« June 2008 | Main | August 2008 »
July 25, 2008
Barcelona's Online Shopping Club Privalia Raises €4M
The online shopping club is a concept that has really taken off fast in Europe, in contrast to the US. Not sure why that is but we started covering the trend back in March 2007 with coverage of Privalia, Germany's BuyVIP, UK-based Koodos.com and Vente privée. Spain's Nauta Capital has lead a €4M financing round in Privalia with existing investor Grupo Cabiedes investing €1M of that.
Privalia says it expects revenues of €20M in 2008, 5x revenues of 2007. Its head count is up to 125 employees.
We think of Privalia as an outlet mall online. Privalia organizes online sales events of top brands, at
heavily discounted prices of 50-70%. A difference is that these are time-limited sales events that last only 2-4 days. SKUs are from top brands in sports and fashion, but also include home equipment, personal care, electronics, and toys.
The company was founded in 2006 by Spanish founders Lucas Carné and José Manuel Villanueva as well as Frenchman Bruno Coffre.
With this funding, Privalia plans to expand from Spain and Italy to launch operations in Brazil.
View - site
Posted at 06:22 PM | Posted to eCommerce | TrackBack | Permalink
July 14, 2008
Paris' Monte Cristo Games Lands €4.5M For CitiesXL Game
Monte Cristo Games has raised $7M from Arts Alliance, 360 degrees Capital Partners and Innoven Partenaires. Monte Cristo was founded in Paris in 1995 and has focussed on simulation games such as Trader 97, Wall Street Trader, Economic War, Crazy Factory, Fire Department Series and Dino Island
The funding will be used to grow Monte Cristo’s city-building online game Cities XL. The game looks top notch if not a bit generic. After seeing a demo of the latest blockbuster game from EA - Spore - Cities XL is not so exciting.
View - site
Posted at 11:38 PM | Posted to Games (PC and other) | TrackBack | Permalink
July 11, 2008
Stockholm's VideoPlaza Raises €420k For Video Ad Solution
VC firm Creandum invested €420k in Swedish online video ad startup VideoPlaza. Also joining were angels Henrik Torstensson (who is VP Business Development at Stardoll) and Magnus Hultman (who was at Omniture).
Videoplaza's CEO and co-founder Sorosh Tavakoli recently made a splash at a tech event.
Videoplaza says that 3 Swedish media companies have deployed its technology. The company says it plans to dominate in Sweden before moving outside.
View - site
Posted at 02:29 AM | Posted to Advertising | TrackBack | Permalink
July 10, 2008
London's SuzannesFiles Bought By Spire, Which Raises $9M
Spire.com has closed a $9M in Series A from Hearst Corporation, Trident Capital, TL Ventures and angels.
NYC-based Spire also bought London-based Suzanne’s Files — which says it has registered 55K affluent members with an average annual income of $250K and assets in excess of $1M.
Suzzane's Files provides information on spas like this Spanish Finca
Spire's CEO Janet Kraus was CEO of Circle Company Associates, a loyalty and experiential marketing company. It creates and delivers concierge, personal assistant, experience, and event programs for its clients. The company was founded in 1997 and is now a subsidiary of Sodexho Alliance.
Posted at 06:09 AM | Posted to Media | TrackBack | Permalink
July 07, 2008
Swiss FlauntR Bought By FotoDesk. Balaji Takes The Helm of FotoDesk
Bal Balaji, CEO of Swiss-based FlauntR, gets in touch to say that his startup FlauntR has been acquired by FotoDesk. FlauntR is an online photo editor. FlauntR.com has tools for editing, styling, and adding text to photos, creating social networking profile pictures, and mobile photos. fFauntR integrates with other photo services like Flickr and Picasa.
In an interview last July, Balaji told us: "Calling flauntR a Photoshop-killer is flattering but inaccurate. Photoshop is a power tool for professionals with a steep learning curve and 600 dollar price-tag to match. FlauntR is a free online creative suite for image editing with one-click effects aimed at consumers."
Hinting that this deal might be coming, Balaji also told us: "flauntR has begun raising a round of funding as backup for the funding provided by DeviceDriven. We have to admit that there are signals of interest in acquiring the company. This is primarily due to its unique position in the digital imaging value chain. So we are also taking an immediate exit possibility seriously."
FotoDesk had also acquired ColorPlaza in June 2008. It does online photo finishing in the European consumer market and was founded in 1999.
Balaji tells us that he has been named CEO of Fotodesk so congrats are due to him and his team.
Read the full interview here.
View - site
Posted at 05:30 PM | Posted to Online services | TrackBack | Permalink
