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March 31, 2007

Euro eCommerce Trend: Off-Price Fashions For Members Only

We've noticed a spate of investment across Europe in new eCommerce sites set up to sell off designer fashions and accessories at discounts to "members-only". In the retail world, the equivalent might be off-price shop that only sells to card-carrying members.

The latest is a Spanish/German venture called BuyVIP. Others include UK-based Koodos.com, Privalia, also Spanish, and two French ones 24h00 and AchatVIP

BuyVIP offers German and Spanish language versions of its site. Just raised €2M from MCI (a family office advised by Active Capital Partners), Grupo Intercom (VC arm of Spanish Internet holding co.) and a pool of investors represented by Valkiria Network International Holding. It claims 200K members and was founded by Gustavo Garciá Brusilowsky and Gerald Heydenreich. The two previously build PORTUM, an auction and procurement platform that did €5B in turnover, which was acquired by IBX Europe in 2006.
Read press rel.

Privalia, also from Spain, recently raised €400K from , according to Carlos Blanco's blog from Internet entrepreneurs and two strategic investors.

Koodos.com is an English language, private sale site selling luxury brand-name items, backed by Atlas Venture. Its longer term plan is to sell through consumer facing ecommerce sites, according to Robin Klein's blog.

Olfo, the company behind AchatVIP.com raised €3.5M in January from Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners and OTC Asset Management.

France's 24h00 also recently raised capital in February when AGF Private Equity invested €6M. It also sells brand name items at special prices for a limited time only.

Posted at 05:28 PM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink

Germany's Pace Raises €3M

PACE, a high-end engi­nee­ring soft­ware startup has raised €3M from Germany's eCAPITAL, Dutch Stra­tegic Euro­pean Tech­no­lo­gies N.V. and Berlin Mittel VC. Its customers include Rolls-Royce, Airbus, and Bombardier who use its software for CAD like applications in aircraft performance, cabin design, and industrial product design.

Expansion into other vertical markets and an international push are on the agenda.
View Pace

Posted at 04:24 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Russia's Yandex Acquires Biz Social Networking Site

Yandex, the Russian portal and WiFi network operator, has acquired Moikrug.ru, which is said to be the country's largest social networking site for professionals. Moikrug roughly translates to MyCircle.

Regular and active a:c euro reader Yakov Sadchikov, co- founder of Russia-based search company Quintura, uses the term ‘acq-hired’ to describe the deal, suggesting the know-how and experience of the team at Moikrug was the attraction. Moikrug is said to have some 100k registered users.

No disclosure on price but rumors range from $1.5M to up to $5M including cash and Yandex stock options.

Read - Yandex buys social network MoiKrug.ru (cnews)

Posted at 03:44 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 29, 2007

Euronext Internet IPOs - More Dotcoms

Euronext has supported a few more dotcom IPOs.

Notrefamille (mkt cap €16.9M on Alternext)
Its websites help you find your family and then send them gifts. VC-backed

AdenClassfieds (mkt cap €216M on Eurolist)
Operates several career search related websites. VC-backed.

Referencement.com (mkt cap €16.5M Marche Libre)
European search engine marketing firm

Entreparticuliers (mkt cap €52.6M on Alternetxt)
Internet sites for real estate ads from and to consumers. The group also sells the publication Les Annonces Immobilières.
View Euronext.com

Posted at 06:16 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Vinod Khosla Answers To Your Questions

We recently asked alarm:clock readers to mail in questions for VC titan Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, who has been busy lately making investments in alternative energy. Here some top questions with his responses.

Posted at 06:05 AM | Posted to Alternative Energy | TrackBack | Permalink

March 28, 2007

Paris' Trace.TV Takes Strategic Funding From Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group has made a strategic investment of an undisclosed amount. In addition to cash, Universal will provide Trace with global music and video rights, a weekly slot on Universal's International Music Feed and cross promotions, including an urban music partnership to sell mobile content in China.

Launched in 2003 in Paris, France, TRACE began as a print magazine and now runs urban music programming in multiple languages across Internet, cable, satellite, radio, IPTV and mobile platforms. It expects to launch in the US market in 2007/8. In 2003, Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group made an investment.

Trace's founders are Claude Grunitzky, Olivier Laouchez who are former TV and record label senior executives, and Richard Wayner a former investment banker.

Read - Universal Music Group (UMG) to Invest in Alliance TRACE Media (TRACE)
View - site

Posted at 07:32 PM | Posted to Media | TrackBack | Permalink

Austria's Carlyle-backed UC4 Buys Appworx

Austria's UC4 Software is buying Bellevue, WA's AppWorx. The company makes the claim to be the first truly global and independent provider of IT process automation and optimization solutions. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

UC4 sells enterprise job scheduling and data center automation while AppWorx sells event-driven business application automation and batch integration technology.

The Carlyle Group, which owns 80% of UC4 Software, has supported the merger with a follow-on investment in UC4.

UC4 recently released financial data indicating that in the first three quarters of 2006 ithad total revenue of USD 29.5M (EUR 22.9M) – this corresponds to an increase of 23% over the same period of the previous year.

Read - Application Automation and Job Scheduling Vendors Join Forces to Apply New Focus on End-to-End Process Management Challenges (Press release)

Posted at 06:42 PM | Posted to Financial Software | TrackBack | Permalink

ePayment's Moneybookers Bought Out By PE Firm For €105M

London's Moneybookers, an online payment provider and the UK's first FSA-licensed e-money issuer, says that private equity firm Investcorp Technology Partners has bought-out of the company for €105M. The company was 100% owned by Gatcombe Park Ventures in London.

Moneybookers says its processed transaction volume reaching more than EUR2.5B with 3M account holders. Moneybookers customers can pay and at more than 3,500 online shops that are using Moneybookers without entering their payment details. Moneybookers charges never exceed EUR0.50 for sending money worldwide.

So why are people using Moneybookers rather than PayPal or Google Checkout? It seems that Paypal still does not work or work well in a number of countries.

View - Press release

Posted at 06:36 PM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink

French VC Backs UK's Webjam

We just heard from Webjam that it raised £1M from iSource Gestion, a French venture capital firm. The founding team, former employees of Yahoo, are British, Spanish and French and based in London.

The round was raised shortly after launching a public beta on February 1st, wrote Sonia Kalfon in an email to alarm:clock euro. She is Product Marketing Manager at Webjam.

Kalfon and co-founder Alberto Barreiro and Chief Product Officer.

Kalfon said that iSource's recent float of geneology site, notrefamille.com [on Alternext the junior Euronext market], is what clinched the deal from the founders' point of view.

It's a nice looking and responsive website - tightly designed too. And while some Web oriented writers have called it "Myspace plus Netvibes on Steriods", we cannot help but wonder if the the world really need another blogging, photo, chat, and event publishing platform? Time will tell.

View Webjam blog

Posted at 06:32 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Top 5 Fast Digital Startups in the UK - King.com By Far

GP Bullhound, a UK-based corporate finance firm, has done some research on digital media companies in the UK (for an event it organizes) and published a list of the top five of 50 based on revenue growth over between 2003 and 2005, with casual gaming company King.com topping the list.

Interestingly, the high growth irates spans a range of categories, from SMS-based marketing to online advertising.

Top 5 Fastest Growing Digital Media Companies 2007 [GB]

1 King.com 20,900% Online Skill Gaming
2 OTPmedia 5,711% Internet Advertising
3 Txt4 4,278% Mobile Marketing
4 Kontraband 1,1660% Online Entertainment/ Viral Marketing
5 Gamesys 1,511% E-gaming
View- Site (Top 50 2007 List is not posted yet...)
Read - alarm:clock networks coverage of King.com

Posted at 04:21 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 27, 2007

ZBD Raises $20M - Its e-paper Goes Global

ZBD, a UK company that has commercialized what it calls e-paper (bi-stable displays) has raised a further $20m in private equity funding to grow its electronic point of purchase solutions business.

The system is popular because grocers can change shelf pricing, promotions and product information dynamically. E.g. fresh food retailers can reduce the amount of food that is disposed of every day by putting on discounts as it nears closing time.

Lansdowne Partners and Esprit Capital Partners join existing investors, Prelude, QinetiQ, Dow Chemical Company and TTP Capital Partners, who have funded ZBD’s innovative technology since the company’s inception.

Read more from the a:c euro about ZBD

Posted at 07:18 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Estonia's Ambient Backs Oskanda Eurosat Deal

Telematics company Oskando, which is backed by Ambient Sound Investments (an investment of some former Skype engineers) has acquired a 20 percent stake in GPS solutions provider Eurosat Group, an Estonian company that sells GPS gear and develops software for businesses that want to integrate GPS into their existing systems. The deal was financed by Ambient.

Oskando offers Homekeeper, which is an

alternative to this

View Oskando

Posted at 07:10 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Novintel and C-squared Raise VC Funding

CapMan made an investment in, and acquire 3i Group’s stake in, Finland-based custom market intelligence company Novintel. No financial terms were disclosed.

Meanwhile, over in the UK, C Squared raised £250,000 from The Capital Fund. C Squared is a publisher and event organizer for the advertising industry. It publishes Cream Magazine, M&M Europe and runs the Venice Festival of Media.

View - Novintel site
View - C Squared site

Posted at 07:24 AM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

Streetcar - London's Pay As You Go Car Rental Business Raised £6.4M And Plans IPO By Year End

Streetcar which was founded in 2004 has raised £6.4M to help fund its expansion before a possible flotation, reports The Times. The company claims has more than 10,000 members and says it will use the financing from Smedvig Capital to increase the size of its fleet of its cars and to continue its growth outside London.

Streetcar has a number of comparable startups in other countries like Zipcar in the US that have been funded and that are growing in urban areas. Car clubs such as Streetcar are becoming increasingly popular in large cities because they help to cut the expense of owning a car. Members pay an upfront fee and can then book a rental car that sit in parking lots throughout a city. Prices start from £4.95 an hour.

The company's founders financed the start-up costs with their own savings and a £100,000 bank loan. They were refused credit by 70 banks and angels but stuck to it.

Read - FEATURE: Streetcar it might just work (Real Business)

Read - Streetcar names desire for £6m expansion plan
(The Times)

Posted at 07:08 AM | Posted to IPO | TrackBack | Permalink

Experteer Brings In Wellington and BV Capital

Christian Leybold of BV Capital sent us in the news that German startup Experteer, which runs a web-based executive recruitment platform, has raised a second round of investment of an undisclosed amount from firm BV Capital (backed Del.icio.us, Rojo, Expertcity) and Wellington Capital Partners (which backed Xing).

They join early investor Holtzbrinck Ventures and some unnamed Silicon Valley investors, according to BV Capital's press announcement of the investment.

The jobs on offer are the better paying ones in Germany and dozens of headhunters are using it for recruitment. The site itself is refreshingly uncluttered with a simple to grasp UI. It is designed for people that want to search based on location.

The a:c euro notes that location is a factor that is more important in Europe than in other regions that we've lived in.

Its business model reverses what's typical in Germany (and surrounding countries), the jobseeker buys a subscription. The job offers are free to post.

View Experteer

Posted at 05:28 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Burda Takes Stake In SevenLoad

Burda Digital Venture, the German media company's venture arm has taken a small stake in YouTube-like Sevenload GmbH. There was no disclosure on the size of the investment, but the corporate finance team that assisted two year old Sevenload's founders Axel Schmiegelow and Ibrahim Evsan on the deal said it is "one of the largest Web 2.0 investment in Germany to date".

One of our regular and trusted readers from Germany told the a:c the amount invested is rumored to be in the "upper single digit million Euros".

Burda will also enter a business cooperation with Sevenload to enable video publishing by some of its brands and communities.

SevenLoad has several "channels" now. Folks send in their own cooking shows, comedy series, and day-in-the-life style reporting.

