from Digital Sky Technologies and Tiger Global Management, who remain shareholders of the company.
Mail.ru is a leading provider of internet and communication services to the global Russian-speaking community, estimated to be approximately 300 million people. Ranked as the number one email service for Russian speaking users, it markets and provides a wide range of communication services. At present Mail.ru has some 24 million unique monthly visitors, and about two billion monthly page views.
Commenting on the acquisition, Naspers global internet CEO, Antonie Roux said,
“We are impressed with Mail.ru’s excellent management team. What we have found particularly striking is the superb quality of software engineers the Russian education system provides.”
Mail.ru is one of the top sites in Russia, according to Goldman Sachs (in its European Internet Overview report published last Spring). The number one according to the same report is Yandex.ru, the Russian Google. According to sever local press reports last year, echoed in search sector blogs, the firm has mandated two investments banks to take it public. The rumor are it's seeking a $1B to $1.5B valuation.
Posted at 01:25 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Search Co. Exalead Raises €12M And Other French Deals
A round up French deals on Altaïde blog alerted us to some deals we missed over the past couple of days, namely Exalead, Navx, TagAttitude.
+ Search engine technology company Exalead has raised €12M from Qualis, making it a strategic investment from its historic backer. The French search company is going international and developing more consumer oriented services. It's also involved in the Quaero project. (latribune)
+Mobile marketing startup TagAttitude has raised €3M from undisclosed business angels (neteco)
+ French VC Innoven Partenaires has led a €3M round for Navx , It is a location and GPS application company we profiled a few months ago because of its founding team who sold their last venture to AG Interactive in 2004 and a year later founded Navx (neteco)
Read - Wikio Exalead (altaide blog)
Read - Hot Betas Navx (a:c euro)
Posted at 09:43 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
January 23, 2007
Dutch Backup Startup Receives Solid Capital
BackupAgent BV, an online backup software and services provider based in Delft, The Netherlands, has received a "substantial investment" from the Solid Ventures of Amsterdam. The company will invest the capital in further product development and international expansion.
BackupAgent BV is active in an increasingly crowded market, but it claims a leading position in the Dutch market for online backup, supplying ISPs, hosting companies and OEMs, who in turn offer their customers secure and reliable backup services. It also has customers in Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Great-Britain and the United States.
Robbert van Geldrop, CEO of BackupAgent said in a statement that he chose Solid Ventures because of its track record - (a:c euro notes it was one of the first VCs that we know in Europe to start to deliver good exits post-bubble) and its access to successful entrepreneurs, some of whom are shareholders in Solid.
The VC must be doing something right - it has a page of founder references and some of its entreprneurs have even tapped Solid twice - something that you don't see very often.
Posted at 05:25 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Xange and Aurinvest Put €4M More Into Sinequa
XAnge and Aurinvest wrote in to say that they participated in a first round of €4M for Sinequa, an enterprise and Internet-site search company based in France. It supports multilingual search of multiple data sources, such as documents, email, databases, and other applications.
The company is profitable and has an annual turnover of €2.2M. The new capital is to be used to accelerate growth this year.Its customers include La Redoute, Musiwave, Wikio, and several French language online media sites. Wikio, the startup we just reported that raised €4M, uses its search technology too.
Posted at 04:51 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Wikio Raises €4M From International VCs
Luxembourg-based Wikio announced today a Series A round of €4M ($5.3M ) led by Silicon Valley-based Lightspeed Venture Partners along with Gemini Israel Funds. Wikio is a personalized blog and news aggregator and search tool with a user voting mechanism. It is available in French, Spanish, German and Italian and recently launched an English version.
It's a tool that can help take control of the web information you consume, but it takes a while to understand how it works, or it least it took this reporter a while. But once you figure it out it has some nice features.
The quality of the service all depends, just like Google News or any other similar program, on the speed of delivery of the hits, and on the company being able to stock it up with good news and blog sources. We tried venture finance searches and found that there could be some improvement in the range and number of sources.
The business model relies on sponsored links and monetization of commercial searches, the firm said.
The startup was founded by CEO Laurent Binard, whose last venture was called Mediapps, an Internet portal software startup that was founded during the last venture cycle. Chairman and blogging evangelist for the startup is Pierre Chappaz, the co-founder of Kelkoo, who sold it to Yahoo for half a billion, and then went on to join Index Ventures as entrepreneur in residence. He's now also co-CEO of Netvibes, the startpage company.
Wikio's seed investors were: Loic Le Meur (an executive at Sixapart Europe), Martin Varsavsky (CEO of FON), Freddy Mini (COO Netvibes), Ouriel Ohayon (Editor Techcrunch France and a manager of Lightspeed Gemini Internet Lab), and venture investor and blogger Jeff Clavier.
