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March 31, 2008
Munich's Clean Mobile Raises €3.3M
Munich's Clean Mobile builds fuel cell powered drives for small vehicles like city scooters, wheel chairs and small delivery vehicles. The company has just closed a €3.3M From Earlybird Ventures. Seed investor High Tech Gründer Fonds is also participating in the Series A round.
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Posted at 07:27 PM | Posted to Alternative Energy | TrackBack | Permalink
March 20, 2008
Barcelona's Project Amuso VC Funded For Contest Racket
Project Amuso, a pre-launch social media startup based in Barcelona, Spain, says it is has raised funding from "top tier venture capital funds" without saying who those are. When its launched, the company plans to offer cash and prizes for games involving user submitted videos and photos.
Founding team include President Barak Rabinowitz who just graduated from Harvard Business School and before that worked at Yahoo and Sony Broadband. CEO Jordi Bartomeu just graduated from the London Business School. Details to come.
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Posted at 10:13 PM | Posted to Games (PC and other) | TrackBack | Permalink
London's SongKick Raises Further Funding For Online Concert Tools
London-based Songkick has launched and says that it has raised further funding. It initially raised a seed round from Y Combinator, Songkick. Further funding has now come from Saul Klein (The Accelerator Group), Jeff Clavier (Softtech VC), Dan Porter (SVP Virgin, co-founder of Ticketweb), Peter Read (Music Nation), Betaworks (Andrew Weissman and John Borthwick), and other undisclosed investors.
There's nothing terribly groundbreaking here but Songkick has clearly done a lot of work. Songkick has thrown up a few ideas including widgets that show which concerts you plan on hitting, links to ticket sellers like Stubhub, a Battle of The Bands feature which seeks to track popularity of bands on Myspace and other sites, as well as personalized concert recommendations.
Songkick was founded by several techie graduates from the University of Cambridge: Ian Hogarth, Phil Cowans, Michelle You and Pete Smith.
Does Songkick have legs? For sure music sites like LastFM and iMeem demonstrate just how much traffic can be gathered by doing right by music. We also do agree that there is a difference between songs and bands vs. concerts. You may like some recording but have no interest in seeing a band live. Sites like LastFM and iMeem do not focus so much on concerts which gives Songkick room to own this.
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Posted at 07:40 PM | Posted to Media | TrackBack | Permalink
London's Spinvox Gets Agro With $100M Investment
Goldman Sachs together with GLG Partners, Blue Mountain Capital Management and Toscafund Asset Management have invested $100M in London-based Spinvox, which converts voice mail to email. This third round of funding gives SpinVox a valuation greater than $500M. Spinvox had previously raised $100M.
SpinVox has deals with 12 cell phone carriers led by Canada's Rogers Mobile and Alltel Wireless.
$200M invested in a startup led by a 31 year old is a big bet. But CEO and founder Christina Domecq appears confident. (She is an American-educated member of the Domecq sherry dynasty.) And apparently Spinvox has won in the hundreds of thousands of users who have brought the company close to break-even despite a three hundred person head count.
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Posted at 06:33 AM | Posted to News And Updates | TrackBack | Permalink
March 18, 2008
The UK's Travel Startup Isango Raises $8M
Isango has raised $8M led by Spark Ventures with Beringea and others.
Isango specializes in information about holiday tours, sightseeing, attractions, activities and best things to do in 50 countries. It also offers a private label package and has done deals with the likes of Hertz.
The startup is led by Ranjan Singh who was Managing Director of eBookers.
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Posted at 06:48 AM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink
March 14, 2008
Bebo Does It! Bought By AOL For £423M ($850M)
Bebo has found a buyer in AOL willing to lay-out $850M in cash. London and San Francisco-based Bebo likes to call itself the #3 social networking site in the English-speaking world (behind MySpace and Facebook), and #1 in the UK, Ireland, Australia & New Zealand. It claims 40M+ members and boasts the stat that it ads 5 new members every second.
WallStrip does its Up With Bebo profile
For AOL, this would seem to be a no-brainer. They have some nice momentum on the advertising side with the collection of Platform A businesses and now they have a hot social network that might make people forget about the AOL dial-up walled garden and have to refresh their image of AOL.
Founded after MySpace and Facebook, Bebo could have became a distant laggard. To get it to $850M, Bebo can thank its focus on original content. It co-produced "KateModern," a super popular Web TV show, now in its second season. The show contributed to the high minutes per session that Bebo enjoys (33 minutes per day on average).
Bebo had raised $15M in Series A funding in 2007 from Balderton Capital (then Benchmark Capital Europe). The big winners here are husband/wife founders Michael and Xochi Birch. Another co-founder is Jim Scheinman who is now an Entrepreneur in Residence at Charles River Ventures. It's good to see a guy like Jim get a payout here as he has been working this space, having been head of BD at Friendster.
BTW - The Independent of London reports that founder Michael Birch's dream is to someday have sufficient resources to build a tunnel under the Atlantic (he's a big fan of the English Tunnel.)
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Posted at 05:33 AM | Posted to Media | TrackBack | Permalink
US Ad Networks Buying Europeans. Adviva Media Goes To Specific Media. AdLink Group On The Blocks
Having recently raised $100M with specific aspiration to do M&A deals, Irvine, CA-based ad network Specific Media, an has acquired UK ad network Adviva Media. No financial terms were disclosed. Adviva had raised EUR 6.6M from Kennet Partners.
Generally speaking, the large US ad networks have battled it out domestically. Only the biggest such as Advertising.com have made big moves into Europe. This move by Specific Media gets it an early foothold in the UK as well as France and Germany. Specific Media says that the combined venture will make it the 4th largest ad network in the UK, with a reach of 25.9M unique users.
We expect to see another large European ad network deal shortly with an American buyer. Germany-based AdLink has been put up for sale by its holding company United Internet. Morgan Stanley has been assigned to find a buyer for the ad network. This news was reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing anonymous sources.
The report indicated that AdLink Group expects a a three-digit million Euro sum from the sale of the unit, adding that AdLink is valued at about 400M Euros, with 84.3% owned by United Internet.
View - Adviva Site
View - Adlnk site
View - Adviva Site
View - Adlnk site
Adviva HQ
AdLink Group HQ
Posted at 05:31 AM | Posted to Advertising | TrackBack | Permalink
March 08, 2008
Scotland Ad Tech Startup Rapid Mobile Media Wins GBP 2m
Edinburgh-based Rapid Mobile Media has raised GBP 2M led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). apid Mobile was founded in February 2004 and has launched a white-label platform for mobile advertising. They are not currently boasting of major client users of their mobilie ad platform (Times Online might be an exception), however, they let us know that they count BetFair as a user of their mobile betting product.
The white label approach to mobile advertising sounds sensible but its a slow road to hoe. There are just so many potential users and they take their sweet time. We believe the company will need to raise more cash to get by.
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Press Release Source: Rapid Mobile Media Ltd
Rapid Mobile Media Secures GBP 2m Series B Funding
Thursday March 6, 6:01 am ET
Mobile Advertising & Service Provisioning Platform Provider Welcomes NEA and Alliance Trust Equity Partners as New Investors
EDINBURGH, Scotland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rapid Mobile Media Ltd, providers of innovative mobile advertising and mobile application provisioning software platforms, today announced the completion of a second investment round of £2m led by US venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) who were joined by Alliance Trust Equity Partners (ATEP) as new investors in the company. Existing investors Pentech Ventures and Scottish Enterprise’s Scottish Venture Fund also participated in the round.
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The new cash investment will provide Rapid Mobile Media with working capital to expand on current successes and accelerate the commercial deployment of its Ad360 mobile advertising platform and Active Provisioning automatic mobile application deployment technology.
“Rapid Mobile offers a unique approach to solving the device diversity issues that many organisations face when delivering mobile advertising and services”, said Mike Ramsay, Venture Partner at NEA who also joins the Rapid Mobile Media Board as Investor Director. “By enabling the rapid deployment and monetisation of services, we believe Rapid Mobile is ideally positioned to achieve significant success in the rapidly growing mobile advertising market – providing for the delivery of high quality display advertisements both within applications and mobile internet sessions.”
“We are delighted to welcome both NEA and ATEP as new investors to the company,” commented Jeremy Copp, CEO of Rapid Mobile Media “Their experience will provide us with invaluable guidance as we grow the organisation to secure a leadership position within the emerging mobile advertising and mobile services markets. We have already demonstrated the capabilities and robustness of our platforms in key reference customer deployments, now we are in a position to build value within the organisation on the back of current successes”.
Raymond Abbott, Managing Director of Alliance Trust Equity Partners, added: “The seasoned senior management team at Rapid Mobile Media, with their experience of the wireless market and track record of delivering carrier-grade solutions, provides the ideal base for commercial success. This experience, coupled with the company’s proven technology, means that we are excited at the investment prospect that Rapid Mobile provides”. Richard Hope, Investment Director at ATEP, also joins the Rapid Mobile Media Board as Investor Director.
Pentech Ventures and Scottish Enterprise have both previously invested in Rapid Mobile Media, and they both continue their support through further investment in this round. Dr. Sandy McKinnon, Pentech Investment Director and Rapid Mobile Board member, said: “Pentech see great potential for Rapid Mobile to play a key role in shaping the multi-billion dollar global mobile advertising market, and we are delighted to be able to continue to provide support to the company to enable their growing commercial successes”.
“We are proud to support Rapid Mobile Media as a business within the Scottish media and technology industry”, said Neil Ross, Head of the Scottish Venture Fund. “The continuing success of Rapid Mobile is a validation of Scottish Enterprise’s strategy of providing seed and co-investment funding to promising Scottish companies with the potential to grow.”
Rapid Mobile’s Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Richard M. Marshall, thanked Pentech and Scottish Enterprise for their continued support. “It is a welcome validation of our software technology and marketing strategy, both of which began when the company was founded in 2004”, he said. “Having a world-class entrepreneur like Mike Ramsay on the Board is invaluable. His experience as co-founder and CEO at TiVo will be a great help as we address the complex, global mobile market.”
About Rapid Mobile Media Ltd
Rapid Mobile Media are an Edinburgh-based software company licensing platforms that enable automatic optimisation, delivery and installation of applications and content on any mobile phone, without the need for user intervention or device-side agents. Their Active Provisioning platform and ThinkPhone design environment allow the rapid deployment of any type of service to the mobile environment, and have to date automatically provisioned more than 3,000 phone types. The Ad360 platform provides complete management of mobile advertising campaigns, allowing graphical and textual adverts to automatically be delivered to the selected WAP, SMS, MMS or application channels at the highest possible quality. For more information please visit http://www.rapid-mobile.com
About New Enterprise Associates (NEA)
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is a leading venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs create and build major new enterprises that use technology to improve the way we live, work and play. Since its founding in 1978, the firm has adhered to the same core principles: supporting its entrepreneurs, providing an excellent return to its limited partners, and operating in accordance with the highest standards of integrity and respect. NEA focuses on investments at all stages of a company’s development, from seed stage through IPO. With approximately $8.5 billion in committed capital, NEA’s experienced management team has invested in more than 550 companies, of which more than 160 have gone public and more than 230 have been acquired. NEA has U.S-based offices in Baltimore, Maryland; Chevy Chase, Maryland; and Menlo Park, California. In addition, New Enterprise Associates (India) Pvt. Ltd. has an office in Bangalore, India and New Enterprise Associates (Beijing) Ltd. has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China. For additional information, visit http://www.nea.com.
About Alliance Trust Equity Partners (ATEP)
Alliance Trust Equity Partners Limited is the private equity arm of Alliance Trust PLC, a FTSE-100 company heading an international investment and financial services group that has offices in Dundee, Edinburgh, London and Hong Kong. Through its financial services subsidiaries Alliance Trust offers asset management for other companies and clients and investment accounts, share-dealing and self-invested personal pensions. ATEP manages third party funds and invests on behalf of Alliance Trust PLC. http://www.atep.co.uk
About Pentech Ventures
Pentech Ventures is modelled on "Silicon Valley" venture capital organisations, and takes an active role in working with entrepreneurs to build highly successful technology companies. The executives have a mix of technology, business, and corporate finance experience and are supported by Venture Partners, each of whom have all founded, developed, and sold technology businesses. All at Pentech have a thorough understanding of what it takes to build successful organisations. Pentech invest in best-of-breed teams and ideas and aims to work with entrepreneurial teams that want their venture partner to take an active, critical and wealth-building role in developing their business. Their investment focus is on software infrastructure and applications, for internet content creation and management, communications, and for the new range of internet access devices. Pentech is a division of Penta Capital Partners, an independent private equity house formed in September 1999. For more information on Penta, please visit www.pentacapital.com. Pentech is a division of Penta Capital Partners Limited, Regulated by the FSA.
About Scottish Venture Fund
The Scottish Venture Fund provides investments of up to £2m per transaction in partnership with the private sector on at least a matched funding basis in syndicated transactions, typically, between £2m and £10m. Further information on Scottish Enterprise investments is available at www.scottish-enterprise.com/equity. Scottish Enterprise is the main economic development agency for Scotland covering 93% of the population from Grampian to the Borders and through its Network works in partnership with the private and public sectors to build more and better businesses, to develop the skills and knowledge of Scottish people, and to encourage innovation to make Scottish business internationally competitive. For information please visit http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/
Contact:
AxiCom for Rapid Mobile
James Wood, +44 20 8392 4063
james.wood@axicom.com
or
Rapid Mobile
Tel: +44 131 243 2502
press@rapid-mobile.com
Source: Rapid Mobile Media Ltd
Posted at 12:39 AM | Posted to Advertising | TrackBack | Permalink
March 06, 2008
LiveBookings Restaurant Reservation Biz Raises Gbp6.5M
We continue to hear success stories about US Internet-based restaurant reservation systems, particularly OpenTable. So its no surprise to see a European equivalent. London-based LiveBookings has raised Gbp6.5 million in VC funding led by Balderton Capital.
Livebookings says it has 17K restaurants online and more than 500 partners.
LiveBooking's Reservation Console
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Posted at 04:26 PM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink
Gazprom Media Buys Most of Russia's RuTube at $15M Valuation
Gazprom-Media is taking a majority stake in the Russian online video site RuTube at a valuation of $15M, reports business daily Kommersant via Yakov at Quintura. Gazprom-Media will also invest several million dollars in RuTube business.
RuTube was founded 2 years ago, taking inspiration from Google's buyout of Youtube. The site says it currently has 400K daily users and runs more than 40M video views per month. Apparently Mangrove Capital among other firms was interesting in investing but Gazprom swept in.
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Posted at 04:09 PM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
March 05, 2008
Czechoslovakian Brothers: NetCentrum Pays €20M For Atlas.sk
Czech web portal NetCentrum has acquired Slokak Web portal Atlas.sk from EPIC Holding. NetCentrum will pay more than €20M. The new company claims 4.9M. NetCentrum was bought by Warburg Pincus last December, partially cashing out the company's founders. The company is run by CEO Pavel Mucha who was an analyst with McKinsey & Co.
Take a look at the site and you will feel that you are looking at a foreign version of Yahoo. It's certainly not the Web 2.0 way. But Eastern European sites have show skill at retaining users and building financial value.
View - Netcentrum site
Posted at 11:50 PM | Posted to Media | TrackBack | Permalink
AllPeers RIP
UK-based AllPeers has been turned off by its investors. The company had raised a round of funding in early 2006 from Index Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners. Allpeers is an Firefox extension dedicated to the private sharing of webpages and files of any size.
AllPeers has a trophy case worth of awards:
CNET: Winner Webware 100.
PCWorld: Best file-sharing freeware.
WiredNews: Best Firefox Add-On.
ComputerWorld: Best new Firefox Add-On
The startup was founded by CEO Cedric Maloux who was VP European Operations at PlanetOut. He explains that "We have not achieved the kind of growth in our user base that our investors were expecting, and as a result we are not able to continue operating the service."
It's surprised us that Allpeers was just shut down. It seems that given the connections of their investors they should have found someone to at least employ the staff and to provide a stock deal to land the software. At the very least we would think that the founders could keep the site afloat while working on new projects. Odd.
Read - final blog post
Posted at 11:40 PM | Posted to Web 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Paris' Eco-Carbone Closes EUR2.1M For Carbon Offset
It will be interesting to see if VC-backed startups will be able to cash in on climate change mitigation. Alternative energy technology like new solar panels clearly are a winner but what about carbon offset?
Paris' Eco-Carbone has won a first round of financing at EUR 2.1M from Truffle Capital. The firm started out in 2001 as a carbon offset consulting firm and has developed a couple lines of business.
+ Eco-Carbone produces biodiesels from the inedible grains of Jatropha, a tree that grows in poor soil conditions. It has developed ten sites in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mali and Brazil.
+ It continues to consult to coal mines to help them to recoup methane emissions and turn that into energy. Mine owners, particularly in China, cash these in for carbon credits which are then sold on the international markets. Eco-Carbone says sells about 2M tons of carbon credits per year.
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Posted at 03:15 PM | Posted to Alternative Energy | TrackBack | Permalink
March 04, 2008
Wave Energy's ORECon Raises $24M
Anyone with a solar cell can raise funds these days it seems and now some of that magic may be spreading to other alt energy fields. Today UK-based ORECon has raised a big $24M first round. The round was led by Advent Venture Partners with Venrock, Wellington Partners and Northzone Ventures.
ORECon plans to build a 1.5MW generator with the capacity to deliver grid compatible power ashore, based on wave energy.
Wave energy is an appropriate focus for CEO David Crisp. He took a sabbatical from 2002 – 2004 (2 years when as the skipper he circumnavigated the Atlantic Ocean. He sold his home in San Francisco, purchased a yacht in Southern France, crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean, sailed back to UK, sold his yacht, and returned to full-time work in the UK.
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Posted at 06:56 AM | Posted to Alternative Energy | TrackBack | Permalink
München's AndUnite Raises Angel Funding To Relaunch
Germany's AndUnite gets in touch to say that they are relaunching their site on March 5 and adds that they are looking to raise a round of venture capital. AndUnite has raised a round of angel funding.
The idea with Andunite is to store the search terms that registered AndUnite users have run on Google and other search engines. Users can then see what others users are searching for as well as aggregate data like which are the most frequently entered search terms.
Of course the perceived challenge here is that users might feel that their privacy has been invaded. On the flipside, numerous other startups like Flickr have prospered on the back of data that many would feel is too personal.
Online Videos by Veoh.com
German Speakers might be interested in this video walk-through
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Posted at 02:13 AM | Posted to Software | TrackBack | Permalink
March 03, 2008
UK's Ubiquisys Funded By Tmobile
We have reported on the UK's Ubiquisys as it is one of the hotter startups in Europe, having raised funding from Google at an early stage for its femtocells business. Now at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona we learn that T-Mobile is investing in Ubiquisys, plus T-Mobile is trialling Ubiquisys.
Ubiquisys' "ZoneGate" delivers cellular coverage in the home at landline/VOIP rates, enabling mobile operators to compete with fixed line and VOIP providers. The company's pitch is that its femtocell technology will reduce costs for mobile operators, foster new revenue streams, improve user experience and will drive a culture of usage for next generation services. The femtocell business is exciting to end users because we believe that most people want a single mobile phone for all their telephony needs. They want to be reached at one number, anytime and anywhere.
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Posted at 07:08 PM | Posted to Wireless | TrackBack | Permalink
