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December 07, 2007
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 on December 7, 2007 05:38 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Permalink
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