Read - Wikio Secures $5.3 Million in Series A Funding (press release)
Posted at 04:10 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Red Herring Still Open For Europe 100 Nominees
The Red Herring conference organizers wrote in to say that they are extending the deadline for the Red Herring 100 competition. Deadline for online submissions is January 29th.
So get your smart balls startup, your smarter interface pioneers, your geotagging and e-rental web innovators-- or any venture that has not already been identified as a Red Herring 100 company -- to fill out the online submission form.
The winners will be announced at the Venture Market Europe Conference, which takes place March 25-27, in Cannes. Please note that only companies that are privately held and headquartered in the EMEA region are eligible.
Additionally, former Red Herring 100 Winners cannot apply again, but will be considered for a Where Are They Now panel at the Venture Market Europe Conference in Cannes, March 25-27.
Posted at 04:07 PM | Posted to Events | TrackBack | Permalink
3i Finds The Mobile Sector Exit
We’ve posted here several times about the hazards of VC investment in the wireless and mobile sector. Over the past few years we’ve seen lots of money going in and very little coming out. But we noticed that 3i has been divesting often enough that the activity stood out in the flow of news we eyeball at the a:c euro.
We checked that impression with Go4Venture, the technology oriented corporate finance firm, whose data resources are better than ours. Xavier de Lecaros-Aquise, analyst at Go4Venture, wrote back: "It seems your hunches are correct. Not only has 3i been very successful in doing so … it turns out they have been the most active too.”
Here is a list of trade sales and IPOs that we requested from 3i
• Trade Sale: Bitfone to HP USdollars $160m
• Trade Sale: Mobile365 to Sybase USdollars $300m
• Trade Sale: Sychip to Murata USdollars $140m
• IPO: Eleksen GBP £18m
• Trade Sale: UbiNetics 3G business to CSR USdollars $48m
• Trade Sale: UbiNetics test and measurement business to Aeroflex GBP £46m
• Trade Sale: Xenicom to Andrew Corp USdollars $11.5m
• Trade Sale: Trigenix to Qualcomm euro €36m
• IPO: CSR euro €301m
• Trade Sale: Magic4 to Openwave euro €82.6m
• Trade Sale: K-Mobile to American Greetings
In the meantime, the sale of NordNav and Cambridge Positioning Systems to Cambridge Silicon Radio was announced. The NordNav deal gave 3i and InnovationsKapital "up to 8 times" their total investments in the company.
With all that in mind, the following Q&A with Ian Lobley, a senior partner on its VC team, should be of interest to some of you. The interview was done via email and telephone.
a:c euro – How did you manage to find the exit, when many of your peers haven’t?
IL – We’ve had a good run over many years. We’ve been investing in the market for 15 years, across the mobile value chain, investing in software, components, handsets, download platforms and operators….
a:c euro – So have some of your peers in the Nordics and France and they are not yet getting good-sized trade sales or IPOs.
IL: I think that some other investors had a narrower focus in certain areas of mobile, eg ringtones.
a:c euro - How do you interest the big name buyers, like HP, which acquired Bitfone?
IL: Trade sales don't happen in a vacuum - typically there are long term relationships preceding the deals. Helping to get those relationships for our portfolio is one thing we do, for example. Bitfone was an HP partner.
a:c euro – Which area delivered 3i the best returns ?
IL – Investments around the semiconductor area, CSR, Sychip, Ubinetics – have been a great area for us. But middleware and software to the handsets has been good too: Magic4, Trigenix, and Bitfone. Even content, K-mobile was a content company.
a:c euro – Your positive comments on middleware and content are surprising.
IL- It’s true that the most frustrating and challenging wireless model is anything where the operator is part of the value chain – especially marketing content via the operator, or where the success depends on getting into the handset. But even there we have startups that have done it and when they do it and overcome the initial barriers, they can do very well – Magic4 is a great example of this.
a:c euro – Where are you investing now?
IL – DiBcom, chip company for mobile TV where it is market leader; ScreenTonic, mobile ads – it's French and offers a full-set of tools and a platform for mobile phone advertising – its customers are the operators and advertisers; Nujira, which makes components to improve significantly the efficiency of wireless base stations. This allows dramatic reductions in power consumption and, for example makes, Wimax base stations work at unprecedented levels of efficiency.
a:c euro – We haven't heard of Nujira.
IL- It’s founders are ex-Symbionics which was acquired Cadence back in 1998. Nujira is delivering something that network equipment makers’ customers want : a cellular basestation that consumes less power and gives off less heat so meeting one of the operators’ environmental targets. You don’t need air conditioning in the basestation cabinet for one thing and the total cost of ownership is slashed. But it also enables a much smaller basestation, small enough to mount on a pole – so called remote radio heads. There is a press release about it here
a:c euro – What’s your approach to new mobile sector investments?
IL – we are trying to build on our success over 15 years; thoughtful and cautious!
a:c euro – thanks for the interview.
Posted at 09:57 AM | Posted to Venture Capital | Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink
Homeaway Buys French Abritel - Samwers Join The Equity
The French company behind Abritel.fr, a vacation property rental platform, has been acquired by US-based HomeAway (which has been financed to the tune of $160M for a global online property rental play) for an undisclosed amount, reports eyefortravel.com.
HomeAway also has taken an investment from the European Founders Fund GmbH, the investment vehicle run by brothers Marc, Oliver and Alexander Samwer who will be helping with the European expansion.
Read - HomeAway, Inc., the US-based owner of www.Holiday-Rentals.co.uk, has acquired Abritel.fr (eyefortravel)
Read - HomeAway Has The Cash (alarm:clock)
Posted at 07:11 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Who Reads The alarm:clock euro
While we have a pretty good idea of who reads the alarm:clock euro thanks to your emails, Skype messages, and telephone calls, our advertising partner FM Publishing asked us to get more details via a short (it really is short) survey.
We hope it will enable FM to make better matches between marketers and this site, which will help us to continue our coverage of Euro venture news, trends, and events.
Please let us know if you have any problems accessing the site that FM set up for the survey. And of course, any other feedback, suggestions, or crticism is always welcome.
Posted at 07:01 AM | Posted to | TrackBack | Permalink
Euro VC-Backed IPOs Up In 2006
Last year was the best for European VC-backed IPOs since 2000, according to VentureWire analyst Russ Garland in a report published in VentureWire Alert. (It is a free daily newsletter from DowJones VentureWire and provides a sampling of what is available with a full-subscription).
The region outperformed the US in terms of the number of floatations: 91 for Europe versus 56 in the US. The short report did not say if the US IPOs actually raised more money per company.
Garland also said that "more European venture-backed companies went public in 2006 than in any year since 2000, but it took them a lot longer and they didn't raise nearly as much capital". He was referencing VentureOne's latest analysis of the data. Here are some other details reported:
The median amount these companies raised in an IPO in 2006 was EUR13.1 million. That compares with a median of EUR42.1 million for the 183 venture-backed European companies that went public in 2000.The 2006 crop went a median of 5.9 years from getting their first equity to their IPO. In 2000, the median time to liquidity was 1.4 years. European companies acquired last year had gone just as long since their first venture round as those that went public - a median of six years.
The median pre-IPO valuation of the European companies was EUR41.5 million - up from EUR36.7 million in 2005, and the highest since 2001. VentureOne is owned by Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of VentureWire.
The good news is that the public markets in Europe were doing what they are supposed to in 2006, providing a "reliable source of fresh capital" for companies. But the bad news, at least from the VC perspective, is that not all IPOs are providing an exit for investors.
The a:c notes that this is something that has pretty much been the case for the past few years, and probably explains why many VC-backed companies choose the M&A, preferably all cash, route to the exit.
Another source, AltAssets, published an article on the same subject. There we could see that while the number of IPOs continues to climb each year since 2001, it is at about half the 2000 IPO bubblicious level of activity.
It will be interesting to see what happens this year as the European tech economy improves: will the IPO become a reliable exit channel for VCs (ignoring the debate about whether or not it should be the point of exit ) and will the length of time it takes to reach IPO shorten?
Link- VentureWire Alert Subscription
Read - Number of European venture-backed IPOs in 2006 highest since 2000 (AltAssets)
Read - Ten Tech IPOs In Europe Over $100M
Posted at 06:28 AM | Posted to Being European | IPO | TrackBack | Permalink
January 22, 2007
Billions Of Reasons To Invest In Alt Energy And Dotcoms
Wonder why Silicon Valley VCs are eyeing cleantech? It could be the IPOs - few other areas areas for VC type investment are generating billion dollar valued companies.
Throughout 2005 to mid 2006, alt energy IPOs delivered four companies with market caps of greater than a billion dollars, namely REC (Norway), Q-Cells (Germany), Conergy (Germany), and Sunpower (us), according to Bankinvest New Energy Solutions, which is currently raising its second alt energy VC fund.
The a:c euro, which is not raising a new fund, adds that in the meantime France's Energies Nouvelles completed yet another multi-billion euro IPO on the Euronext.
And while we're on the topic of value creation, there's Betfair, which is a three billion dollar reason that VCs are interested in Internet ventures again. (See our earlier post Web 2.0 VC Dealmaking On The Upswing)
"Betfair is one of the largest Internet success stories that few of us in the US know much about. This is because Betfair is a UK-based company that operates the world’s largest online betting exchange and does not accept bets from US consumers...