There's premium content too.
Read - IEG press announcement

Posted at 05:02 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 26, 2007

Xing Now Speaks Spanish With eConozco Acquisition

One thing we've noticed over the years that we have been following him, is that Lars Hinrichs, founder of Open Business Club AG, the company behind XING, does what he says he is going to do.

He said a few months ago he wants to do an acquisition or two and he is doing it. An announcement today said Open Business Club has acquired eConozco, one of the leading Spanish contact networks for professionals, from Grupo Galenicom. It says eConozco is the second-largest Spanish contact network with approximately 150,000 members.

There was no disclosure on the price paid and the company will be run as a subsidiary until the transaction is completed, which will take about 12 months, said Open Business Club in a statement.
View Xing IR

Posted at 08:29 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

WebWag Acquires One Year Old Mobease

Franck Poisson, the founder of WebWag, sent us the news that his firm has acquired one year old Mobease to add mobile widgets and a mobile search engine to its Web-based product line, which includes an AJAX build-your-own homepage platform with a search feature and customization tools (lots of APIs and plug-ins) or widgets.

Mobease is in Bordeaux and it has some jobs on offer for progammers. Its software supports Symbian phones and enables things like a scrolling news feed.

The founder of Mobease becomes COO of WebWag.

View Mobease blog
Read - Silicon Valley Move For WebWag (a:c euro)

Posted at 08:10 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Sweden's Tobii Taps Investor Growth Capital

Sweden's Tobii Technology has raised a nice sized $14M round of venture capital funding from Investor Growth Capital. The investment, its first, will be used to accelerate the company's growth, enhance product development and expand global sales and marketing efforts.

The a:c euro notes that Tobii has really made some progress since we wrote about it a year ago, launching a line of hardware, adding OEM products, and services to exploits its eye tracking technology.

View - Tobii Press
Read - A New Dimension In Eyeball Metrics (a:c euro)

Posted at 06:31 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Ipercast Raises Capital To Grow Internet Video Distribution Biz

Riding on the growing demand for video and IPTV services over the net, France's Ipercast has raised €2.5M from OTC Asset Management and Siparex, according to Altaide blog. The five year old company runs a very lean organisation that manages IP multimedia services across the board from DRM, to electronic programming guides, security, and content distribution network services.

Read - Ipercast leve €2.5M (altaide blog)

Posted at 06:22 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 25, 2007

Scottish Startup Seeks £25M To Grow Oil- And Gas Detecting Biz

At the Scottish TechTour last year we heard some good things about MTEM, a university spinoff that has developed a electro-magnetic analysis system to outline and monitor oil and gas researves, in real-time.

Now it's looking to raise £25 to grow the business, according to an article in the Scotsman. The paper said that an MTEM rival ElectroMagnetic GeoServices, in Norway is getting ready for an IPO that would value it at £200M. That deal will help MTEM in pricing the round, no doubt.

MTEM spun out of Edinburgh University in November 2004 with £7.4M in funding from Scottish Equity Partners and two Norwegian funds, Energy Ventures and HitecVision. The VCs own 65% of the business, with the rest divided between MTEM's founders, its employees and Edinburgh University.

MTEM employs 70 engineers, technicians and administrative staff, today and has opened its second office in Houstion. It plans to open further branches in Calgary in Canada, Tripoli in Libya, and Stavanger in Norway.

Read - Scotland on Sunday - Business - Oil spin-out seeks £25m funding (scotsman)

Posted at 01:41 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Europe Is Fifty - Where's The Party?

If fifty is the new thirty, as people of a certain age say, then the Europe Union is ready to party. It's 50 years since the Treaty of Rome was signed, establishing the European Economic Community. We sifted through some of the media coverage this weekend.

Clearly the Euro-sceptics are out in force, but there are a few that aren't bashing what's been achieved - we're just not sure who's voice is louder.

There's a couple of good reasons why a:c euro readers might feel more positive about the EU than others, but first some of those voices.

There's an amusing but cynical roundup of anniversary events from ForeignPolicy.com (listed here)...

- Belgium is hosting a veteran rock concert
- Denmark is giving away free buns
- Ireland is organizing a “Prayer for Europe”
- Luxembourg is arranging a circular walk
- Romania is establishing ...

..a European Union Internet chat-room
- Spain is producing a giant puzzle
- Slovenia offers free parachute jumps (“very liberating”, writes the FP, “a chance to escape the EU, perhaps”)
- Berlin is hosting all-night rave featuring 100 DJs in 35 clubs, not to mention free beer and sausages and a rock concert at the Brandenburg Gate

Another British voice, with a different attitude, is quoted by Radio Netherlands. He points out that fifty years ago "less than half the European continent was democratic. Eastern Europe was Communist, Spain, Portugal and Greece were dictatorships. The EU has spread democracy, stability and security and prosperity across the whole continent. Never since the Greeks invented the word 'Europa' have there been fifty years of peace and prosperity. NATO has helped but it's largely due to the EU."

And Irish rocker-turned-VC Bono mentions the US contribution to it all and the impact on Ireland and his hope that there'll be more of the same for other parts of the world.

Say what you will, the Europe Union has got some things going on. There's the Euro, a single currency used in the regions largest countries (and will be used in the new demographically strong members joining this year) and it is accepted across the region and around the world. It has also grown in value. We'd have made a bundle if we'd bought those speculative currency funds our brother-in-law was selling back in 1992.

Funds from the EU backed the GSM digital cellular standard (a success - but no comment on operator roaming charges here), and its citizens have the right to cross borders, travel and work in EU countries (although only 1.5% of the population has actually done it), and its environemntal investments are cool like Natura 2000 (the biodiversity project).

And for a:c euro readers, the European Investment Fund (EIF) is important. As Real Deals recently wrote, “The EIF has built a reputation for providing crucial cornerstone commitments, and providing financing for emerging managers and untested territories.”

With some similarities to state-backed small business support that the US has, the EIF's contributes to entrepreneurship via co-investments and sometimes sponsorship investments in European VC funds.

Like it or not, a lot of the investment in the current generation of startup has been enabled by profits made from EIF-supported funds that invested during the last cycle in companies like Skype (acquired by eBay), Kelkoo (acquired by Yahoo for half a billion euros in 2004), and Cambridge Silicon Radio (billion euro Bluetooth chipmaker).

View Europa 50
Read - Europe’s 50th Anniversary Clown Show (foreignpolicy.com)
Read - EUROPEAN PRIVATE EQUITY’S MOST INFLUENTIAL 2006 (real deals)

Posted at 08:03 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink

March 23, 2007

alarm:clock euro Puzzler - Engel Ueber Berlin, Paris, Lisboa

Sorry for mangling Wim Wenders’ lovely film title but it worked better than Himmel. We note that biz angels like to organize themselves into networks. With that in mind, here’s the puzzler:

Which of the following statements is most accurate?
a) Germany has 4 business angel networks?
b) Germany has 40 business angel networks?
c) Germany has 14 business angel networks?

... you can guess and have a one in three chance of getting it right!

Bonus question: Name the network of angel networks active in Europe?

This week’s Puzzler was inspired by Paul Kedrosky’s provocative post entitled: When Angels Rule The World, Part XXXIV on Infectious Greed.

The first and 15th a:c euro reader to write in with the correct answer will win Puzzler fame, if not fortune. Here’s the address...

Posted at 01:10 PM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink

Enfis With AIM Float For Light Engine Tech

Enfis, a Wales-based maker of LED-based light engines and arrays that go into products like the spotlight shown here, has raised £4.5M on Aim. It had been backed by investor Wesley Clover, an investment vehicle of Terry Matthews, the Welsch Canadian entrepreneur.
Read - Enfis in £4.5m Aim switch-on

Posted at 12:13 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

More Zopa Clones For Germany Smava and One2Money

The spreading of the Zopa clones has likely been hindered by regulatory and infrastructure issues, but it's catching on now. We mentioned Boober.nl last week, and this week we read about One2Money and Smava in Exciting Commerce blog.

We were talking to James Alexander the UK CEO of Zopa and co-founder on the phone a few weeks ago about the importance of being first. Is there such a thing as first mover advantage anymore?

He replied in the affirmative, and talked about the founders' experience at Egg, how it helped with starting up Zopa, and how lessons learned in the early days taught them what to avoid.

Alexander noted that credit checks and "a few other kinds checks" are critical, and that the first wave of borrowers are not necessarily the most desirable ones. He didn't give other examples on the record, why should he help the competition avoid expensive mistakes, afterall.

The German ecommerce blog says that the Smava crew counts the co-founder of Datango Alexander Artope (see our recent post about Datango below) is working on Smava, along with Bernd Hades (formerly of Econa), Jörg Rheinboldt (formerly of eBay), Eckart Vierkant (Ex-ECC) and Sebastian Rieschel (formerly of Jamba)."

It has a famous angel investor, Stefan Glänzer (who invested in last.fm - among other startups - and was a co-founder of Ricardo.de).

One2Money counts as at least one of its backers Patrio Plus, a shareholding company, whose portfolio currently includes 10tacle Studios (which recently floated), Pintango, and Happybet. It will be working with an unnamed German bank.

Neither of the startup teams have launched their services yet, so there's we are not linking today.
Read -Zopa Raises $12.9M More And Hires New CEO (alarm:clock)
Read- HPV chooses Datango (a:c euro)
Read - Smava Weiterer Social Lending... (exciting commerce)

Posted at 11:05 AM | Posted to Online services | TrackBack | Permalink

Stress Reduction Web 2.0 Style

The topic is the business kind of stress -- not the astute and popular Swiss hiphop artist Stress.

Yesterday, Peter Schuepbach, the Swiss business angel who's invested in Xing.com, Plazes, StudiVZ, Hitflip, and is also an entrepreneur, said he's found a Web 2.0 beta that reduces stress.
Stress 2.0 (Sorry it's only in German)

Read - Hast du Stress 2.0?

Posted at 07:27 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

Turkey's Venture Market Has A Blog

(image source: instanbul.com)
The launch of LeVenture.com, a new Istanbul-based vehicle for investing in Turkish startups, opened our eyes to the market there. Turns out there's a couple of blogs on the topic. We came across Grandstanding Traction, which tracks Turkish VC news, PE activity, and exits. We've added it to our Netvibes dashboard.

It links to a couple of VC-type Bloggers, such as From Instanbul to Sand Hill Road and SortiPreneurs, as well as a few others.

View - Grandstanding Traction
View - From Instanbul to Sand Hill Road
View - SortiPreneur
Read - Esnaf24 Aims To Be MyHammer For Turkey (alarm:clock euro)

Posted at 06:48 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink

March 22, 2007

Eden Ventures and Esprit Back Tribold's B Round

Tribold, a company whose intrepid engineering talent we wrote about last year, has raised a $15M Series B funding round led by new investor Esprit Capital Partners and joined by existing investor Eden Ventures.

As part of the investment, Esprit Partner Nic Brisbourne will be joining the Tribold board.

Tribold's software is used by telcos and ISPs to better manage their growing service portfolios.

Read - Tribold Geek Completes All Female (a:c euro)
View Tribold

Posted at 06:14 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Dutch AlbumPrinter Takes On Capital For Growth

Van den Ende & Deitmers Crossmedia Fund has taken a 30% stake in Amsterdam-based Albumprinter, an online consumer photo album publisher, for an undisclosed amount. The investment will fund international growth.

Albumprinter was founded in 2001. It provides its software and service direct to consumer and as a white lable service to European and US retailers.

View - Albumprinter

Posted at 06:08 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Spotzer Goes From Series B To C In A Month

We did a double take on news that Spotzer had raised a round of funding as we had just reported on the company's Series B closing a month ago. Sure enough, Netherlands-based Spotzer says it has closed Series C led by Cyrte Investments. The amount of which was not released. Spotzer competes with US-based Spotrunner. Its pitch is that companies can purchase affordable and highly targeted advertising-time on TV, websites and mobile devices. Spotzer was started by Andrew Klein, who previously founded an investment bank Wit Capital in 1996.

