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December 31, 2007
End of Year Dealmaking Roundup
Some December dealmaking news made its way to our Euro reporter on this last day of 2007.
The Swiss/US startup for video blogging, kyteTV, closed a $15M round led by Telefonica. More details in its PR here.
Limerick-based Powervation Ltd. a fabless semiconductor company specialized in power controllers for microprocessors used in high-performance computers and networking gear, announced on Dec 17th that it raised $10M in a round led jointly by Intel Capital and SEP, along with Venture Tech Alliance (CA, USA ) and a follow on investment from local investor Fourth Level Ventures.
Denmark's Seed Capital has made an initial investment in Danish software as a Service startup Actimizer A/S. The company is specialized in developing a web based application that boost the sales process. A built in dialer takes drives outbound call automation. It claims 1500 to-date, mainly in the home market.
Also out of Denmark is the news that SunFlake has patents on a new process for creating silicon-based solar that might be twice as efficient and cheaper to make than the ones on the market today. More on its seed investor's site.
Posted at 07:27 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
December 21, 2007
Fresh Euro Beta Financings and M&A Deals
Logitech Exits its Digital Pen Business. Anoto, the Swedish company that pioneered digital pen and paper, announced that UK-based Destiny is buying out one of its early licensees, Logitech. The Swiss peripheral manufacturer was an early adopter of Anoto's tech and an early strategic investor. Earlier this year Logitech sold its equity in Anoto. This deal with Destiny means that Logitech is out of the digital pen biz. No disclosure on the size of the transaction. (image source: Anoto press)
Read - Destiny Acquires Logitech's Digital Pen Based on Anoto Technology
Ericsson Buying In To Support IPTV. Ericsson has acquired Spanish IPTV consultancy HyC Group. Ericsson bought the HyC Group, a 110 employee-strong company, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition is meant to strengthen Ericsson's position as systems integrator of IPTV solutions, it said in the press announcement. It also said that the HyC acquisition fits with its Tandberg Television, which is specailized in video compression technologies.
Read - Ericsson acquires HyC Group: Spanish IPTV consultancy and systems integration company
DailyMe.TV Financed For Self-Service Mobile Video. Berlin-based dailyme.tv, which is in beta, offers a self-service platform for mobilephone users to subscribe to video and podcasts. It has raised an undisclosed amount from local investors, according to its latest press release.
Right now the service is only available in Germany. The default content fits that market: German news from the local TV broadcasters, video blogs, and films. Users set up their subscriptions on the web and mobile device are updated wirelessly (either via GPRS, 3G, or WLAN). You chose what kind of content you want sent to the phone.
Despite the startup's inane name, we like the idea of being able to set up and forget about video clip subscriptions, in the same way you can with RSS feeds. And we also like that the user does not have find her cables to connect to the PC, or remember to do a download before going on the road, and no time wasting while waiting for the downloads.
The startup has a patent on what it calls Mediacast technology (no further details available on its site). Also mentioned in the PR was its apparently was its connectivity management software.
The firm plans to make money via premium service and advertising. It counts ARD (German TV station) and Nokia as partners. The user needs an N or E series Nokia handy, and a good sized SD card, at least 1GB. A flat rate high speed wireless service is also suggested by dailyme.tv.
Read - dailyme.tv press release
Creathor invests in aka-aki. Via Deutsche Startups comes the news that Creathor, a VC fund that was founded by one of the founders of Technologieholding (in other words one of the most experienced VCs in Germany) has made an early stage investment in this mobile startup which asks users to download a Java app so that they can use their Bluetooth radios as a radar to find other members of the socnet.
There are a few Euro startups trying to make a business out of this kind of thing, such as France's Mobiluck and imity. We wrote about them not being compatible with making money earlier this year, but maybe Creathor's know-how will show the way.
Read - Creathor investiert in aka-aki :: deutsche-startups.de
Mediapeers Snags T-Online Venture. Via Deutsche Startups comes the news that T-Online Ventures (which belongs to Deutsche Telekom) has invested in a platform for licensing and exchange of corporate and professional video called mediapeers.
Read - T-Online Venture investiert in mediapeers :: deutsche-startups.de
Posted at 11:02 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
NXP Acquires VC-Backed GloNav For Up To $110M
NXP Semiconductors' latest announcement says it is set to acquire GloNav Inc., a US-based maker of global positioning systems (GPS) and wireless chips for $85M in cash and a further $25M, contingent upon revenue and product development milestones over the next two years.
This would be a speedy exit for Atlantic Bridge Ventures, which has been backing GloNav since it was the spin out of Ceva last July. GloNav also in the meantime acquired RFDomus.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008, subject to regulatory approvals.
Posted at 09:58 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
SiliconLine Raises A Round
Silicon Line GmbH, a German fabless semiconductor company that is specialized in making VCSEL drivers and amplifiers used in gigabit Ethernet, Fiber Channel, and several other flavours of optical networking, has raised a Series A round of an undisclosed amount from Belgium-based Capital-E, which has close connections to IMEC, and Germany based Munich Venture Partners (MVP) which is close to the Fraunhofer Institute, as well as SAP and Swisscom.
Silicon Line's website reveals that it has been focussed on optical networking, but according to a statement from one of its new backers in regards to the funding, it will develop chips for portable devices too.
Its claim to fame is the ability to devleop a range of sophisticated analog designs on CMOS. Normally, says SiliconLine, those kind of chips are done in bipolar CMOS or compound semiconductors such as GaAs, both of which are more expensive and use the smaller-sized wafers.
The company was founded in 2005.
Posted at 06:50 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Zoomio Raises €5.5M for Marketing Software
Via Venture Partners wrote in to say it led a €5.5M round (DKK 37 million) in Danish multi-channel marketing software firm Zoomio.
Zoomio might have a name that sounds like some kind of Web 2.0 application, but it is actually an enterprise software vendor. Its web-based software help turn leads into customers in a call center, for example, and it can help manufacturers, or service providers, to get customers to opt-in to email marketing programs. Once the potential customers are receiving html emails, the sytem provides measurement and analysis details on things like success rate of a campaign, costs per conversion, and the like.