So begins a recent post on Betfair in Startup Review. The article is worth reading for several reasons:
1) it provides details on money-in and money-out (more correctly said, partially out),
2) insight into how the founders grew the biz, and
3) it is a story about "how a non-VC funded Internet startup can win against a better-funded VC-backed start-up in the same market".
Read - Web 2.0 VC Dealmaking On The Upswing (a:c euro)
Link - Bankinvest Alt Energy Presentation (pdf)
Read - Betfair Case Study Target Niche And Expand (startup review blog)
Posted at 01:40 PM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink
Web 2.0 VC Dealmaking On The Upswing
Today the Financial Times has a report inspired by fresh research from Paul Fisher of First Capital on Web 2.0 and Internet investments in the European region in 2006. It reports the amount raised last year jumped to more than £144M (about €219M). It also has commentary from active online service investors, such as Barry Malone of Benchmark Capital who talks about the "spray and pray" approach to investment and Fred Destin who talks about what it will take for Europe to grow.
Fisher posted the original data on his blog along with some good analysis, and created a good table showing all the deals in question. He writes:
More than £144mn was raised in Europe across seed and first rounds in 2006 by 54 European web2.0 companies. This total doesn’t include the “undisclosed investment” rounds, of which there were 16.The growth is remarkable.
In the UK in 2005, just £24mn was invested into web2.0 companies. In 2006 that figure increased threefold with £79mn worth of early stage investments into 21 companies.
The FT's article is currently not behind its firewall, so you can read it now. Here are some quotes from Benchmark's Malone:
These [Web 2.0] companies are also much cheaper to set up than other technology businesses."It is very difficult to build up a semiconductor company or an enterprise software business. You need to invest $40m to $50m before you know if you have a product that works," Mr Malone said. "With web 2.0 companies you can find out after three or four million dollars whether it will work."
As a result, Mr Malone said, many European venture capital companies were using a "spray and pray" strategy, spreading small amounts of investment over dozens of companies in the hopes that two or three would make it.
Atlas Venture's Fred Destin said:
Europe can do well if we learn to live with the losses. Some companies will fail. In the US, when that happens, people say ‘hey, we tried’ and start again, but in Europe people remember the failures more readily than the successes.”
Read - FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Internet investment surges in Europe
Read - Early Stage Venture Capital in Web 2.0 (coffee shops of mayfair blog)
Posted at 09:40 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
This week's alarm:clock euro Puzzler question:
Name the partner at a UK venture capital that made the latest Financial News Rising Star list. As far as we could see, he was the only VC to make the ranking. Last year it was Danny Rimer of Index Ventures. The person in question was named because he is the youngest partner at his firm and before becoming a VC, he founded and led a B2B online marketplace. Hint: He's a specialist in internet, digital media and mobile technology investments.
Click the Contact Us link in the right-hand column and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro Puzzler this week.
Posted at 08:38 AM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
German Startup Big In Japan Finds Financing But Not From VCs
IKV++ Technologies AG, a Berlin-based company that develops applications used by developers for modelling big-sized software projects, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from IBB in Berlin and ICAM GmbH on the back of several customers wins like NTT Data, Hitachi, and Toyota in the Japanese market.
Typically, customer wins, especially international ones, will attract VCs to a venture's financing round, but we note that the investors are IBB and ICAM, neither of which is a VC fund with traditional LP/GP structure.
IBB is an investment vehicle whose mandate is "to foster the development of regional businesses in selected areas and to strengthen the local labour market". Contrary to what several German VCs have told the a:c euro -- basically that vehicles like that are not worth watching -- we think that IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft is worth a second look.
If we follow the money and not what VCs say, you will see that IBB's vehicle has announced six divestments since December 2005. It has also managed to steadily increase its ability to find co-investors for portfolio companies. (The image below shows this trend).
IBB sold its shares in Ableton, a quick growing digital audio software startup, last year to a US-based private investor specialized in the sector; sold it shares in print workflow startup to dots gmbh to Konica Minolta and it also had a trade sale of navigation softwre company Gate5 to Nokia, which by all reports was a good exits for its backers. It floated fuel cell startup Heliocentris on the Entry Standard, Germany's junior stock exchange, and a biotech startup it backed, Jerini, floated in December 2005,
IVK++'s other investor is ICAM, which we understand was co-founded Radu Popescu-Zeletin, a TU Berlin prof and director at the well-known Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS). Another one of Popescu-Zeletin venture investments, TwonkyVision GmbH was acquired by Calif-based PacketVideo last year.
Read - Modellbasierte Softwareentwicklung (berlinews)
Link - IBB's press release
Posted at