View - site
Read - Press release

Posted at 06:01 PM | Posted to Advertising | TrackBack | Permalink

UK's Azea Networks Raises More Funding For Under-sea Networking Equipment

Essex-based Azea Networks has secured $6M of a $15M Series D round, according to a regulatory filing, as reported by PEWire. TVM Capital and Lago Venture Fund were joined by return backers Accel Partners, Atlas Venture and Quester Management.

Azea sells optical networking solutions to undersea cable operators who are interested in increasing their capacity.

Azea's equipment

View - site

Posted at 05:26 PM | Posted to Broadband Networks | TrackBack | Permalink

MobileLabs Seeded To Launch Mobile Messaging Services

German startup MobileLabs has just launched Blu Mobile, a new mobilephone service for mobile data (GPRS) users. Its solution offers support for messaging and email, instead of SMS and MMS.

It is enabled by its Java (J2ME) app but has some deeper hooks into the phone's OS so you can access your internal addressbook, according to what we read on the website.

It also lets you send longer SMS messages (500 characters instead of 160). The user interface is nice too as you can see with the screenshots.

The company thinks that this kind of functionality is worth something and is charging rent to use the application.

We're kind of old-fashioned that way and say, if they can charge money for their application, they should.

MobileLabs just raised seed capital from the High-Tech Gruenderfonds, and like its other investments, the founders bring experience to the venture - e.g. Rüdiger Premm, founded Intercom, which launched an e-loading terminal business in Germany and was aquired by Alphyra.

View Blu

Posted at 07:08 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 21, 2007

Citrix Acquired Scottish ThinGenius

Edinburgh-based ThinGenius has been acquired by Citrix. It was announced last week but we just saw it now. The 5-year old Scottish company's TLoad software was developed specifically for Citrix environments provided the rationale for the acquisition.

Read Announcement

Posted at 04:04 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Profitable Transmode Raises €12M F Round

You don't see too many F rounds in Europe at all - usually early stage VCs stop investing and start looking for an exit long before that number of rounds - but Swedish optical networking gear-maker and service provider Transmode, which did $50M in sales last year and is profitable (EBITDA), has raised $12M from existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners, Shamil Chandaria, Pod Venture Partners and HarbourVest Partners.

The new money, according to Rune Hurtig, Transmode’s Chairman and acting CEO, is to be devoted entirely to strengthening sales and R&D, as part of that growth.
View Transmode

Posted at 03:46 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

inge AG Closes €6M Round Clean Water Tech

inge AG said today it had raised the €6M round that it announced back in October to going to mass production of its water filtration modules. Internation growth and R&D are on the menu now. It's gone from startup to market leader in municipal drinking water treatment in Germany in five years since founding and it is now catching on in Russia and China. That is the kind of execution you have to admire.

Investors include Belgium's Stonefund NV, the Dutch Entrepreneurs Fund BV and existing investors Siemens Venture Capital GmbH, Emerald Technology Ventures (formerly SAM), SPG Private Investments Limited und Taprogge Watertech GmbH.
View Inge AG

Posted at 03:33 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

The Solar Cell Sector's Famous Founder You Haven't Heard Of

He's not as famous as those other Scandinavian founders Zennstrom and Friis, but Norway's Alf Bjorseth should be. He has created a company with a bigger valuation than Skype's and he's not finished yet.

Bjorseth is the scientist-turned-entrepreneur that rolled up the four solar cell production startups he had co-founded to create Renewable Energy Corp. REC Group's market cap today is €8.5B.

He made some serious money from the REC floatation a few years ago. Now some of that capital is being re-invested in Scatec AS, which backs renewable energy and materials companies, some with potentially disruptive tech.

And he's much in demand as a board member - he recently joined the board of Innovalight, Inc., a Silicon Valley startup developing silicon-ink based printed solar cells.

Scatec has made investments, along with VCs, in Norsun, a solar silicon producer active in Norway and France (through a JV), Isosilicon AS, a developer of a type of silicon that takes longer to heat, and n-tec a Norwegian nanotubes startup.

Innovalight is venture capital backed by ARCH Venture Partners, Apax Partners (a European firm that knows a thing or two about solar startups see link below), Harris & Harris Group, Inc., Sevin Rosen Funds and Triton Ventures.

REC Founder Joins Innovalight Board
(press rel)
Read - Apax Homerun On QCells (a:c euro)

Posted at 07:07 AM | Posted to Cleantech | TrackBack | Permalink

UbicMedia Founder Goes From Supercomputing To Consumer Video

UbicMedia, a freshly founded French startup, is set to launch in May a new video and film platform called PUMit, which is still under wraps but is signing up beta reviewers.

Not much is being said about its tech yet, but its chief marketing man Pierre Col gave us a few insights this week. The company has several patents on enabling a combination of Video on Demand and P2P streaming of films and videos.

Founded on the belief that Internet distribution will replace DVD distribution of film and consumers will adopt home server technologies (such as the one Microsoft talked about at CES 2007), UbicMedia hopes that Pumit will be there to meet the demand, covering distribution, rights management, and payment on its platform.

The has team raised €320K round of seed finance.

It's not the only one aiming to do this but UbicMedia has an interesting founder, Alain Rosset. The 57 year old was behind a couple of other seriously techie ventures in the past : namely Archipel (supercomputers & parallel architectures) and SGDL Inc (modeling and algorithmic optimization). and is hiring up experienced management which might help.

Maybe this time around, it’ll be a seriously financially successful venture.

Col (picture right) recently joined from publicly-traded Jet Multimedia group, which does about €250M in annual sales, where for a decade he handled marketing, communication and investor relations roles. Before that he was with Infogrames and then at Cosmosbay where he was marketing director.

The Pumit software was developed in the labs of French research institutes CNDP, l'INA, and France 5 and invested 3 years of R&D in it. The initial funding of the company was with "love money" from Rosset's friends and family.

Read UbicMedia raised 320 kEuros in first-round financing (press rel)

Posted at 07:05 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Esnaf24 Aims To Be MyHammer.de For Turkish Market

Frankfurt-based Cem Dalgic, an active reader of the a:c euro, told us last week about Socv.net and this week he has other news.
Dalgic is working on is soon-to-be-launchd Esnaf24.com. Esnaf means Handwerker (in German) or handyman (in English) - and it will (corrected text) mediate the service of handymen via reverse auction with built in service rating (corrected text). It's like MyHammer in Germany-- the future plan is to sell tools, nails, and d-i-y gear online.

It's "a premiere" in Turkey, he said, so much so that local TV covered the news about its formation.

Dalgic, along with business angels and private investors, has formed Istanbul-based LeVenture to invest in companies targeting the Turkish-speaking regions of the world.

As a Swiss/Turkish friend never tires of pointing out to us, there's a population of 205M with a common language reaching from Cyprus in Europe to China and Siberia and points in between, a legacy of the Ottoman empire.

We've reported that iLab Ventures, a local holding company, has invested in a handful of local web companies, including GittiGidiyor.com, a Turkish consumer online auction company.

Turkey itself has a very young population base.source: de.wikipedia.org

And there are a couple of other Turkish language sites that seem to do well out of Germany: Vaybee.com, a classic portal founded in Germany, and there's Bizimalem, a social network, which has more members in Germany than it does in Die Turkei.

Posted at 05:23 AM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink

March 20, 2007

JobMeeters.com Raises First Round

France's JobMeeters, which runs a referral-based recruitment platform with cash incentives, has raised a few hundred thousand euros (rough translation of " plusieurs centaines de milliers d’euros") in a first round from Unaya (via Altaide blog). Jobmeeters was founded in 2005 by some experienced HR and Internet platform folks.

Unaya is worth noting too. It was founed by Jean-Yves Usunier, ex-director generale of Groupe Yves Rocher in 2006. Its aim is to invest in Internet startups in the eCommerce and matchmaking/exchange domains.

That would encompass startups that can actually make money from the get go, no waiting for the Freemium model to kick in, we would guess.
Read - Leve de fonds (altaide blog)

Posted at 09:53 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Germany's Software AG Ready To Acquire

Dow Jones reported from Cebit on Sunday that Software AG, the Germany-based SOA and XML software company, is closer to making a rare acquisition.Via the deal or deals, its turnover should grow by €100M this year. The Darmstadt company has about €700M it can pull together for M&A. There were no further clues about the target.

Datamonitor actually reported the upcoming acquisition plans a while ago and has some guesses at possible targets.

Software AG, which admits to having an extremely low profile for a company its size and age, has set a goal to double sales to a billion euros in the next four years. It's trying to raise its profile with some publicity and CI. It even has a blog now, which is good, but we suspect it's written by PR pros, which makes it no fun (at least for us).

The German chancellor made a pitstop at its booth during her visit to Cebit this year.

Read Software AG Promises Rapid Expansion, Acquisitions (datamonitor)

Posted at 05:55 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Dutch FeedYes Puts Its RSS Conversion Tech Up For Sale

Amsterdam-based Jerome Bertrams, one of the people behind the RSS application FeedYes, wrote in to say its up for sale in an auction. The FeedYes application is mainly used by people that want to track eBay searches by RSS feed.

The highest bid for FeedYes, when last we looked, was $22K. Bertrams and co. plan to "start a new venture related to RSS, but different from FeedYES".

View - Auction url
Some backgrounder links from Bertrams.
Silicon Beat
Scobleizer
masternewmedia

Posted at 05:28 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

March 19, 2007

Kyriba Raises $14.4M - French Bank Leads Round

BRED Banque Populaire led a $14.4M the oversubscribed round in Kyriba, which does on demand treasury management software (for managing multiple currencies and multiple accounts). Its existing investors also re-invested, it said a statement. Its website lists Commerzbank and Mangrove Capital as its investors, as well as GRP Partners.

The funding came on the back of the now San Diego-based startup's doubling annual revenues (it was originally French, we believe) and adding a "record number" of customers in 2006.

The seven year old Kyriba will utilize the additional funding to accelerate growth in North America and Europe, to expand sales and marketing activities and extend international hosting operations.

Posted at 06:51 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Dutch Entrepreneur On Chinese/Euro Seed Deals

A Dutch Internet entrepreneur’s diary of his expat life in China delivers some interesting tech sector Zeitgeist, as well as some profiles of startups he’s invested in.

Besides running theAsian operations of online games portal and games development startup, Spill Group, Marc Van Der Chijs, the 34 year old Dutch entrepreneur has started to make local angel investments. He writes about them, among other things, in his Shanghaied Weblog.

The 1bib team - Van Der Chijs (far right)
1bib.com is a Chinese used car sales platform, which is looking to raise a new round over the next months. The founder and CEO is Honglian Tan. Accordig to i-wisdom blog, the Shanghai-based businesswoman worked at DaimlerChrysler in Germany and she holds a MBA from the European School of Business at Reutlingen.
Read - Looking for a 2nd hand car?

Pioco is a Bluetooth advertising start-up. Like the recently seed financed Blue Cell Networks over in Germany, the Bluetooth channel is being exploited it seems for local events and promotions. According to Van Der Chijs, Pioco is looking for capital to grow its "already profitable" business.

Read - Shanghaied Weblog

Posted at 05:53 AM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink

Hot Betas: Latengo.com, Boober.nl, And eLolly

Image source: The Warning Sign Generator

It's beta season in Europe. A couple of startups are cloning Zopa - to one degree or another - in the Netherlands i'ts Boober.nl and in Germany it's eLolly. And over in Germany self-financed Latengo.com (beta) has launched a "digital life" platform to make it easy for users and special interest groups to share, trade, and look at each other's digital stuff.

More below the jump.

Latengo

We established Latengo because of a problem. We wanted to know: which person in my entire social network has a special item. It is easy to explain this when using a DVD. I want to see that movie Terminal with Tom Hanks. But I don’t really wanna buy it. So we needed a website where we can find out „who of my friends owns „Terminal““. If I find someone I can easily ask him if he can get me that movie. I can discuss that movie with him or other people and so on… there are serveral possibilities to use Latengo. E.g. DVDs, Books, Youtube Videos, Links.. etc.

The startup, founded in September 06, launched in November. The founders, Ortwin and Dieter Kartmann, Thorsten Buss and Dirk Rudolf, are coming out of the of ePayment, online community, and software development sectors. Self-financed, the startup employs all but one of the founders work full-time at Latengo. Their site has signed up about 10,000 users.

Quite a few users - how did you do it so quickly?

We engaged some people to support us in the development of the community. Plus it's a cool website and offers a lot of interessting features to attract people to use it and participate in the planning.

Plans are afoot for international expansion. If it takes off in Germany, the founders will look enable international growth some outside financing.

Boober.nl

Our Dutch language skills are virtually zero, but we have enough to see that Boober.nl has launched a person to person loan exchange, much along the same lines of the pioneer of this fairly new category Zopa, which is now backed by Benchmark Capital and other Euro VCs. Boober does a credit check on borrowers with Experian and INTRUM JUSTITIA. It also distributes the loans over several borrowers. Boober takes a fee from the lender and the borrower, and charges for the credit check, according to the Prosper Group News blog.

Part of its publicity approach seems to be taking a poke at ABN Amro bank

eLolly.de

This one claims €5M in loans on offer. It's out of Germany. It does the matchmaking, but we don't see any information that it also does the credit-worthiness checks that Zopa does. That's an important and crtical difference.

Posted at 05:27 AM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink

March 18, 2007

OnlineGameChallenger - The King.com For Clans

King.com is an early and successful example of how a couple of smart European entrepreneurs saw the boom in casual gaming and figured out how to make money on it. Now that several other categories of online gaming are
growing, other entrepreneurs are forming startups with similar business models.

There's PrizeFight (beta) in the UK, whose founders we've talked to several times in recent months, and they tell us that the startup is doing well financially with its focus on first-person shooter games. The founders have impressive experience.
View Prizefight

If You're Not Up To Speed on Call of Duty, This Clip From The US-Version of The Office Will Do

We've been chatting with Scholten over the past year as he got this thing off the ground and it has been an education in Euro bootstrapping and new online gaming trends for us.

In a remarkably short period of time, considering the small budget he had, Scholten has created a platform for virtual teams to play against each other on Call Of Duty2, Counterstrike, and EnemyTerritory.

Now he's rounding up the "clans" with the platform in beta mode. Besides tapping his own network of online gamers, Scholten attracts new members to download the OGC client and signon by teaming up with with the likes of German games portal, Tek-9 Networks, and other sites for promotional showmatches that encourage online clans (groups of gamers) to compete for prize fees of betwen €100 and €250 at the moment.

OGC takes a commission on the wagering, like King.com.

The winner will be the ones that can build the most trusted platform, the fastest, and since VCs don't target the segment until there's pretty big numbers, having a low cash burn is going to be critical.
View OGC

Posted at 08:48 PM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink

March 17, 2007

Netbooster Raises €20M To Boost Search Mktng Biz

Paris-based Netbooster has raised €20M in private placement, according to Neteco. The search marketing company has been listed on the Alternext, the junior market in France, since mid-2006. Its main venture backer is Truffle Venture. It was founded in 1998, employs more than 50 in Paris, Frankfurt, London & Madrid and claims 600 Clients World Wide.

Posted at 06:55 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 16, 2007

Google Buys Swedish Micro-company: Gapminder

Google announced on a slow news Friday that is has bought Sweden-based statistics display software company Gapminder. The Gapminder site has been taken down and moved to Google servers. Google's Marissa Meyer explains: "Trendalyzer generates moving graphics and other novel effects in the display of facts, figures, and statistics in presentations. In its nimble hands, Trendalyzer views development data—such as regional income distribution or trends in global health."

There are no details on the amount of the purchase, but it would appear to be on the small side.

According to a report from Wired.com, Gapminder was built by Hans Rosling, a professor of international health at Sweden's Karolinska Institute. Rosling made a splash at last year's TED conference and was invited back to this year's event, where we suspect the deal was completed. Once source says that the project was initially funded by the UN.

Hans Rossling - the Newest Googler - explains his data maps

View - Gapminder Trendalyzer
Read - Google announcement on their blog

Posted at 10:56 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Puzzler Winners: Azhar and Bonjour

The answer to this week's Puzzler
Name the French entrepreneur-turned- VC who is now a General Partner at a German venture capital firm, following stints at Benchmark Capital in London and Atlas Venture.

As a lot of you know by the number of emails answers we received it's Eric Archambeau, GP, Wellington Partners. He is well-qualified to be a European VC. He worked in the semiconductor sector in Silicon Valley, later founded two Internet-related companies in the States, one of which was acquired by Ariba for a whopping multi-billion dollar sum during the last cycle. He then worked for Atlas Venture in Silicon Valley.

When Archambeau came back to Europe, he helped to start up Benchmark Captial Europe's operations. Left that firm, was hosted by Chausson Finance in Paris during the downturn, and then joined Wellington's Dutch and German General Partners in 2005.

He's now on the board as part of his Wellignton repsonsibilites of a couple of Euro tech companies, including Xing, the first social network in Europe to launch an IPO.

The number one spot this week was nabbed by Azeem Azhar, a regular a:c euro reader and an entrepreneurial kind of guy. He met Archambeau back in 1999. Azhar is currently Head of Innovation at Reuters Group PLC and a non-executive director, Inuk Networks in the UK.

Before that he was a tech correspondent at The Economist tech correspondent, CEO esouk.com (incubator), internet strategist at BBC, CMO at Albert-Inc (search), MD at 20six (blogs). In the above photo, he's the one on the right.

The 13th reader to write in with the correct answer was Dominique Bonjour, CFO of Oxxius in France. He hasn't met Archambeau, but Bonjour said that keeping tabs on VCs is the kind of background, semi-automatic tasks that are part of the job of being the CFO of a venture-financed laser company. Oxxius is backed by Sofinnova Partners, AXA Private Equity and Sofinnova Venture.

Posted at 06:31 AM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink

Big Hitters In The UK Wireless Scene Launch Macropolitan

Founded in May last year, London's Macropolitan has been busy buying up locations in metro areas that WiMax and other wireless operators require for their networks. The firm claims to have obtained exclusive telecommunications rights to 7,600 properties in major urban areas of the UK.

Macropolitan is equity funded by several multi-billion dollar telecoms and property funds including Consensus, and Saudi Oger.

The company's founder/CEO is Ryan Jarvis who was Chief of Wireless Broadband and Chief of Convergence Products at BT. He waas also CEO and co-founder of the pan-European public Wi-Fi operator Megabeam. His Chairman is Richard Greco who was former CEO of the broadband Internet access provider Bulldog.

View - site

Posted at 06:00 AM | Posted to Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink

March 15, 2007

Hedge Fund Tudor Jumps On Trampoline

London-based Trampoline Systems, a four year old software that bills its software as harnessing social behaviour, has raised £3M from Tudor Group funds. This would make it the hedge fund's sixth deal in recent months.

The capital is to grow sales operations, intensify R&D and establish a strategic presence in North America, the firm said in a statement.

This one has an unusual tech spiel. It was the "brainchild" of an ethnographer [someone that studies races of men, according to our aging Oxford dictionary] who spent 12 months doing "field research" on the underlying social behaviours involved in information management on the Isle of Scilly.

The Isles of Scilly, which belong to the UK, are better known for unsullied nature than a hothouse of IT but that's what the press release said.

The company says its software doesn't work against the methods "humans have evolved to distribute information". It has Oracle as a partner and Raytheon is a pilot customer.

View Trampoline Systems
Read - Hedge Fund Tudor Makes Fifth Deal (a:c euro)

Posted at 07:58 PM | Posted to | TrackBack | Permalink

Ukash Growing Online Payments Biz Without Credit Cards

On the back of success helping HabboHotel (from Sulake labs) and Stardoll, the online paper doll site, extract payments from kids and teenagers that don't have credit cards, as well as online gamblers who play PartyPoker and Bet365, Ukash is now promoting its cash voucher system to social networks.

It described how it works in a statement:

Customers exchange cash for Ukash at POS [point of sale], and then spend the value online at merchants displaying the Ukash payment brand. Ukash contains a secure and unique 19 digit code - to spend Ukash the consumer simply enters their 19 digit code and value when asked for payment details during the check-out process. The Ukash payment is authorised in real-time, assuring payment to the social network operator and allowing the consumer to participate instantly.

The maximum amount for a cash transaction using Ukash is €750 and the company is FSA regulated. With that size of spending limit, Ukash must also be used by adults that want to make purchases online that won't show up on their credit cards.

Sound like Ukash a good thing going, although it's a pretty infrastructure-intensive business. The company claims 120,000 payment/purchase terminals operating in the UK, Germany, Ireland and Spain, in newsagents, grocery stores, petrol forecourts and the like.

We could imagine this company getting acquired by a firm that is already selling pre-paid cards or other types of voucher systems and has an infrastructure to exploit and grow. Alternatively, one of the Paypals or Click And Buy types of companies might snap it up.

View- Ukash

Posted at 07:24 PM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

Fiserv Acquires NetEconomy - Esprit Gets An Exit

Fiserv, a NASDAQ traded venture, has acquired the money-laundering and financial crime detecting software company NetEconomy for an undisclosed amount. This would be an exit for Esprit, which said it acquired the Hague-based company in 2005. NetEconomy was founded in 1993.

Read - Fiserv Acquires Global Financial Crime Management Leader, NetEconomy(tornado insider)

Posted at 08:17 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Munich's Cosmotourist Raises More Angel Funds

Travel community Cosmotourist has pulled in Dr. Christoph Roeck as an angel investor. Roeck left the Pangora shopping network at the end of February and is will joining his former co-Managing Director and founder of Pangora, Constantin Wunn.

Cosmotourist runs websites in 9 countries including the US, Germany, France and the UK.

View - site

Posted at 06:50 AM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink

March 14, 2007

OpenCoffee Geneva Genf Genève

(image starbucks.com)
David Rimer from Index Ventures sent us an email today to say that he's hosting a "completely open" event for entrepreneurs, techies, and investors types in Geneva on March 23rd, from 10 until 12 noon at the Starbucks de Rive.

He said the invitation is open to anyone interested in entrepreneurship -- "be they startups, freelancers, small business owners, inventors, VCs, or anybody who wants to be any of those things."

There is a sign up page meetup325

Posted at 02:24 PM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

Ex-Tandberg Team Raises Second Round For Video over IP

T-Vips, the Oslo based startup targeting cable and TV operators with its video gear, has raised a second round of NOK 14M (about €1.75) from early investors Northzone and Selvaag Venture Capital.

It's one of those rare European Union ICT Grand Prize finalists that actually raised venture capital, an emerging trend. Either VCs are encouraging their startups to participate or the contest's jury is getting better at judging what's innovative.
Light Reading also has high expectations for this Norwegian startup.
REad Top Ten New Startups (lightreading)
Read - press rel (T-vips)

Posted at 12:02 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Swiss Nexthink Finds Some Risk Capital For AI-driven Network Security

NEXThink has raised SFr 6M from in a round led by Paris-based Auriga Partners, a new investor, along with Venture Incubator (VI), a local seed stage investor. NEXThink whose software does "behavioral analysis" and "anomaly detection " to find out if company insiders have been careless or purposely lax with security systems.

It doesn't say if it detects when techies neglect to change the default passwords on networking equipment, though.

Read - Nexthink Press

Posted at 09:42 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Bootstrapping Dutch Founders

UK private company research firm, Library House, says that the Dutch are the "bootstrapping kings" of Europe. It came to the conclusion after analyzing the funding and HQ locations of Red Herrings latest Top 100 finalists.

A good example to back up that notion is TomTom, the GPS gadgetmaker, now worth a good €3.5B, which was evolved without the benefit of VC money.

Dutch tech company founders would have to be good at bootstrapping because the VC market in Benelux has been the last to emerge from the boom and bust and raise new funds. But recent news and deals from Prime Technology Ventuers, Big Bang, and Solid suggests there's some new money trickling into funds these days.

Read - The Bootstrapping Kings of Europe (library house blog)

Posted at 08:50 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink

Lovefilm Looking For A Buyer Or IPO

Lovefilm, the UK DVD rental startup, which recently announced a move to add movie downloads, has appointed Goldman Sachs to find a buyer or prepare for what its backers hope could be a £100M floatation, says The Times Online.

Potential acquirers named are Apax, DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, ITV and Virgin Media.

A flotation could value the business at £100 million in a year’s time, according to an unnamed company adviser.

Lovefilm is backed by, Arts Alliance, along with Index Ventures, Esprit Capital Partners, and Benchmark, through their investment in Video Island/Screenselect, another startup folded into this one.

Read - Online DVD rental firm ponders £100m flotation (the times)

Posted at 08:38 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Your Twenty Questions For Vinod Khosla

We know some of you have been wondering when other Silicon Valley venture investors, besides Sequoia, Oak, and Highland, will be boosting their European dealflow. You can ask Vinod Khosla yourselves, as the super-investor has agreed to respond to twenty questions from alarm:clock readers.

So go ahead, send us the questions that you would to ask. We think it is like being an NYU film student and getting to have coffee with Martin Scorsese.

Please email your questions, anonymously if you like, to comments@thealarmclock.com.

Here are some recent articles on Khosla Ventures:

Read - Alternative fuel is attracting venture capital, Thursday, February 02, 2006 (Wall Street Journal)
Read - Khosla Ventures' Range Fuels lands $76M grant (San Jose Business Journal)

Posted at 06:22 AM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

March 13, 2007

Paris' Digiplug Bought By Accenture For B2B Music Skills

Accenture has bought mobile music and video content distributor Digiplug from Japan’s Faith Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Digiplug sells music and video delivery software to record labels, mobile operators and handset manufacturers. The companies service range from: content aggregation, central products inventory, storefront animation and programming with integrated CRM modules and services performance statistics.

Read - Accenture Acquires Digiplug SAS, to Serve the Media, Entertainment and Communications Industries

Posted at 04:31 PM | Posted to Media | TrackBack | Permalink

alarm:clock euro Puzzler: Venture Capital Personality

.Here's this week's Puzzler. To mix it up this time, we will feature the first and the lucky thirteenth reader to email us with the correct answer.

Name the French entrepreneur-turned- VC who is now a General Partner at a German venture capital firm, following stints at Benchmark Capital in London and Atlas Venture.

Visual Clue: For our readers under 28, here's a visual clue. He isn't in the team photo, but among younger web entrepreneurs he's better known for his involvement with this company.

Send in your answer to

Posted at 08:11 AM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink

London's 3D Film-maker Short Fuse Funded

Short Fuze secured $1.9M in its first round of funding for its new 3D application for video-making. The funding round was co-led by Create Partners and IQ Capital Partners, along with some angels.

The new product sounds very interesting: "It is complete film-making product, covering everything from concept to final footage. It includes tools for scriptwriting, set building, character creation, editing and titling as well as filming itself. It is simple enough for first-time film-makers, while its advanced features allow more experienced users to create complex movies and generate subtle character performances."

Short Fuze was founded in 2003 by Matt Kelland and Dave Lloyd who had founded mobile phone publisher nGame which was bought by Mforma in 2002.

View - site
Read - Short Fuze Receives $1.9 Million Funding For Machinima Movie App (PaidContent)

Posted at 06:32 AM | Posted to Media | TrackBack | Permalink

RH Draws The Venture Market In Europe

Farley Duvall, a Red Herrring conference organizer and regular a:c euro reader, sent us last night a list of the people he has signed up for the RedHerring 100 invitation-only confab in Cannes this month.

He's got pulling power. We eyeballed it and see a lot of the people we've been talking about and talking with lately, like Laurence Garrett (3i), Hitesh Mehta (Acacia), Daniel Waterhouse (3i's Internet man), Fred Destin (Atlas), Paul Jozefak (Neuhaus), Hitesh Mehta (Acacia), and Nikolaus Von Hewitz (Add Partners), along with Judy Gibbons from Accel and George Coelho of Benchmarket, plus founders of FON, Plazes, Blyk, SevenLoad, Truphone, Sequans, Pixsta, Polar Rose, Nanoradio, Rebtel, and Nomad.

This is not a sponsored post. Duvall didn't even ask for a plug, but we think that he's pulling some of the most active people in Europe's new venture scene at the moment and it's a chance to meet some of the people we write about (and who also read the a:c euro).

We tried Duvall to see if he'll give alarm:clock euro readers invitations and special treatment price-wise. He offers the "early fee" of €1950 for our readers, instead of the late fee for people that register now, and he even whipped up a special form for us late last night.

Get - Registration form for a:c euro readers only. Download file(pdf)

Posted at 05:49 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink

SOCV.net To Make Resumes Plainer

Cem Dalgic, co-founder and an investor in SOCV.net has been telling us about his latest project. Since Dalgic comes from Jamba and was responsible for the Turkish and Middle East growth of that startup.

Dalgic describes Socv.net as a Web 2.0 tool to be used to create, standardize, exchange, rate, verify and update resumes.

We figure he knows a think or two about what works online and followed up, despite thinking that the proposed service sounds more like an add-on, than a business in itself.

a:c euro -- What is the business idea behind socv.net?
There are a lot of ways and literature about "how to make a resume". When we talked to HR Directors
of big companies about this subject they were complaining about thousands of different resume designs they receive.

So our idea is the standardization of CV´s. Our user will send a web link and the cover letter together
to the HR departments during their job application process. The HR employee will click the link and find a great looking resume, which can be printed or saved as a PDF directly out of the web if necessary.

But as you know this is nothing special, but our service to verify and to rate resumes will be unique.

a:c euro: What is the business model, ie. how do you plan to make money?

Socv.net is funded by private investors. We are planning to launch in April. We will have 3 income sources:
1. Premium services, like an "Executive Area", which is directly linked to executive search companies
2. Service fee for verifying resumes
3. Ads

Where is the biz based?
London / UK

Do you have industry partners lined up?
We already have deals with several online job search companies, executive search companies and an HR department of a German car manufacturer.

Who is your target market?
People who will apply to jobs and every company who is looking for verified and rated job seekers.

Are you competing with the likes of LinkedIn, which is quite recruiting oriented, with this service - or do you see this as complementary?
As you have mentioned, our service is full complementary to Linkedin, as we are focused on creating, verifying and standardizing CV´s, not in networking in general.
View Cem Dalgic (profile in xing.com)

Posted at 05:49 AM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

March 12, 2007

Alter Way Buys Calliode2 For €2M - Open Source Rollup

Boulogne Billancourt-based Alter Way has tapped its backers for €2M to acquire Calliode, an angel backed open source venture, the latests in its low-budget open source for small and medium sized businesses rollup.

The Stylish Founders of Alter Way : Philippe Montarges and Véronique Torner

Founded last July with a 800K investment Alter Way has acquired Ingéniweb, open source content management with €1.3M in sales, and and Ecl ip's Software, Internet allocation and IP address management.

More small acquisitions by Alter Way are planned in Linux, Groupware, CRM, Sécurité and ERP.
Read - Alter Way press rel.

Posted at 08:09 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Paris' Security Startup SkyRecon Raises $6.5M

SkyRecon Systems has finalized its second round financing at $6.5M dollars, led by Ventech and ACE Management. This second round of fundraising will go to the company's expansion in the US. Skyrecon previously raised 3M Euros. The company counts as customers: Aegis Media, Aviva, Crédit Agricole, Durex, French Ministry of Finance, Lazard Bank, UK Office of Government Commerce.

Read - Skyrecon raises $6.5M (Press Release)

Posted at 06:05 PM | Posted to Security | TrackBack | Permalink

Russian Zeitgeist - Big Tech IPO And The Million Euro Impression

As we've been reporting, Eastern Europe and Russia are starting to make news in the tech world. And it is not just small deals. Last month, one of the country's largest microelectronics and electronic equipment companies, Sitronic, gave the LSE its biggest tech IPO in five years with a $352m (£180.69m) float, valuing the company at £1.16B.

This deal will help to put Russian high tech on the map. Another Russian team was making news this past week at the Geneva Motor show with a revived 100 year old motoring brand called Russo Baltique.

That was then...
...During Soviet Times, The ZIL Was The Elite Vehicle In Russia. (image source: AMO ZIL)

This is now...

The Russo Baltique Impression Makes a Strong One
(images source: Russo Baltique)

With a price payble only by an oligarch or a Silicon Valley billionaire, this concept car is unlikely to tempt Europe's famous founders. The region's tech millionaires are too busy anyway spending their fortunes backing other businesses.

Read - Russian IPOs In 2007: Decline Or New Breakthrough? (post chronicle)
Read - Latham displays Russian muscle with Sitronics IPO (the lawyer)
Read - 2007 Russo-Baltique Impression - Auto Show Coverage - Automobile Magazine

Posted at 05:41 PM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink

Glasgow's Citizen Photo Journalism Biz Scoopt Bought Out By Getty Images

Getty Images has paid an undisclosed amount for Glasgow Scotland-based startup Scoopt. Since the founding of Scoopt in 2005, the site has supplied the mediawith imagery from major world events such as the Manhattan plane crash that killed New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle that were captured by a bystander.

Scoopt's contract has been to pay contributors 50% of the first sale and 75% of subsequent sales. Scoopt has recent competion from US-based Spy Media. Scoopt has got into the blog syndication game, but its not clear if it will continue that now that it has been bought.

Read - Getty Images Acquires Scoopt With Vision of Making Citizen Photojournalism More Accessible to the Mainstream Media (Release)

Posted at 04:39 PM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

Finland's Confidex Raises €5M In First Round For RFID Tech

Confidex, a Nokia, Finland-based designer and manufacturer of RFID tags, has raised €5M in its first round which was led by Logispring with Aura Capital.

Confidex targets three main market segments - aerospace, automotive and retail - as well as newer RFID sectors such as postal applications and healthcare.

Visit - site

Posted at 03:54 PM | Posted to Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink

Hedge Fund Tudor Makes Fifth Investment With AlertMe - A Zigbee Play The Latest

Zigbee sensor startup AlertMe has raised £5M from Tudor Investment Corp. It's a deal we missed and seems to have been announced in February.

AlertMe is a one-year old startup that's pitching a homeowner securtingy alerting system direct to the mobilephone. It has not released product yet but according to a report in Real Deals magazine, it will use the new low power Zigbee sensor technology as part of its home security alerting service. A typical application is a door sensor that triggers an alert to a homeowner's cellphone.

Library House says that this is Tudor's fifth transaction in recent months. The others are Plastic Logic (December 2006), Passado (December 2006), Netronome (November 2006) and Hotxt (July 2006), it said.

A couple of readers have written in to ask us for more info about Tudor and how it goes about sourcing dealflow and its interest in Europe. We do not have an answer yet. We know that GP Bullhound brokered the Passado deal. Maybe other a:c euro readers in the UK have some insight, if so, send us an email.

Back to AlertMe. It's too early to evaluate the product on offer, because there isn't one to look at yet, but the founders sound good.

The tech-oriented co-founder is Pilgrim Beart. This is his third wireless venture. His bio describes a career in the UK, then six years working in Silicon Valley in the 1990's for the likes of Atari and Chromatic Research (now AMD). Returned to Cambridge in '99 and founded activeRF Ltd., an early implementer of wireless asset-location systems and antenova Ltd., a VC-backed WiFi and Bluetooth antenna maker.
.
The other founder is Adrian Critchlow, whose most recent venture is an eco-hotel, a carbon-neutral hostelry for the wealthy tourist. But he's got some tech cred: founding ActiveHotels.com and Iota Software Ltd. and he was in marketing at Acorn Computer Group, at the time of the ARM spin out. ActiveHotels.com was acquired for £90 million giving its backers a "16 fold return".