It also integrates into CRM apps like salesforce.com and Microsoft's offerings in that area. It has won a couple of awards at the annual Cebit show in Germany.
View Zoomio
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December 20, 2007
Halting State's Driverless-Taxi Not Pure SciFi
We just finished reading Charles Stroll's novel Halting State, a trip into the near future where MMORGs have influenced the design of IT systems. The Scottish police force, for example, view the world through CopSpace-coded glasses. What is more, quantum computers are used by the bad guys to crack crypto keys, blacknets are the new black markets, and self-driving taxis cruise the streets of Edinburgh.
It's a fun read where the author has taken emerging tech trends into the fictional future.
We thought the driverless-taxi thing was pure imagination, but a little research yesterday revealed that in fact London's Heathrow Airport is to pilot such a system at the new Terminal 5. It is not remotely controlled by call-center attendants located offshore (as in the novel), rather it runs on a normal road equipped with a sensor-controlled tracking system.
It is supplied by Advanced Transport Systems (ATS), which is privately owned and backed by private investors -- it sold 25% of equity to strategic investor BAA in 2005.
A photo of the first ATS "taxi" delivered fresh from the assembly line of manufacturer ARRK in Basildon Essex
The story of ATS and its founder's quest to turn his vision into a reality makes for some good reading too. We found an article on its corporate finance advisor's website.
Posted at 02:39 PM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink
Buy, Hold, or Sell with Graham O'Keeffe
Up today is Graham O'Keeffe, a general partner at Atlas Venture, in the latest installment in the Buy, Hold, or Sell series on the alarm:clock euro.
Active as a venture capitalist in Europe for over 10 years, O'Keeffe is deep into wireless. You can see it in the investment he makes – he did Atlas' early investment in Orthogon Systems, the point to point, high data throughput unwired device-maker that was acquired by Motorola last year; and he's currently on the boards of PicoChip, Ubiquisys, Icera Semiconductor, and Shozu, all developing enabling technologies for more pervasive wireless services.
That interest in unwired tech also influences his hobbies, like flying radio-controlled airplanes. But the next big purchase he will make is for his other interest: photography. (The photo used here is his own).
The UK-based tech investor is looking at acquiring a new Nikon D300 Digital SLR to replace his Nikon D70, a camera that has created "lots of fantastic photos", he said.
The D300 camera has12.3 megapixels, 51 pt autofocus, a lightweight magnesium alloy body, and a 3" LCD with VGA resolution. (Image above sourced from Nikon website).
The Nikon Capture NX software editor, sold as an option is "just a great piece of software". He uses it for colour correction, for example.
Afterwards he will often use Adobe Photoshop for manipulating the digital images. For editing videos, Adobe Premier is the software of choice.
As the owner of a Nokia N95, he often uses that devices camera, which has 5 megapixels and Carl Zeiss Tessar optics.
"For shooting and sharing random events when you're out, the Nokia camera is fine – it goes everywhere," said O'Keeffe.
"Uploading to flickr is part of the fun," he said and he uses portfolio company's software Shozu for that.
We suggested that 5 megapixels is pretty good for cameraphone, but he pointed out that without a great lens, those pixels are not worth a lot.
O'Keeffe's Nikon lens has a vibration reduction feature, said: "Although you can correct focus afterwards, you want to get as much right in analogue before it even goes to digital," he added.
The importance of the analogue was one photography lesson gleaned from Terence Donovan who O'Keeffe met briefly when he was at Oxford (Donovan was a well-known UK fashion photographer. He directed the Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love" video.)
View- Atlas Venture.
Read - Atlas' aggregation of its portfolio company news
Posted at 02:08 PM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink
December 19, 2007
Tradus/QXL Board Agrees £946M Deal
Tradus plc issued a statement yesterday with the news that its board will recommend to shareholders to accept a cash offer from Naspers' subsidiary, MIH Internet BV, at a company valuation of £946M.
This is Money has some background on who the shareholders are, in a story entitled Dotcom Veteran Hits Jackpot.
Posted at 10:20 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
December 17, 2007
QXL To Be Bought For £750M and Other Fresh Euro Deals
Tradus (formerly QXL) to go to Naspers for £750M. Rumors about an acquisition of QXL have been circulating, with eBay named as a potential acquirer. But The Times is reporting that the online auction operator, which is big in Poland under the name Allegro, is being acquired for £750M by South Africa's Naspers. The report in the Times acknowledges that QXL had declined to comment for the article. (If you want to do the math on the multiple, see annual report published in March 2007 pdf)
The South African company has been buying up Internet properties in E.Europe and Russia. In October Naspers acquired Gadu Gadu, the leading Polish instant messaging provider. Earlier in the year we marvelled at the QXL share price, which was close to £500M then, and wrote about Gadu Gadu's intended IPO .
Atheros Acquire Finnish/US GPS Chipmaker for $56M. u-Nav Microelectronics announced that Atheros Communications, a publicly-traded wireless solutions provider is to pay $56M in cash and stocks for "the assets and certain liabilities" of the 6 year old company. u-Nav Microelectronics, a venture-backed fabless semiconductor company, develops GPS chip and some mobile location-based software and services to go with them.
Telcos Big on Video Blogging. We are a bit late with this one. NewTeeVee reported on Wednesday that the company behind Kyte.tv, whose video blogging platform supports mobilephone (java enabled phones) capture and playback, as well as the web support, has raised $5.6M from Spain's Telefonica. The report cites sources "close to the company". Another telco investor is Swisscom. Early investor was Atomico.
Read - Another $5.6 Million for Kyte.tv « NewTeeVee and Nokia Growth Partners.
Where all the foreign exchange students hang out. German startup Campux.com has raised an undisclosed amount of early financing, according to a PR it put out this week, for its university guides and local campus information platform, which includes social networking features for students. It came out the gates in several languages and says it aims to catalogue the world's unis.
Read - TechCrunch France review of Campux (in the comments you will find other similar ventures in Europe)
Read - Deutsche Startups' review
Review in English on Killer Startups
Posted at 01:55 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
December 15, 2007
Google Zeitgeist: Rise of Badoo, Ebuddy, and Dailymotion
Google's year end Zeitgeist report lists the top ten fastest growing global searches. There are 3 startups from Europe that hit the chart this year: DailyMotion, the French video clip site, along with Ebuddy, multi-platform messaging, and Badoo, a London based socnet.
View - Google Zeitgeist 2007
Fastest Rising (global)
1. iphone
2. badoo
3. facebook
4. dailymotion
5. webkinz
6. youtube
7. ebuddy
8. second life
9. hi5
10. club penguin
Posted at 11:06 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink
December 14, 2007
A Data Patch From Toumaz
Toumaz, a UK company, is in the news with its wearable, actually stickable, wireless sensors for healthcare applications.
The front-end, or sensor patch, looks neat but the system it fits into looks a bit daunting.
Here is the front end
Here is what it takes to make it useful
Posted at 02:52 PM | Posted to Wearable Tech | TrackBack | Permalink
Mangrove Capital Invests in Brands4Friends' €5M Round
Brands4friends, a German company exploiting a business model proven by Vente Privée in France, sent us the news today that it raised €5M from Mangrove Capital Partners, along with private investors. Founded just a few
months ago by Christian Heitmeyer, formerly of Delsey, and Constantin Bisanz, formerly founder of TruckScout24, the venture has apparently hit a market opportunity in Germany.
It claims 200K members have signed up to receive special offers on brand-named snowboards, running shoes, and jackets, typically overstocked items that the brands don't want to sell off on eBay (for example), at discounted prices.
Hans-Jürgen Schmitz is the Mangrove partner named as the dealmaker on this one.
View- brands4friends
---
Articles on alarm:clock euro about Vente Privée and the latest trend in European eCommerce.
Read - Exciting Commerce article on Brands4Friends launch
Read - Exciting Commerce compares Brands4Friends with Limango
Posted at 01:33 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
December 13, 2007
Arctic Startups - Finland Close Up
Arctic Startup is a blog for and about Finnish startups. Several startups profiled on the blog were not on our radar yet, so that quickened our interest. An article on whatamap.com suggests there is a niche market, picking up where GoogleMaps leaves off.
And there is news about Apaja, a startup that raised €1.75M from a PE firm specialized in media, Martinson Trigon.
Apaja is the company behind Playray, a games, avatars and community platform, it provides to large-sized Internet publishers. Founded in 2001, it counts Lycos and Ilse Media as recently signed partners.
If Artic Startup's authors keep up the pace of posting, it's definitely one to add to the RSS reader.
View - Arctic Startup
Posted at 06:07 PM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink
Wellington Invests in French Vacation Company
Wellington Partners has acquired a stake TravelHorizon Group in exchange for €10M in venture capital. The company is an online tour operator and claims to be market leader in ski vacations. It also offers other types of vacations via specialized booking websites for spa/wellness getaways, as well as European sea and resort vacations.
Wellington's Eric Archambeau is named as the dealmaker on this one. A quick search did not turn up information about when the TravelHorizon was founded, but based on the number of sites and the stated revenues for 2006, it is not an early stage venture. It is already generating annual sales of €27M and claims 130,000 active customers. It is based in Aix-en-Provence and operates a multi-lingual call center in Amsterdam.
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Puzzler Winners: Barcelona Buffs
Last week the Puzzler asked you to identify a European city that offers somewhat warmer weather than Zurich (between three and five degrees on the Celsius scale), is home to some interesting startups and a nice urban lifestyle. The answer is:
Barcelona
The Agbar tower clue was the hint that clinched it for most of you that wrote in. Thanks to all of you who participated from Croatia to Cologne and California! The first to write in was Farley Duvall of Red Herring, and the ninth in the inbox was Hussein Kanji of Accel Partners in London.
Duvall (pictured above) wrote "Fractus was a 2006 Red Herring 100 Winner, so we know them, and Barcelona, well!"
Kanji wrote: "Barca is one of my favorite cities in Europe, and I get out there once a quarter, and always eat at cal pepe." He is the new young guy at accel (picture right) and the most recent hire for the London team, although he's been there for two years now.
Farley Cash Duvall, is the MD EMEA for Red Herring. He also is active in organizing ETRE.
He's an entrepreneur and business development executive who we run into often as he's also based in Zurich and we go to a lot of the same confabs that he goes to. In his own words: With almost 20 years of experience in the IT industry, spent in the US, Asia and Europe, Farley has developed an extensive network of business contacts and long track record of dealmaking experience. ... Staying abreast of technology trends and acting as a venture catalyst take up his spare time."
Kanji joined Accel Partners as an associate in 2007 after having worked as a part-time associate for the past couple of years while studying for his MBA. A background in Silicon Valley and in enterprise software and consumer internet products influences his venture capital work. He is currently involved with the Accel's investments in Dapper, Netvibes, Njini and The Cloud.
Prior to joining Accel, Hussein held several roles at Microsoft Corporation, where he was involved in a leadership program won for his work on its speech recognition business. More bio here.
Posted at 08:21 AM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
December 12, 2007
Austria's SensorDynamics Raises €25M Series B
SensorDynamics, a company that develops gas and motion sensor products, among other types of sensors used in automobiles, announced a Series B round of €25M ($37 million) [via PEHub].
Uwe Albrecht Managing Partner at Siemens Venture Capital said in a statement: "Since our initial investment, SensorDynamics has established itself as a prominent provider of sensing and wireless technology to the automotive and consumer industries. We are excited to take the company to the next stage with this new investment."
Posted at 07:18 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Clean Energy Stocks At A Peak?
The title of this post is derived from a quote attributed to Tom Murley, head of UK PE group HgCapital in eFinancial News. We've been hearing VCs complain about the high valuations of some alt energy startups at industry conferences, and we've marvelled ourselves at the rich valuations on solar energy companies on these pages, but private equity investors are now saying that these valuations are not sustainable. In a report drawn from a panel discussion on the topic of clean energy last week that was hosted by eFinancial News, Murley said, “We are at the peak of inflated expectations.”
Murley commented that stock prices are peaking and are not sustainable, giviing the example of wind farm companies. “We are seeing them trade at 48 times earnings against eight for large utilities.”
Anne Glover of Amadeus Capital Partners, is also quoted. “We are in a secular long-term trend. This business is not a bubble…” But she also said she could not defend all the values being put on clean energy businesses.
Posted at 04:25 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Microsoft Buy UK's Multimap
Microsoft Corp. has acquired Multimap, a venture-backed supplier of online mapping services to the likes of LastMinute.com and other online services. No disclosure on the size of the deal. According to Red Herring, Multimap raised about £3.3M in two rounds and its largest shareholder is the founder, Sean Phelan. The outside investors, according to RH, included Telewest and Infotech Enterprises. Multimap is doing about £12M in sales and was profitable, according to a November published report in FT.
Posted at 04:14 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Fresh Euro Deals and News From LeWeb 3.0
The glitz, the glamour, the big spinning disco ball of LeWeb 3.0 version 2007. (Image source: leweb 3.0 official photo site)
The reviews so far from the event in Paris are positive. One tech sector blogger describes his feeling about being there as being like a kid in a candy store.
What is more, the newsflow on all things webby is filling our inbox. Here's today's summary, so far.
Dutch Startup Libersy Raised €1.2 Million For Online Booking Platform TechCrunch reports that Libersy, an Amsterdam-based startup has closed a €1.2 Million round of financing this week. Investors include Shramrock Ventures, Technofonds and Reoff. The company was founded in 2005 by Dutch marketing whiz Karin Loeffen (pictured above), who has worked at Belken, Canon, Philips, and a new media publisher. She had previously raised €400k in a series of angel rounds.
Beam it up Scotty has launched this week. It's a new mobile data service from prolific German development company construktiv, the same company that brought us social bookmarking site Mister Wong, and several others (five of which are popular, according to Blognation Germany). Described as a free service that enables download of pictures, music, videos, Word/Excel docs or any other file to mobile devices in three simple steps without the need for compression nor cables.
Bahu, a private social networking site for young students across Europe, announced today the completion of its first round of funding. The round is being led by the Lightspeed-Gemini Internet Lab (LGiLab).
Vringo, a video ringtone sharing service provider, announced its partnership with WeeWorld and with news agency, Agence France Presse at Le Web in Paris. Vringo will make available AFP's clips a videotones. Videotones? A two to ten second clip that announces your call, instead of a sound file.
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December 11, 2007
France's InsideContactless Attract Nokia Growth Partners
InsideContactless announced a Series C round of €25m ($38m) in a deal led by Nokia Growth Partners. The investment comes on the back of the firm achieving some milestones this year, such as the successful launch of its new MicroRead NFC (near field communication) platform and the delivery of 35 million MicroPass intelligent payment platforms for the US contactless payments market, according to the firm.
“This is more than a financial investment, this is about a strategic partnership with key players who are committed to building and driving the NFC eco-system,” said Rémy de Tonnac, CEO of INSIDE Contactless in the same statement.
He added that three years ago a similar strategic investment was made by Visa, which "brought the company to a leading position in the field of Contactless payment". He's hoping this deal with will lead to a similar success in the NFC market.
View InsideContactless
Posted at 07:24 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
UK's YooMedia Acquires Spanish Interactive TV Firm
YooMedia, which counted Sony as a backer, and did four dating acquisitions last year, according to PaidContent, has just acquired Spain's Fresh IT, an interactive TV company. No disclosure on the details of the deal. But there was some outside financing involved, according to ClickZ, and there will be a company name change to Mirada.
U.K.'s YooMedia to Acquire Spain's Fresh I.T. to Form Mirada - ClickZ
Posted at 07:16 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
LeWeb3 From The View of a VC- 3i's Daniel Waterhouse
We could not make it to Paris this week, but Daniel Waterhouse of 3i gave us his view of the first day of LeWeb3 2007, a two-day event in the French capital that attracted some 1700 participants this year.
"We arrived last night and hosted the speakers' dinner at our hotel. It is a great lineup with people like Mike Arrington, Jason Calcanis, and Kevin Rose…the Who's Who of the Web 2.0 world," said Waterhouse whose firm is one of this year's sponsors.
Compared to last year this one is even bigger and it is better organized, he reported. "Good content on the main stage was the main attraction," said Waterhouse, adding that he did sit in on a few startup pitches.
More than 30 ventures were scheduled to pitch today.
"I haven't seen anything that really blew me away, but I think that is a function of where we are at in the cycle. We have had two or three years of quick innovation. The pace of innovation is slowing now," he said.
We asked if that meant that the number of startups saying that they plan to build a - great product and a big digital audience and will worry about monetization later- was decreasing.
He replied, "There are still a lot of people talking like that."
Another aspect of being at this point in the cycle: "It is possible to step back and see the companies that have emerged -- and have a done a great job and have a real business," said Waterhouse.
What kind of businesses? "We want to invest in [online] businesses that are relatively close to a transaction."
He mentioned Twenga as an example, a comparison shopping business (funding by 3i and co-investors was announced on Friday). "The traffic acquisition model is well understood by merchants by now," said Waterhouse.
How do you keep track of all the companies you hear about at a show like LeWeb 3. "You don't. You get bombarded with information and some of it sticks."
Why did 3i sponsor the event [it was the only venture capital firm among a list of sponsors from the Internet and mobile sectors]? "We're very active with Internet investments and have done well with them: Seloger.com [IPO], Blue Lithium [acquired by Yahoo] and Fotolog [acquired by Hi-Media]. Recent investments are Fastbooking and DemandMedia. So we want to continue to support emerging venture in this sector so we can back the best, brightest, and biggest.
Some links to follow for coverage of LeWeb 3
IHT
Lunch over IP – Susan Kish and Bruno Guissani's running notes. The Philippe Stark one is good, especially his comments on the Kindle from Amazon.
Posted at 06:14 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
December 10, 2007
Fresh Euro Deals
France's Twenga Attracts 3i . Twenga, a comparison shopping site raised €2.6M from 3i to grow its one year old business. The multilingual engine, which is getting some heavy traffic (7 million visitors across its sites in November) will also get 3i's Daniel Waterhouse and Jean-David Chamboredon, "to help drive further growth and international expansion", along with the money.
Twenga differentiates itself by being multi-country (FR, DE, PL, IT, and UK) and by delivering volume of choice to its users. TechCrunch writes that Twenga's search results are returned "as a wall of product images and can be refined by price and features. It also has several advanced features include price tracking and user reviews. This allows the engine to run more complex searches properties such as a 10% price drop."
Moniforce acquired by Oracle. The Dutch company has been selling web application performance software and is one of the fastest growing tech companies in The Netherlands in 2007. Its current CEO is a former Business Objects managing director. The founder is the Biz Dev EMEA manager. The deal size was undisclosed, as was any information about how the startup's management and founders will or will not be integrated into Oracle.
View Oracle's Moniforce Acquisition Pages
Clear2Pay Buys Diagram EDI. The acquisitive Belgian e-payments solution provider Clear2Pay has acquired Diagram for an undisclosed amount [via]. Clear2Pay raised about €15.5M last year. It employs 220 worldwide. Sales are growing at about 50 percent before this year's acquisitions.
Read- Earlier article in alarm:clock euro about Clear2Pay - Gone Global
Posted at 07:59 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Buy, Hold, or Sell with Henri Seydoux
We were hoping that Henri Seydoux, the visionary founder and CEO of 
Bluetooth and wireless gearmaker Parrot SA, would give us a taste of the kind of lavish spending enabled by entrepreneurialism in this latest interview for the Buy, Hold, or Sell series .
After all, he not only co-founded several high-tech companies and is majority shareholder of Parrot, but he is also the co-founder of the lux shoemaker Christian Louboutin, known for its distinctive red soles.
But it turns out that Seydoux doesn't do a lot of acquisitions of the consumer kind. He's up-to-date but not one to throw out a good piece of technology in favour of something new, if what he owns still pleases.
For example, Seydoux is a big fan of his basic black and white plastic Swatch watch, one he's been wearing for "years".
"It is modern, but also a classical, quality watch, a neat design," he said.
Seydoux points out that Swatch was the first to put an analogue face on a digital timepiece, something that was quite innovative for its time. Indeed, the Swatch brand was established back in the eighties and the company behind it is now the largest manufacturer of finished watches in the world.
His laptop is a Sony Vaio that he bought three years ago. "When I bought it," he said, "it was the smallest, lightest unit on the market."
His mobilephone is a Nokia N95. He likes the camera in it, he said. "It lets me enjoy the reporter-effect - like a professional photographer, I always have my camera with me and am taking at least one photo a day."
The N95 is not the absolute latest from the Finnish phonemaker, but it sports a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. It handles MPEG-4 video capture (30 fps) and supports wireless LAN/UPnP, as well as high speed cellular data services (HDSPA and EGPRS) in addition to a quadband radio for making phone calls around the world.
The images below are from Henri Seydoux. Clouds and reflections are what he likes to photograph.
Thanks for the memory
The most recent purchase, and the one that has given him the most satisfaction is a modest one, a 4GB SanDisk microSD flash memory card for his Nokia. "It stores 2000 pictures, 500 songs, just a great buy," he said.
What might explain Seydoux's relatively conservative approach to personal tech is that he is typically the first end-user of the products that Parrot's R&D team develop. It is a team that reportedly outputs a new product every month of the year.
The latest gadget he's been using is a digital photo frame (model no. Parrot DF7700), a colour LCD TV display with a built-in SIM card and cellphone chipset, which means it can receive images directly from a mobilephone.
"I was in Hong Kong, sending my children photos of the ferry trip to the Mainland in Paris, directly to the picture frame," recounted Seydoux. When it hits stores, the gadget will retail for €189.
Serial Entrepreneur and Business Angel
Forty-six years old, Seydoux trained as a journalist, worked in sales for Le Matin de Paris, and joined the techie ranks in 1982, working as an operating systems software developer at a couple of French software firms. He subsequently started up a company to market Microarchi's operating system.
Seydoux also co-founded B.S.C.A (Buffin Seydoux Computer Animation), now known as BUF Compagnie, which has studios in France and Los Angeles. It did the Spiderman 3 visual effects, for example.
Lately, he joined a group of business angels to back French startup MobiNear , whose first product enables users to download digital audio files to portable devices and mobilephones (mainly Nokia but also at least one SonyEricsson javaphone). It does it via Bluetooth interfaces. You could almost count this investment as corporate venturing. Parrot sells Bluetooth dongles for the PC.
View - Parrot SA
Posted at 07:26 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink
December 08, 2007
Windsim's Software Gets The Most Out of Windfarms
Late last month, Sarsia Seed, acquired a minority stake in WindSim AS. The startup, which develops simulation software used by wind farm designers and planners, has been in business for several years, but it is in a sweet spot now with sales inquiries coming from Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.
Recent customer wins are in China and Greece, for example.
This is a good niche to be in. The alarm:clock euro has a pet theory that the alt energy sector has the potential to consume in a big way innovative software, algorithms, embedded systems, and newfangled semiconductors. We'd like to profile more companies like in this category.
The operators of wind farms, photovoltaic energy suppliers, and biomass power companies, have huge valuations, that means they are flush with capital to invest to develop their infrastructure and grow their business. But not everyone she talks to agrees, so she's looking for a little vindication, as well as some good stories for the alarm:clock euro.
View Windsim
Posted at 07:31 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Red Herring 100 Competition Open Plus The French Connection
The organizers of the Red Herring 100 Europe are still accepting entries for the upcoming pitchfest in Malta (April 14 to 16). Every year the RH team selects 100 promising European companies, publishes profiles of them, and invites decision makers from the VC and investor community and executives from large public tech companies to come meet them.
If a company is selected it will be invited to present or exhibit its products at the elite event. Everyone, including the winners, pay an entrance fee, but there are no additional fees on top of that: to make your pitch, for example.
Details here. There is also a link provided to enter your startup.
While we were checking out the above details, we noticed Red Herring also has an event in France next month, called Red Herring France 2008 on January 27-29 in Lyon. It is a two-day event with speakers like Bluetooth gadget innovator Henri Seydoux and general partners from Partech, Ventech, 3i, Sofinnova, GRP, and Banexi. There is even a golfing event. Who knew you can golf in Lyon in the middle of winter?
Posted at 07:09 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
December 07, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler: City Search
It's just 10 degrees here in Zurich today; wet, windy, and overcast. It has us wishing our base was in another European city, one whose current temperature is bumping 55 degrees, that has a nice 4km stretch of beach that you can reach on the Metro, and even has a rival to the 'erotic gherkin' in London's financial district (image left).
This week's Puzzler, what is the name of this city.
If you need another clue or two, the city is also home to some emerging world-class startups like Fractus Antenna, which has 50 patents to its name and technology so robust that it can handle interference inherent in super-compact mobilephones, packed with components like optical touch screens, multiple RF chips, and internet radio recording. One of the R&D teams of fabless chip startup gigle is based in this city, as is an e-health pioneer, specialized in remote X-ray clinical services, one which has no trouble getting doctors to relocate and work there.
You'll win a moment of fame, if not fortune, if you are the first or ninth reader to write in with the correct answer.
Posted at 10:09 AM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
Buy, Hold, or Sell with Joe Cohen
Today we have the second in our series about what is on the shopping list for some of the tech savvy leaders of pioneering, and sometimes disruptive, startups active in Europe.
Joe Cohen, co-founder and CEO of Seatwave, an online marketplace for individuals to buy and sell event and concert tickets, talked to the alarm:clock euro at the recent European Tech Tour Web Summit in Montreux.
Cohen said he is thinking about buying an Apple iPhone, but he said what is holding him back is a worry about the responsiveness of its touch-screen for text input. "I doubt that I can achieve the speed that I can with the Blackberry," he said.
One recent new technology investment he isn't too happy about is an Asterisk VOIP PBX. His comment when we probed about the open source telephony platform was: "You don't want to get me started on that one."
The American born entrepreneur, AC/DC fan, and father of four, has been living in London for the past seven years. Two years at Seatwave. In the five years prior to that he developed the European business for IAC/ Interactive Corp units match.com and Ticketmaster.
View- Seatwave
Posted at 05:48 AM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink
Mojowatch Europe - Streamezzo, Prague Hot, and Search Buzz
Here is the latest in our round up of European news and hot topics relevant to our readers.
Spam Killing Startup Funded in Germany.
Do you yearn for the days when spam meant a horrible tasting meat-like product, and not that messaging crap filling up our email folders? We do, so our attention was caught by an investment announcement from High-Tech Gründerfonds and Neuhaus Partners. The two have teamed up to finance antispameurope, a startup that said it needed outside capital to staff up in order to cope with customer demand. It is a hosted service, currently targetted at individual and corporate users. Oh, and it can actually charge money for its service.
US Media Specialist Providence Equity Invest in Ukrainian Cable TV blognation Russia says the deal represents the largest Western private equity investment in Ukraine. Providence Equity Partners, a media and communications private equity firm, agreed to invest over US$200 million in Volia Cable, a Ukrainian cable TV and Internet access provider. Volia’s network includes over 900,000 homes passed in four cities within Ukraine. Volia Cable is controlled by a private equity fund managed by SigmaBleyzer.
Disney Invests in Prague Location For Mobile Games You hear about US companies acquiring European VC-backed startups, eating them up so to speak, only to spit them out again. Here is one that is actually investing and building on a recent acquisition, namely its purchase of founder-funded Living Mobile made in 2005.
Read - Disney sets up world-class game design studio in Prague
Read - The mouse goes mobile
Streamezzo, the French startup specialized in software that enables "rich media" for mobilephones, has raised a new round of finance to the tune of €15M
Read - Altaide
Read - Neteco
Social search is the topic this week amongst Euro VCs that blog. Jason Ball's TechByte has the post which picks up on a discussion in Equity Kicker blog of some search startups VCs have their eyes on.
We followed some of the comments links on the VC blogs and came across Snagsta, which says its developing algorithms that fit the social search bill. It's original alpha site made us smile.
Mobile Advertising: Thoughts on Game Changes. But if the interest in search is all due to Google's super fantastic market capitalization, then some news and views from Cartagena Capital suggests that Google just moved the goal posts. Google is not a search company, points out one of its associated analysts. "It is a broker of advertising inventory. Google makes money by building inventory (i.e. white space on web, print and radio) and auctioning off inventory to advertisers. Search is merely the means to create a boundless amount of inventory and attract billions of eyeballs to it."
This is just one interesting point of view in its latest newsletter newsletter that digs into Google's mobile ambitions (you may need to bookmark that link for later perusal as the newsletter is not online yet). It is worthwhile reading and it is from a corporate finance boutique that, in our opinion, knows its way quite well around the mobile market.
Posted at 05:38 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
December 06, 2007
eBox: Open Source Network Admin From The Desert
This week we have a Q&A with Ignacio Correas of CEO and co-founder of Warp Networks, a three year old Spanish startup that is launching eBox, an open source enterprise network administration platform.
Warp, which is likely to spinoff eBox, is self-funded. It cobbled together the cash for R&D for eBox from government grants, open source consulting work, and from a strategic partner (that pulled out before the work was done and left the founders on their own).
It has attracted several business advisors that know a thing or two about open source, and who are on board to help the founding team.
Those points and the fact that it's the only startup we know that is based in Europe's largest desert sealed it for us.
Warp's hq is in Zaragoza, which is also the site of next year's Expo2008.
Zaragoza about 80 minutes from Madrid.
Q&A with Ignacio Correas (center in image below) CEO and co-founder of Warp Networks
> Why did you decide to create the company?
For several reasons...The year was 2004 and open source technologies were starting to be considered as serious commercial alternatives to other closed products. We had managed to put together some of the most open source knowledgeable people in the area, which was giving us a very important competitive advantage.
We had gathered some interest from potential customers and public support for our venture, even before starting. And all the founders were in a stage of our personal lives when we could commit ourselves completely to the success of Warp.
So we started offering consultancy, development and training services on open source echnologies. So far things have gone pretty well: we have more than 20 employees now, our turnover will be close to 1M€ this year and we have become technology providers of some large corporations, such as Vodafone R&D.
At the same time we decided to start the development of our own product eBox Platform together with another company in the region, DBS (this company closed down a few months ago). From our experience we knew that there was no easy, open source solution for the administration of corporate networks, particularly for small and medium size organizations, so we started coding it.
Our idea was to integrate several network functionalities, such as gateway, resource sharing, email server, security and so on into a single unit, that could be very easy to deploy and use and that could rapidly extend to other functionality. As you can imagine this was a pretty ambitious project: you can see an estimate of the effort at ohloh, a web site that makes several metrics on open source projects. We are reaching the functionality and stability that we were aiming for and are now planning for the launch of eBox into the market.
> How did you fund your software development?
On a first stage, we split costs with DBS. The deal was simple: we did the work and they funded our direct costs (programmers' salaries), while with our consultancy services we covered the rest of the costs (administration, office space, hardware and so on). We shared the rights and the management of the project.
When we reached our first important milestone, the release of eBox 0.7 under an open license in December 2005, DBS dropped out from the deal and we were left alone with the development. We needed to look for other sources of funding if we wanted to continue with eBox, so we approached CDTI, an organization dependant on the Spanish Ministry of Industry which funds innovative start-ups. They accepted our proposal and granted us the funds that, together with the income generated by Warp's services, have allowed us to complete eBox functionality.
>How many developers out there are suppporting the platform?
I have registered over 300 contributors who are giving us feedback, reporting bugs, translating the interface (it has been translated into German, French, Turkish, Danish, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, ...), creating new manuals and documentation, developing new modules. But this does not count a bunch of developers who give their contribution directly in our IRC/Chat channels and who leave no trace whatsoever.
The most important contribution we are having at this moment is coming from the people at Canonical, as they are integrating eBox in Ubuntu. This integration is expected to be completely functional by their next release, Hardy Heron, in April 2008.
If things go right eBox will become one of Ubuntu's official tools for network administration, reaching over 10 million users and increasing the amount of contributions we get.
> Do you think this is software that will have international usage?
Well, it already does. eBox has been downloaded over 50,000 times from quite many countries. During the past month the top ten countries downloading eBox (accounting for 50% of the total downloads) have been US, Spain, Russia, Germany, Italy, UK, Argentina, Netherlands, Canada and France. And I can guess that once it is integrated into Ubuntu the internationalization will be
even greater.
> Do you have any business angels working with Warp?
Yes. We have created a board of directors that is helping us in the preparation and launch of eBox into the market. We consider that eBox is mature enough for the market and we are now separating it from Warp and creating a new company that will be focused solely on eBox.
The business angels are:
- Mikko Puhakka (Holtron): a pretty uncommon profile, Mikko was the first investor in MySQL and is a researcher on open source
business models at Helsinki University of Technology
- Stephen Walli (blog ): a well-known open source
consultant based in Seattle. Stephen has been Vicepresident at Optaros and
Business Development Manager of Windows at Microsoft
- Timo Teimonen: a very experienced professional having had several advisory roles in startup companies, Timo has been Vicepresident of Nokia and area manager in IBM.
> Who are the founders of warp?
The idea of founding a company specialized on open source technologies came from six guys which were probably the best Linux experts and most active open source advocates in the region. A year before that, I had left a good job in Finland to try to start the same kind of company in Zaragoza (Spain), so when they asked me to join in as the non-geek member of the team I could not resist.
Thanks for the taking the time for the interview. And good luck!
Posted at 04:25 PM | Posted to Early stage | TrackBack | Permalink
Glowria Goes To NetGem
Glowria, the French DVD rental and VOD startup, has been sold by its French VCs to Netgem, a vendor of hardware and software for "new" TV companies [via Altaide] The deal values the venture at up to €18.9M and is apparently being paid in shares. The shares are equivalent to about 14.4 percent of Netgem's stock. It's probably a good fit for Netgem, but we think it was a premature trade sale exit for the startup.
Read related posts on Glowria in alarm:clock euro Glowria Executes 10/06 and Glowria Raises07/07
Posted at 03:28 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Bubble-era Ventures Snaffle Up Late Stage Venture
Ever wondered how many companies funded during the bubble survived, how many thrived, and how many went out of business? SVB Financial Group has the numbers and the charts online now. The investment bank's latest research found that contrary to the commonly held belief that the bulk of private technology companies left over from the boom are on the verge of fizzling out, these companies that were "conceived during the 2000 bubble-era comprise one-third of all private technology companies today, and the bulk of them — 70 percent — have received fresh funding within the last three years.
Although a lot of investments were written down (a dramatic graph above demonstrates trends), there is still a "large percentage" playing a "significant role in investment portfolios and dominating technology merger and acquisition activity".
VC Ratings weighs in with an analysis from the LP point of view.
Posted at 06:46 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Software As A Service Under The Microscope
Arma Partners, the London-based investment bank, has a new "whitepaper" available for download that attempts to dig through the "excitement" and "hype" to find out what's real in the SaaS market today.
The report says that SaaS is here to stay. It is disruptive, but it is not going to put the larger of the more traditional software firms out of business. They will co-exist, says Arma, but "it requires a lot of work from where these companies are today."
You will also find a couple of dozen SaaS company profiles, with quite a few from Europe, that make for interesting reading.
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Panty Post - BeCheeky.com
How many online lingerie retailers do we need? There is Figleaves.com and there is Coco Ribbon's Panty Postman, as well as Blacksocks.com, which recently added men's undergarments. One more is the answer made obvious by BeCheeky.com's latest financing announcement. The two year old UK-based e-tailer, has raised funding from YFM Group and Internet-experienced business angels in a £630K round.
The outfit above is a "topseller" according to the BeCheeky website.
Read- Funding press rel.
Posted at 05:01 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
December 05, 2007
Puzzler Winner - Open Source Destin-y
The answer to this week's Open Source themed Puzzler was - Marten Mickos, mySQL CEO whose photo we asked you to identify, along with a quote as a clue.
The answer to the bonus question: What is the name of this German corporate communications company founder who is also the founder of the open source car project OsCar Mobility?
Markus Merz
Thanks to all the readers that participated in the Puzzler this week. The plan was to take the first and ninth, but in Europe's fragmented software market, even if open source is slightly more social than other categories, it was probably too much to expect that we'd have that many readers that could correctly identify by visual clue the CEO of MySQL.
The singular winner is Fred Destin , a partner at Atlas Venture, the early stage venture fund. He also got the bonus question.
Destin actually gave us another quote from the Nordic CEO in his reply. He said Mickos had made a lasting impression on him at last year's Entrepreneur of the Year award (the Audemars Piguet sponsored event). After receiving a NextGem Award, Mickos joked that "to make a diamond all you needed was to take carbon and press it really, really hard," wrote Destin.
The UK-based VC's current portfolio includes in his own words: DailyMotion, a top 40 global site, PriceMinister, a large French ecommerce play, Sporever, a listed digital publisher and KDS, an online travel business.
He was investing in the Bay Area prior to the European market, and mentioned companies such as SGI-spinoff Kasenna or PARC-spinoff Inxight, recently acquired by Business Objects.
Destin says he "stubbornly" believes in the concept of "open source venture capital" and aims to provide a modicum of transparency through his blog.
Posted at 03:07 PM | Posted to quiz | TrackBack | Permalink
Europe's Hottest Software Companies
The Truffle 100 for 2007 Listing of Europe's 100 largest software firms is out and online. The good news is that 32 Euro software vendors have revenues greater than €100M (up from 30 one year ago).
The bad news is that all the Truffle 100 combined is generating less annual sales than Microsoft, and not quite double Oracle's annual sales.
Getting back to the positive news is the fact that all of the Truffle 100 companies have sales of greater €20M. And that they make about €2.5B in profits a year (aggregated).
This year Autonomy was the top performing firm according to the researchers. It got credit for its two good sized acquisitions and its mkt cap of $4B. Autonomy bought US rival Verity (US$500 million) and Z, a global leader in content archiving and electronic discovery solutions for $375M.
FAST moved up the ranking 13 spaces due to its sales growth, for example.
The ranking from Truffle is in our opinion the only decent listing of European software companies available. It is based on a survey supplemented by research. It does not include, US/Euro hybrids, unfortunately, but it is as good as it gets.
You cannot use the Software 500 anymore, for example, to track European software vendors. It is a self-nominating list and it ends up filled mainly with US companies - and some of them are doing just two and three million in annual sales.
Interesting that it took a French venture capital firm to finally come up with the idea of getting IDC on board, as well CXP, and the software associations in the region to encourage members to contribute to the ranking, e.g. Agoria (BE), Aitech (IT), Bitkom (GE), Intellect (UK) and Syntec (FR).
View - Truffle 100 website
Read - Truffle 100 listing (pdf)
Read - Our report on last year's ranking
Posted at 02:40 PM | Posted to Being European | TrackBack | Permalink
Aito Adds Creandum in Series A Round
Aito Technologies added Nordic early stage investor Creandum to its A round. The startup sells its software to mobile operators who use it to get real-time information about customer usage and uptake of new services via their desktop PC.
Rave reviews from pilot customers suggests to management that they are onto something good. In a statement the startup said that funding and support from Creandum and Conor will enable international market entry. We note that Aito has yet to provide detailed product information on its website.
Posted at 08:54 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
Yes, YES... Oh.. YesForLove
Two of the founders of recently floated Seloger.com, the France-based real-estate classified site publisher, Denys Chalumeau and Amal Amar, have reinvested along with new investor 123Venture, in a €1.5M financing round YesForLove, a new cosmetics brand that is dedicated to enhancing sex, or as the French more eloquently say: dédiée à l'amour et à ses plaisirs.
The company's website has a line of basics, like condoms, but condoms that have a gold and black "designer" package and massage oils and lipsticks, but ones that are honey or biscuit flavoured, as well as some more exotic things like "libido-vitamines", and a hide and seek kit.
Posted at 06:40 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
December 04, 2007
Swedish-Maltese Gambling and Other Fresh Euro M&A
SE - Unibet Acquires Online Gambling Group In a £54M deal, Swedish investment firm Maria Invest AB has sold its online gambling interests in Malta-registered Maria Holdings Limited to Internet gambling group Unibet plc for SEK 705 million (approximately GBP 54 million). Unibet Group is active in Europe and provides services in 20 languages. The group is listed on the OMX Nordic Exchange in Stockholm.
CZ - Warburg Pincus Acquires Stake in Centrum.cz. Czechidea reports that Netcentrum which owns the second largest Czech portal Centrum.cz raised capital from Warburg Pincus, in a deal that is rumored to value the venture at about €100M. On the same topic, Thomson Financial published a report stating that the firms involved did not disclose details or terms, but that the co-founders Ondrej Tomek and Oldrich Bajer will retain minority stakes. It also said that existing shareholders in NetCentrum will reinvest part of the transaction proceeds in the company.
GB - GSI Commerce acquires Zendor.com Pennsylvania-based e-commerce solutions provider GSI Commerce has agreed to acquire Manchester-based Zendor.com for approximately $7.9M.
Posted at 02:27 PM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink