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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 on December 21, 2007 11:02 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Permalink
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