Read - Real Deals reports on alertme (alertme blog)
Read - Life In Tudor (library house blog)
Read - GP Bullhous Advises Passado on €10M (gpbullhound pr)

Posted at 08:51 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 11, 2007

German IPOs - Slow Start This Year

Germany's finanznachrichten says that the IPO season is off to a turbulent start this year, but bankers are hoping that Siemens automotive components unit VDO could be a big one, while real estate and alternative energy stocks will provide a promising pipeline. Last year 40 companies floated in Germany.

Hanse, a lux yachtmaker served up a suitably bouyant IPO last week.

Here's a summary in point form of what analysts see happening this year in Germany. We didn't see any news about venture-backed IPO plans.

- Tool company Kromi Logistik had a hard time getting its IPO off the ground but managed it in the end
- Hanse yachts did better. Its sales growth outpaces its peers by far, say analysts.
- The Siemens spinoff of VDO in an IPO could create a €3B company
- Real Estate stocks like Polis and Annigton are much anticipated
- private equity backed Gate Biodiesel (rapeseed oil supply chain) is expected to be sold or floated for about a billion euros

Read - => Nachrichten | Turbulenter Start in die neue IPO-Saison <=(finanznachrichten)

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

March 10, 2007

Samwers Back MobileObjects And Sqoops Taps Marquard

Entrepreneurs backing entrepreneurs is the trend in Germany. The latest two to report is an undisclosed amount of funding for MobileObjects and another round for Sqoops.

MobileObjects develops mobile solutions for fleet and field service staff. Its new backer is the European Founders Fund, set up by the Samwer brothers of Jamba! and Alando-fame. The brothers are spreading their risk and investing in business oriented companies, not just consumer oriented ventures, it seems.

And the other news is that Sqoops, a family entertaintment games and ecommerce site, has raised an undisclosed amount from Marquard Media, run by George Marquard, a darling of the celebrity papperazzi here, and a successful entrepreneur who built a large magazine publishing company on the back of a pop rock mag that he founded back in high school with Sfr2000 in capital, the story goes. The pic to the right shows him with Helen Gurley Brown upon his launch of the Polish Cosmopolitan.

His firm also has a majority stake in Computec Media AG which took a stake in Sqoops last September.

Posted at 01:12 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

VentureBeat, Read/Write Web Jobs Merged With alarm:clock's

The alarm:clock announced that our job sites have merged with VentureBeat and ReadWrite Web's. That means your job post will also run on the VentureBeat and Read/Write Web blogs. Our job posters can reach a diverse audience of core geeks and suits globally. Our best calculation, suggests a post can now reach 500,000 tech insiders monthly across the sites.

Viewers are people like you who get it.

Moreover, you will be lending your support to some of the hardest working sites on the net... more here

Post your jobs here. And be seen here:

If you act now, right now, for a short while, you can get a coupon code for a free job listing by emailing eric AT jobthread DOT com.

Posted at 11:13 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Swiss Startups Make Silicon Valley Connections - Euro VCs In The Wings

Besides getting serious timepiece-envy this time, like we do every time a Tech Tour organizer gets one of those Audemar Piguet watches, we picked up a hint of a new trend at the kickoff of the Swiss Tech Tour here this week.

It is a trend that has been missing in Switzerland on the whole. But it looks like early stage startups in the tech sector, as opposed to the traditionally strong biotech sector, are on the radar of international VCs.

Clearly, Swiss tech companies can attract international capital but usually at a much later stage, some examples are chip companies like Nemerix (GPS), Innovative Silicon (new memory chip architecture and materials), and Bridgeco (home networking chips).

But getting meetings, money, and some good feedback from top tier investors at the very early stage is new. Who knows, maybe it's the Jajah effect - Jajah is the very early stage Austrian startup that managed to get Sequoia to back its new low-budget telephony service, a year or so ago.

No Stylish Wrist Gear But We Did Get A Nice Swiss Army Knife

So which Swiss startups are making the connections to West Coast investors?

Kyte.tv (mobile photo and video sharing)
It dubs itself as "YouTube for Mobilephones" and so far has Swisscom Mobile as a test customer. Rumor has it that it has tapped some well-known VC backers.

Vipera (mobile messaging and community platform)
Targeting big mobilephone-using populations where PC penetration is less prevalent, the founding duo are launching a consumer-oriented mobile community, media, messaging play. Their revenue-generating mobilephone banking business has been licensed out to a Dubai-based investor for further development.

Zattoo (peer to peer TV platform)
Free European TV to go is how this one is now positioning itself. Channels delivered to laptops or PCs almost in real time. A Swiss-American founding team that has moved quickly and has attracted a lot of positive attention among the experts and on a low-budget. Among others, Ads-Click CEO and co-founder Pascal Rossini told us he uses it and gives it a big thumbs up.

Although our Swiss faves of the moment are solar cell innovators Flisom and Flexcell, we will be keeping up with the startups that everyone else is talking about. We expect them to also seek a European investor type to go with US money, either a strategic one or a VC investor.

Read - Swiss Tech Tour 2007 (remo blog)
Read - Swiscom mobile tests kyte.tv (remo blog)
Read - Zattoo= P2P + European P2P + DRM (a:c euro)
Read - Vipera Fangs (a:c euro)

Posted at 06:14 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 08, 2007

France's MPX4 Raises $6.5M For Music Tools

MXP4 Interactive Music has raised $6.5M d for its new digital music technology that auto remixes songs.

The investment from Sofinnova Partners and Ventech. The company claims: . “Listeners will now find in recorded music the same atmospheric harmonics and fluid musical interpretation as they would at a live concert.” We understand that the technology can remix one song all night long on the fly. Fred Destin points out that founder Gilles Babinet is a serial entrepreneur who previously founded MusiWave and Eyeka.

Read - Infinite Babinet strikes again: $6.5M for MXP4 (Fred Destin blog)

Posted at 10:34 PM | Posted to Media | TrackBack | Permalink

Scotland's iomart Acquires Ezee Data Centers For £11M

iomart, a Scottish company that floated on the AIM as the tech bubble started burst, survived the downturn, and is now running several web-based managed services for consumer and businesses, has raised £11M in a private placement about half of which will be used to acquire a 51 percent stake in Ezee Ltd, the company will be renamed Easyspace Datacentres and the founder will stay on.

iomart does about £24M a year in turnover and is growing at a clip on the back of three lines of products : Web Hosting Services, Local Search Directories, and security, according to its investor relations page.
View iomart

Posted at 06:36 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 07, 2007

Estonian Photo Site Nagi.ee Seed Funded To Grow

Jüri Kaljundi, one of the four co-founders of Nagi.ee, an Estonian online photo community, wrote in to say that the Baltic Internet media group Moonfish Media (owned by an investment and advisory firm Gild Bankers as well as the owners of jobsite CV Keskus) provided seed capital of €100k in exchange for a 20% stake in the company.

The investment will be used for product development, growing the team and increasing sales and marketing.

Nagi.ee pulls about 20 thousand weekly visitors to its Estonian language site and they have uploaded half a million photos. It's targeted at 18-35 years, and its tagline is "The Home of a Good Photo", a segment that has yet to be developed, according to Kaljundi.

Nagi is also looking to license the photo site software to companies in other countries as a white-label solution or form joint ventures for running photo communities there.

"We invested mostly into the team of Nagi, who over the years have proved themselves in developing and starting popular web solutions and Internet services," said Raivo Hein, CEO of Moonfish Media in a statment.

"We believe that Nagi team will be successful also with other services, not just the photo community. We also see many cooperation opportunities with other Moonfish Media websites."

Moonfish Media owns real estate portals Kv.ee in Estonia, Edomus.lt and Aruodas.lt in Lithuania, auction site Osta.ee and classifieds aggregator Hydra.ee.
View nagi.ee

Posted at 11:02 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Backers of Spain's Fon Deliver 10M More Euros

Our sister site the a:c met last night with Faisal Galaria, Fon's New BD VP in San Francisco. Galaria's news blast was that Fon had just closed $13M in new funding from existing investors Index Ventures, Google and Sequoia Capital, and $4M from others. It has now raised a total of $35M.

Spain-based Fon asks users to share bandwidth at home or work to get to connect for free to all the other FON hotspots. Users buy a $40 router from Fon. Fon competes with fellow Spanish star-up Whisher as well as Kiwi start-up Tomizone.

Read - FON has Raised Another 10 Million Euros to Grow its WiFi Community Around the World (Founder's blog)

Posted at 06:36 PM | Posted to Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink

More M&A For Buongiorno: Dutch HotSMS for £2.8M

Italian mobile content firm Buongiorno is buying out HotSMS, a Netherlands-based mobile ad firm, for about $5.6M plus a small earnout. HotSMS delivers a free, ad-sponsored SMS (short message service) offer. Founded in 2000, HotSMS specializes in permission-based text, MMS and WAP-based advertising campaigns. HotSMS partners with marketing and media agencies to develop mobile commercials, sponsored games and SMS coupons. Clients include Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Universal Music Group.

Read - Buongiorno acquires HotSMS for £2.8m

Posted at 04:17 PM | Posted to Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink

Danish Gigabit Ethernet Gearmaker Raises $7M

Napatech, a Danish startup that develops and sells programmable Gigabit Ethernet adapters, has raised $7M from Ferd Venture and early investor Northzone, for market expansion.

Founded in 2003, the company has raised about €8.1M in earlier rounds, the largest chunk of which was used to acquire some technology from Xyratex, last year.

Napatech is based in Naerum, Denmark

But has nice digs in Mountain View, Calif

The company's backers want to enable the startup to expand its US activities to offer more efficient support for the "large number of customers and interest" it is seeing there at the moment.

According to Gregers Kronborg of Northzone who said as much in a statement, Napatech is making the transition to market leadership in its corner of the market. Now it is time to scale.

The startup's network adapters support all the good stuff like deep packet inspection, traffic analysis/recording, and security applications. A toolbox enables Napatech's customers, aka original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to run their own proprietary networking apps on the adapter too.

View Napatech

Posted at 02:03 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Northzone Backing Swedish Xcerion For Web Coders

Northzone Ventures has invested $10M into Xcerion, according to several trade press reports. The deal seems to have been announced in early February in Sweden but came to our attention as a result of an article in InformationWeek. One of the first to report it as far as we could determine was e24.se.

This is a huge investment for early stage investor, Northzone -- it typically invests less than €4M in a first round -- especially because the company is set to market what sounds to us like software for developer's, not exactly a hot market for a startup. It must be the business model that makes it a venture capital target.

But we're just guessing and will check with Northzone to find out more but also because your a:c euro reporter is having trouble getting a line on what Xcerion has developed.

The reports we eyeballed say that Xcerion is planning on launching free code to enable developers to write web apps with, but then it also claims to make any computer your computer which makes it sound like one of those myPC-on-a-USB-stick kind of things, although it is offering the ability to carry your apps with you, not just your files, so it's like a virtual machine with deeper than usual control? We just don't know.

In the meantime, a couple of trade pubs have been mightily impressed by Xcerion, one of the pubs paid attention because some former Microsoft execs are early investors, and while Slashdot editors covered it too, their readers expressed skepticism because the news came out before the company had actually released any code, making it vaporware, in readers' eyes.
Read - Xcerion vill sprida gratis programvara (e24.se)
Read - Is it absurd to think ... (slashdot)
Read - Could a startup beat Microsoft and Google to market with a ‘cloud OS’? (ZDNET Foley blog)
Read - Xcerion's Internet Cloud Forms Over Google and Microsoft (informationweek)

Posted at 07:37 AM | Posted to Software | TrackBack | Permalink

Dutch Team Pitching Battery-powered Scooter

We came across a Dutch team developing a new electro-scooter [via aietech.com/leglog]. Your a:c euro reporter recently acquired a Yamaha 125cc model, which is just way too big - even for a scooter - to handle the curvy, narrow byways West of Zurich. This streamlined Lithium Ion battery-powered one that tops out at 30km/h appeals.

Read - Un Velo Electrique Sans Pedales (aietech blog)
View Scoot

Posted at 06:59 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink

March 06, 2007

Earlybird Venture's Mathies On Exits, Oktoberfest Bashes, And Convergence Of Another Sort

Our last early stage VC interview with Sofinnova was a big hit so this week we have a German exemplar of the early stage sort, Earlybird Venture.

Like Sofinnova Partners, it tends to go in at the seed stage, but Earlybird is a much younger firm, just starting to raise its second large-sized fund (€200M) for the European market. Its last fund closed just as the boom became a bust, missing out on the "insane" valuations of that era, nevertheless it has since managed to accompany several of its startups to the stock market delivering returns to its LPs and creating some new famous founders.

Rolf Mathies, Managing Partner, runs us through the firm's exits (more IPOs than trade sales), and he also delivers some advice on avoiding Blackberry-addicted board members and how Web 2.0 is already too old for this early stage investor.

There's only one area that this Rousseau-quoting venture capitalist is not so open about, how the firm sources investments. It's the only question we asked that he declined to answer. We'll keep trying to find the answer for you. In the meantime enjoy the interview.

Any air travel tips for fellow VCs and entrepreneurs that read the alarm:clock?
Well, we have three locations, Hamburg, Munich and Menlo Park -- we want to be close to the companies and help as well in the US -- so we are in the air a lot.

But as an early stage firm we limit the number of board seats we have in order to have time to spend with the firms. I recall board meetings with two board members being on the phone calling in from somewhere with bad connections, or in the middle of a security check at an airport, and being constantly under time pressure and stress.

Clearly this does not help the quality of the decision-making and it is no fun for others that have been present in person. My tip is beware of VC board members that always call in from somewhere and only answer e-mails in cryptic short hand from blackberries. Look at the numbers of boards they are sitting on. More than 6 usually is not helpful.

Do your partners gossip around the coffee machine (euro style) or is it the water cooler (US style)?
Although the quality of the beans in our US office does not match the Italian roast in Europe, we have been able to convert them to espresso talk

When Earlybird has a reason to celebrate, like when you floated Interhyp or sold Element 5 to Digital River, where do you go?
Coincidentally Interhyp floated the day we had our yearly company event at the Octoberfest in Munich... this created a bad hang-over the next day.

You have 13 women that work at Earlybird, only one is a partner and she is in the healthcare sector. Why aren't there more women in tech VC?
We are very glad that we added a woman, Gayathri Radhakrishnan [pictured right], this month in the Tech sector ! It is a well known fact in the public stock sector that woman are better investors (more brain, more gut, less macho) so my guess is this will change in the future.

Interhyp and Tipp24 are two Internet ventures that you backed and then floated. But we haven't seen you invest in any of the Xing.coms, Wikios, or DaWandas of the newfangled Web 2.0 world. Why not?
The last two years we have been focussing very much on our portfolio and on exits, not doing too many new deals. Our thinking is that once a sector is hot you better get out of that sector. It is too late for an early stage VC [such as Earlybird is].

We hear your fundraising for your second large-sized VC fund is going well. What did you differently than the myriad of funds that were raised around the same time circa 2000?
Although we missed the lucky exits at insane valuations in 2000 we focused our portfolio on profitability and capital efficiency.

Therefore with the help of our (patient) LP´s we could wait until the window for IPO´s was open, listing 6 companies across Europe (Tipp24, Interhyp, Wilex in Frankfurt, Noemalife in Milan, Esmetec in Switzerland, Entelos on Aim).

Now we have more companies that have been profitable for more than two years [that are] in preparation to list: Amaxa and Hemoteq.

Interhyp alone returned the fund close to 2x making a 40x return. These kind of returns are expected to be benchmarked with US early stage VC´s. High write-off ratio but high multiples.

Do you still like the idea of trans-Atlantic investing - will you do it in your next fund?
In the US there is a huge capital overhang. We have less deals and less talent in Europe but even lass capital creating a huge supply/demand imbalance. That’s the reason we focus on sourcing in Europe but some companies might relocate there headquartes to the US. As Alantos and BridgeCo in our portfolio [have done].

Early stage investors in Europe are few and far between. You've co-invested with Sofinnova a couple of times. It's our impression that there are not a lot of other true early stage investors for you to co-invest with. What's your view?
VC is a very people centric business, it takes time to build trust and have success together but we hope that more good funds will be established because lack of capital is the biggest problem in Europe.

US VCs are under the impression that Europe is under-served with venture capital. What do you think?
See above – it really is a fact

It is a great time for to be selling companies, or floating them, you should know. Tell us a bit about finding the exit. Is the IPO an exit at all?
The IPO´s of our profitable companies all have been partial exits with 20-30% secondary portion in the IPO creating true liquidity for us.

But IPO´s of emerging companies take some more patience at high public awareness (Esmertec).

Still, raising enough capital at ok valuations is the life-blood of our industry. Without efficient capital markets (as was the case in 2001-2003) then our business model does not work.

Do you ever use the so-called dual track, aiming for an IPO but being open to M&A offers at the same time?
Dual Track rarely works with young companies as the process is so different. If you are down the road with an IPO it is often too late for a trade sale buyer.

Some of our companies have been approached by buyers right before the IPO but the valuations they offered were too low and growth companies with great management have their reason to be a successful public company eventually buying others.

Not the large eat the small but the fast the slow..

What kind of companies are you going to be (hopefully) taking public in five years' time? In other words, what kind of tech companies are you looking for now - stage, technology, geography?
We are focussing on early stage tech companies. Tech being applied across all industries.

Convergence in big markets is the buzz word. Is a biotech company creating new ways to produce biofuel/bioreactors - it could be a Life Science company or a Tech company too -embedded systems software or communication. We look for entrepreneurs that create a paradigm shift in large markets.

An example of Earlybird's convergence thinking is its recent investment in Vital Sensors, which develops a wireless heart and vascular system using microsensors. The Hannover-founded company is now based in the US.

Do you have certain process that you undertake before and after making an investment in technology venture? Do you organize events for your portfolio firms to get together ?
We do have all of this but every portfolio company is very special and it is tough to standardize process in early stage. Ultimately all of our portfolios are relatively small, it makes sense to syndicate and collaborate with other VC´s. For example we organized with Sofinnova and others the European Research day.

What is a dealbreaker for Earlybird?
Technology innovation just because of innovation prodicing marginal customer benefit in small markets. In particular in Germany some techies don´t have the view of their potential customers

What should an entrepreneur do if he wants to meet one of Earlybird's partners to discuss a new venture?
Best is to outline his idea and his track record in a quick and focused e-mail to any partner .- Rousseau said “ sorry I have written you such a long letter – I had no time to write you a short one”. The best ideas are easy to understand if explained by a good founder and the impact is clear from the beginning.
Thank-you for the interview.

Posted at 08:22 PM | Posted to Venture Capital | TrackBack | Permalink

Eventpreneurs Hot House Fund Is For You

Here's something a bit different. Reed Midem, the Paris-based conference organizer has set up a venture fund for budding event and confab founders. It says the Hot House fund will invest a maximum of €400K per project, in return Reed MIDEM will take a share in the company and an option to acquire a controlling stake after three years.

The company is most famous for its media conferences MILIA, MIPTV, and MIDEM. Its web-site lays claim to a couple of real estate confabs too.

We're not sure what to make of the need for a fund like this. Could it be that even event organizers are not clear where the market is going and what kind of companies or industries are to drive the market? So this would be a way of seeking input from front-runners.

Are they asking themselves: is it user-generated-TV-content or is TV-generating-Internet content (a la King.com) or is it TV and rich media on mobiles, or maybe we should be tapping cleantech? If we hear more about the rationale behind the captial, we will publish an update.

View Hothouse

Posted at 07:05 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

London's King.com Opens For Biz In Hollywood

Our sister site alarm:clock met with the founders of King.com as they were on an American tour. The social network for skill games has opened an office in Hollywood to continue the deal flow that it has been doing with makers of TV game shows.

The prevailing trend these days is for startups to figure out how to make money from video content on the Net. King.com is making a King's ransom using TV brands and themes but not their video. Rather it creates casual games based on TV shows.

This morning we did coffee the founders of the terribly successful, UK-founded casual gaming network King.com. They are in town for the Game Developers Conference, passing trough Las Vegas en route for a consultation with their lawyer.

King.com started out localizing standard casual games like Bejewled. The startup's initial angle was to localize for even small European countries and to employ social networking. Casual gaming had mostly been a solitaire practice but King grew by bringing in some wagering and pages/blogs where entrants can chest thump at taunt.

King.com raised a huge round of financing primarily from Apex ($34M Euros) as well as from Index Ventures. This represented a partial exit for the founders, who had launched the company in 2003. But it was also a war chest to enable the company to partner with popular game shows in Europe and in the US like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Deal or No Deal. These programs and their sites drive traffic to King.com created games.

King.com competes with the likes of EA's Pogo.com, Miniclip and Fun.com. But competition does not seem to have now slowed growth. King.com has 10M registered users who played 8M man hours of games in January and it growing at 800K new users per month. King.com did $13.8M in revenues last year and has been profitable since January 2005.

Germany is King.com's biggest country but the US is in 2nd place and its growing fast. King.com can only legally offer its games in 34 sites.

Visit - site

Posted at 05:45 PM | Posted to Games (PC and other) | TrackBack | Permalink

Kiala Goes From Zero To €25M In Five Years

Most of the companies we write about are concerned with moving bits around, but Belgium's Kiala moves parcels around in four countries in Europe and its making a bundle.

On the back of all that trucking Kiala's generating €25M in annual revenues, the VC-backed startup said in its latest financial press release (via Tornado Insider).

We've written about the firm's famous founder Denis Payre and it looks like he is executing well in this latest venture.

It might be a largely offline business, but a lot of Kiala's clients are using it to support their online businesses, such as Carrefour, Esprit, Ikea, Kiabi, Maty, Pixmania, and including a partnership with eBay.

The company, which also has deals with big brands for after sales support, such as Nokia and Nespresso, is getting ready to expand in the UK. Denis Payre, co-founder Kiala (and France Business Objects in a previous venture) said in a statement that financial results for last year enabled the company reach breakeven in the four countries it operates in - Belgium, France, Luxmebourg and Netherlands, now it is time to expand in Europe.

View Financial press rel. (tornado insider)
Read - alarmclock euro quiz (a:c euro)

Posted at 04:38 PM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink

iNewit Raises First Round For Easy Mobile Streaming

iNEWiT, a Belgian developer of mobile streaming video solutions, raised €1.4M at the end of February in a deal led by Big Bang Ventures and its seed investors, Allegro and Vinnof.

Big Bang said in statement that the seed round was for €600K and closed in September 2006, from Allegro and Vinnof.

iNEWiT’s products are targeted at surveillance usage by consumers and businesses. It has patented some of its know-how in compression technology and appears to have developed its own cool-looking hardware too.

Not bad at all for a company that's been so lightly funded.

Frank Maene, Managing Partner of Big Bang Ventures said in a statement:

“We were impressed by the ease of use of iNEWiT’s products. Turn on the device, send it an SMS and you can start viewing live video streams on your mobile phone. And it works on virtually any mobile phone, PDA or PC. In its short life the company has achieved a lot: they recently released the third iteration of the product and the pipeline looks quite impressive.”

View Posted at 06:56 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

March 05, 2007

alarm:clock euro Puzzler Winner : Ormigo's Oliver Thylmann Plus

The answer to this week's Puzzler
Name the VC firm founder who made his first fortune in modems and fax cards back in the early nineties before founding a Northern Germany-based tech sector venture capital fund.

Is
Dr. Gottfried Neuhaus of the Neuhaus Partners in Hamburg
He is well-known judging by the large number of correct answers that landed in our euro correspondent's inbox and not just in Germany. Neuhaus is highly spoken of too, even with some former portfolio company founders - which is not always the case when it comes to VCs and founders, in our experience.

The first to file was German entrepreneur, Oliver Thylmann, founder of Ormigo, a freshly launched web-based service that matches potential customers with merchants. The company has a blog and so does Thylmann, who writes a good mix of insightful posts about web business models, advertising and trends.

Other readers that wrote in a little bit later but very close to each other were Pascale Koall, Research Manager at Wellington Partners GmbH, a German VC, and Clemens von Bergmann, Senior Investment Manager at the High-Tech Gründerfonds who - like us - admired the view from Neuhaus' offices.

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Geneva-based Contextual Ad Network Ads-Click Raises $4M From Baytech

Geneva, Switzerland-based Ads-Click has raised $4M from German BayTech Venture Capital. ADS-Click competes with the likes of Quigo in the private label contextual ad business, but Ads-Click has focussed its attention on Europe and Asia whereas Quigo is big in the US market. The startup says it serves over 3B pages views per month and in 2007 it aims to increase to 10B page views. The company recently launched contextual voice search as well.

Ads-Click was founded in 2004 but development began in 2002. Its founder and CEO is Pascal Rossini who founded Netvertis, which was acquired by Micropole CrossSystem in 2002.

View - site

Posted at 06:19 PM | Posted to Advertising | TrackBack | Permalink

Ireland's Demonware Rumored Acquisition By Activision

The Irish press is reporting that Activision, the company behind Call of Duty multi-player games, is set to buy Irish DemonWare for around $20M.

Demonware was by Dylan Collins and Sean Blanchfield, and reportedly raised about €1M in VC in what was a very tough tech fundraising environment, circa 2002.

DemonWare developed State Engine and Matchmaking+, which provides services for multiplayer games such as matchmaking, user profiling and gaming statistics. Its online performance enhancing gaming software is used by Activision, as well as THQ and Ubisoft.

Read - Press coverage Silicon Republic and ENN

Posted at 05:55 AM | Posted to Games (PC and other) | TrackBack | Permalink

Streamcore Raises €5M To Meet WAN Optimization Demand

Streamcore, a French WAN optimization vendor, has raised €5M in what looks like a third round, according to Neteco. The company, the first in recent months headed by a female CEO to raise venture capital in Europe (as Jacques Froissant points out in Altaide blog) raised €3.6M in 1999, and another €6M in 2002.

Diaa Elyaacoubi, Streamcore CEO since 2004

Its backers include Auriga Partners OTC Asset Management and Convergent Capital. The Neteco report says that the new capital was raised to meet customer demand. Its customers are spread out over the Europe-Middle East region (EMEA) and the US.

It's likely headed for a trade sale as Light Reading has been reporting that WAN optimizers are targets. Citrix paid $50M for Orbital Data and Packeteer acquired Tacit for up to $78M.

Read - Streamcore lève supplementaires
Read - Streamcore lève un Troisieme (Altaide blog)
Read - Light Reading - Services Software - Citrix Buys Orbital
Read - >Light Reading - Packeteer Picks Tacit - Telecom News Analysis

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March 03, 2007

Intense Buys New Jersey Laser Business

Scottish next-generation laser startup Intense Ltd raised an undisclosed amount of debt and equity to acquire High Power Laser Devices Inc, a Brunswick, New Jersey-based company.

Equity finance was provided by Intense’s existing investors, including 3i, Esprit Capital Partners, FNI, and Alice. Intense is delighted that Scottish Enterprise’s newly created Scottish Venture Fund (SVF) was also a lead investor in the deal alongside 3i.

Debt funding for the deal was provided by Noble and Co in the UK and Silicon Valley Bank in the US.

Deceptively Simple Components Combine Electronics, Heat Management, And Optics

Intense is famous for its Quantum Well Intermixing (QWI) process that results in brighter laser diodes with longer lifetimes, and increased power, as well as its Asymmetric Waveguide (AW) technology is designed to increase the power and reliability of high power laser diodes.

Read - Intense Ltd. Acquires High Power Devices Inc. to Create Powerful Global Innovator in Diode Lasers (press rel.)

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March 02, 2007

London's TangoZebra Rich Media Advertising Firm Bought For $30M By DoubleClick

DoubleClick has bought UK-based online ad technology provider Tangozebra for about $30M. Tangozebra specializes in rich media advertising. It was founded in 1996 and was bought 2 years ago by Media Square, a marketing holding company which trades on London's AIM.

Read - DOUBLECLICK ACQUIRES TANGOZEBRA (Release)

Posted at 06:52 PM | Posted to Advertising | TrackBack | Permalink

Irish Geo Software Attracts Up To $11.7M From US Investor

Mapflow, an Irish software company that location-enables business applications, has raised up to $11.7M from SOSVentures whose principal is Sean O Sullivan, a US-based software entrerprenur-turned-investor, via PeHub.

The investment is split with $5.1M now and further $6.6M "being triggered as the company achieves future milestones". The new money is to fund additional R&D by the company.

Mapflow seems to be concentrating its efforts on its geographical information systems know-how by integrating geo-data with applications for transport and enterprise markets. It has several customers already using its software and services, such as the London Transport authority. The O2 case study tells the story the best.

It is an interesting transaction as it sees founder Simon Dick, early investors Trinity Venture Capital and Chairman Stephen Cloonan sell shares. It's not clear to us at the moment if all the capital was for the buyout of the shares or if it was also a capital increase.

“This deal brings one phase of Mapflow’s development to a successful conclusion” said exiting Chairman Stephen Cloonan. “I look forward to seeing the company’s continued development and growth over the coming years”.

Sullivan, whose prior company was in a field close to Mapflow's, said in the same statement:

“When investing in software companies I am always concerned with the quality of the management team, the relationship it has with its customer base, and the company’s track record of innovation. As I looked at Mapflow, I saw all three of these enablers in place. It is truly a gem of the Irish software industry, and the challenge is now to make it a global leader, #1 or #2, in its markets worldwide”.

Read - US software veteran invests in Mapflow (press rel.)

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Alternative a:c euro Puzzler

This would have been our alternative question to this week's puzzler, but it looks like someone already found the answer.

Found on Memoria Technica via John Wilson

Posted at 03:11 PM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink

alarm:clock euro Puzzler

This week's quiz question for our alarm:clock euro readers

Name the VC firm founder who made his first fortune in modems and fax cards back in the early nineties, who then invested a small pool of capital, mainly his own money for a while, before founding a Northern Germany-based tech sector venture capital fund.

Hint: the firm is on its third and largest ever fund now.

A visual clue

Send in your answer to

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

Hasso Plattner Backs Open Source Challenge To Microsoft's Sharepoint

The founding troika of Potsdam-based Mindquarry, a startup offering an Open Source alternative to Microsoft's Sharepoint Server and Lotus Connections, has taken on seed funding from Hasso Plattner Ventures and brought in Stephan Voigt who co-founded the 16 year old software company Scopeland.

CEO Voigt Posted This Pic, Taken On His Way To Work The Other Day-- As We Say Europe Has Stylish Startup Scenery

Mindquarry is a searchable Wiki application, with some nice team management and project building features. It's especially good for teams that have to share a lot of docs and files and who doesn't these days.


The software is being distributed as a free download, which makes a lot of sense to us because we think that companies may then run it on their Intranets. We learned through a recent gig that a heck of a lot of businesses and global organizations do not enable open access to the Internet for staff -- making all those newfangled web-based applications effectively off limits to the enterprise market.

The software is being released under "Mozilla Public Licence" and the founding team is hoping to attract a developer community.

Commercial customers will get a cost-saving service subscription, the "Mindquarry Enterprise Server". A further important milestone is the product as a hosted service. That allows small customers to use the Mindquarry features within a browser on their laptop, without having the need of an own server and IT-infrastructure. Users can simply access their files, knowledge and tasks from any point with Internet access.

Read - Mindquarry's CEO blog
Read - Co-founder and COO Lars Trieloff's blog
View Mindquarry

Posted at 05:26 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Open Source Software | TrackBack | Permalink

March 01, 2007

London's TrustedPlaces Raises £500,000 For Social Review Site

TrustedPlaces has received a £500,000 investment from HOWZAT media, the team behind Cheapflights.co.uk. The ad-driven business plans to expand to other European countries. The company is reminds us of Yelp, which has made headway in the US.

TrustedPlaces may now be able to upgrade their office space

Read - Your TrustedPlaces Receives £500k Investment! (Blog post)

Posted at 10:18 PM | Posted to Media | TrackBack | Permalink

Tornado Insider Says Euro Cleantech VC Doubled Up '06

We reported last month that Eurosif study said that VC investment in sustainable and clean technologies saw a big jump in 2006. This week Tornado Insider Research, which tracks venture investments in technology and life science in Europe, confirmed the trend.

Tornado said that while VCs have been slow to make the move, it changed in 2006 with a "tremendous upswing to 43 investments in energy-related cleantech companies, compared to 21 in 2005". That translates into a total of €233M raised, double the €108M a year earlier.

It also means a lot of small bets on a wide range of companies and technologies, although solar seems to be in the lead.

It is a start, but small bets mean that ventures are not raising the amounts of capital that is required to create, say a global semiconductor player, or a market leading software company.

Tornado Insider Research data indicates that technologies enabling solar power are benefiting most. In 2006, 15 venture capital investments targeted solar companies, up from 6 in 2005 and 4 in 2004. Fuel cells remain popular and come in second with 8 deals in 2006. Wind power is also on the rise as 3 deals were reported in 2006. Water power companies raised 5 fundings in 2006, up from 4 in 2005 and 2 in 2004. Since 2001, venture capital investments in water power were raised by 8 European companies. 5 generate power through waves and 3 from tidal currents. The UK and Germany have an impressive lead when it comes to attracting venture funding, with 44 and 35 deals since 2001 respectively. The Netherlands, Norway and Sweden follow with 5 deals each.

The report also says that cleantech investments in Europe outside the energy space "target water treatment, waste recycling or soil treatment technologies. Together 5 investments were recorded in 2006 in these sectors, 1 less than in 2005."
Read - Cleantech VCs bet on solar power (Tornado Insider)
Read - Size Matters -alt energy study from Eurosif (a:c euro)

Posted at 09:49 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink

Bernoulli Inspired Water Power Startup

This week a UK alt energy startup, Hydroventuri, won a £40K cash innovation prize from oil giant Shell. We think that with the profits Shell and co. have been making it could have easily added two more zeros to that cash prize. We're sure its early stage VC-backer, Proton Capital would not have minded that either.

Be that as it may, the Imperial College spinout is currently running trials of its innovative power generation system. It works with slower moving and shallower water streams, so-called ultra low head waterways.

It claims that its lack of moving parts and Bernouill principle-inspired design is a cost-effective way to extract energy from rivers, channels and possibly tidal streams with minimal impact on the environment.

That is a combined goal that so far has been difficult to achieve.

Water powered mills before they became decorative features of countryside restaurants and theatres.

If this startup is successful in qualifying its technology, it could be a real growth story. We could see it forming joint ventures in China and Italy, for example, to develop and distribute its tech. These two countries are aggressively seeking renewable energy sources - particularly hydro power. We recently heard that the Italian market alone is looking to invest €10B to reach its renewable energy goals and hydroelectricity is on its radar (see Risk And Opportunities link below).

Read - HydroVenturi wins £40 000 award from Shell
Read - Alt Energy Risks and Opportunity (alarm:clock euro)

Posted at 06:23 PM | Posted to Alternative Energy | News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink