January 31, 2008
Puzzler Winner - Big Deals
We asked readers to send in three examples of tech M&A or IPOs over €100M. The winner is Chris Grew, a partner at HellerEhrman Venture Law Group. His answers are listed below.
Last.fm (backed by Index) sold to CBS for $280m
Apertio (backed by Add Partners, Eden Ventures, etc.) sold to Nokia Seimens for $200m+
IPO of Blinkx on AIM, raising $50m (market cap of over $300m) founder led spinout from Autonomy.
Chris Grew is a partner in the Venture Law Group of Heller Ehrman who joined the firm in 2007.
Together with four other partners from WilmerHale, he helped establish the London office of Heller Ehrman, which he described as one of the foremost law firms in the world focused on venture capital and technology companies.
He is a two time winner on the Puzzler. We take it this Puzzler was easy for Grew, as he represented Last.fm in its investment by Index Ventures, Add Partners in their investment in Apertio, and his colleague Richard Eaton represented Blinkx in their spin-out and IPO.
We don't have a second winner this time because less than 12 emails landed in the inbox (despite close to 1,400 views of the Puzzler on the site and in RSS feeds between posting and Monday afternoon).
We're wondering why more of you did not participate. Is it not good form in Europe to admit that visions of vibrant valuations in your field of endeavour serves a benchmark or a target to be surpassed?
Some readers who did write in, like Alessio Beverina at Sofinnova and Simon Cook of DFJEsprit had several to report. That combined with other entries enabled us to create a list for your viewing pleasure. See Top 10 VC-backed Europe
Posted at 03:16 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
January 25, 2008
Puzzler: Hundred Million Euro Ventures
Name three tech ventures out of Europe that floated or were acquired last year with a valuation greater than €100M. The ventures selected can be VC-backed (growth or early stage) or they can be founder-driven - any category as long as it is the kind of technology we cover on these pages.
We will call the first (original post said third for some reason - we meant first) and twelfth to write in as the winners. You will win a moment of fame, if not fortune in this week's winner post. We'd like to say you would receive a Pacemaker portable music-mixing handset (which we wrote about yesterday) or a year's subscription to StrategyEye but the sponsors of this world haven't found us yet.
Posted at 08:43 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
January 17, 2008
Puzzler Winners - Brands That Become Verbs
We asked for some recent examples of tech-related brands that have become part of the vocabulary, standing for a whole category of product, like Band-Aid, Biro, or Scotch Tape. Occasionally they become verbs e.g. hoovering and xeroxing.
We said that the first and tenth to write in with examples would win this week's Puzzler.
The first was Quintura co-founder and CEO Yakov Sadchikov (picture right -- who has won a couple of times before, we note).
He offered up some examples from Russia. He writes: people can say that they need to get new Kaspersky rather than say to get new security software. The other example has to do with email. He said that almost every Russian internet user has an email account on Mail.ru, some 28m in total. As a result, Mail (as in mail.ru) is associated with email.
The other winner this week is Gennie Chen (picture left), who is in executive strategy at Highbridge Capital Management, a New York-based global multi-strategy hedge fund. She was previously part of the technology investment banking team at Goldman Sachs.
The examples Chen gave: google (verb), as in to Google or lookup something in a search engine, and fedex (verb) to send a package using a private postal service.
A lot of you wrote with Google and Skype as verbs, and did so in several languages. For example, Neuhaus Captial Partners' Paul Jozefak wrote that "Googlen“ is common in German, as is Zippen (a verb that means to compress files from the product of the same name). We hear those brand/verbs in Switzerland too.
DuMont Venture's Philipp Moehring wrote in from Cologne, mentioning Google, but also said that the term wikipedia has become the word analysts use for wikis, in the same way that intels became a term for x86er processors.
Interestingly, not one reader suggested Spam...
Posted at 07:41 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
January 10, 2008
alarm:clock euro Puzzler: Brands and Words
It is time for the first Puzzler of the new year. Here goes....
Brand names sometimes end up part of the vocabulary, standing for a whole category of product; for example, Band-Aid, Biro, Scotch Tape, Frisbee, white-out, and Kleenex. Occasionally, they become verbs e.g. hoovering and xeroxing.
This week we ask you for a couple recent examples. Naturally we have a few in mind with a technology twist. But there is no one answer. It is completely open and up to you. While the examples we gave are Anglo Saxon, it's acceptable to offer example in your local language.
The first and the tenth to write in with two or more will win this week's Puzzler.
You'll win a moment of fame, if not fortune, so fire off an email with your answers.
Posted at 12:09 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
December 13, 2007
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 | 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 | 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 | TrackBack | Permalink
November 29, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler: Open Source Famous
Europe has delivered more than its fair share of disruptive open source projects. Some of the more commercial ones are SUSE Linux, XenSource, Alfresco, Trolltech, MySQL, Open-Xchange, Collax and Mandrvia.
Because of the nature of open source marketing, the leaders of these efforts are typically high profile, like Linus Torvalds of Linux fame, who has pages of quotes in online directories, like WikiQuote where we snagged the above image and quote.
Those pages inspired this week's Puzzler.
Who is pictured below and what is his position?
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
The first and ninth reader to illustrate your open source sector know-who by writing in with the correct answer will be announced as the winners.
We'd like to say that if you get the answer and the bonus question, we'll send over a Zino Chubby six-pack, or a 1998 bottle of Santa Restituta (Gaja) Brunello Sugarille, depending on your taste in fine things, but we haven't got the sponsorship thing going, yet.
Posted at 09:07 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
November 22, 2007
Puzzler Winners- Latin Lovers
Earlier this week the Puzzler asked what modern day cities are referred to when you hear these Latin place names along with some clues. Here are the answers:
Revalia - Tallin
Turicum - Zürich
Lutetia - Paris
Emona - Ljubjana
Holmia - Stockholm
Thank-you to all the alarm:clock readers for taking the time to write and take part in the quiz this week. Responses came from as far away as Zagreb, and as nearby as Zürich.
Despite several geographies being represented by participants, both winners, the first and fourth to write in, are from Germany.
They are Ulf Morys, who heads up sales in central and northern Europe for Advanced Mobile Applications Ltd, one of the latest ventures from the French Guillemot brothers, and Falk Müller-Veerse, the managing partner at Cartagena Capital, a corporate finance advisory headquartered in Munich.
Morys, a self-confessed gadget-happy startup junky, said he was happy to put his dusty high school Latin knowledge to use.
Based in Düsseldorf, this is the second Guillemot venture that Morys has worked for. Prior to AMA, which Morys said is pre-IPO (and knowing a little bit about the track record of the Guillemots - they've already floated three tech companies, we'd say that his is probably a fair assessment), he built and led the local Gameloft branch. Developping the market in Germany and adjacent countries kept him busy there for 6 years.
He makes the mobile entertainment sector sound attractive, pointing out that the field exploits IT, telecommunications, and media knowledge. "In terms of high-pace startup industries, this covers pretty much everything except bio and nano tech," wrote Morys. His firm's website is here.
Falk Müller Veerse was the fourth to write in, saying that he thinks that Mandarin should be a language option for kids instead, or at least as well as, Latin and English. His company, which has expanded lately with partners in France, UK, Finland and the US, works for venture-funded businesses in the wireless, telecom, software and digital media markets, advising them on trade sales and fundraising.
Your alarm:clock euro adds an interesting nugget to his profile: Cartagena advised the only founder in Europe to sell his mobile sector venture to the Walt Disney company.
Prior to his career in corporate finance, Veerse worked on the investment side for Durlacher, now part of Panmure Gordon, and Mobile Application Holding, after working for firms Nokia, Gartner and LogicaCMG. More on Cartagena here..
Posted at 08:31 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
November 20, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler - Latin Lovers
In some ways venture capital in Europa is like the Romans, it is attracting talent to these shores, mobilizing capital and investments in various hotspots, and to a degree it is driving innovation. Latin was the language of the Romans. This fact and that notion inspired this week's Puzzler.
Here is a list of Latin place names. What modern day cities do they refer to?
Revalia - Skyperesearchanddevelopementonia
Turicum - the city on whose outskirts the alarm:clock euro office is located
Lutetia - Sofinnovaville
Emona - a young Eastern European city with more than 50,000 students and some interesting Web startups (dragon visual clue above)
Holmia - the capital of a Nordic country that has seen US giants acquire three of its cutting edge startups in the past year or so (audio compression, web conferencing, and data visualization)
The first and the fourth readers to write in with the correct answers will win fame, if not fortune, by being profiled here. We wish we could offer the reader who knows the answers without having to look any of them up in Wikipedia or Brittanica a special bonus prize, like an all expense paid trip to Londinium, but sponsors are just not aware yet of the value of being seen here.
Posted at 08:29 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
November 15, 2007
Puzzler Winner - Italian Contacts
The answer to the question:
Name one of the two venture capital firms that backed MutuiOnline, the Italian online mortage broker that went public this year on the Milan stock exchange, at a mkt cap of about €245M, delivering a 20 times money return to early investors.
was Net Partners (now 360 Capital Partners) and Jupiter Venture.
Thanks from the alarm:clock euro to the other readers who participated in the Puzzler. This week's winner is Atlas Venture's Max Niederhofer who was the first to write in with the correct answer. Unfortunately, we do not have a second winner as there were not 13 correct answers.
It was a matter of recall for Niederhofer as he had met Fausto Boni not too long ago at a Northzone Ventures private event. Boni is a co-founder Net Partners and now 360 Capital Partners.
Recruited earlier this year by Atlas Venture, Niederhofer was a co-founder and COO of myblog.de, the German weblogging community. He said he also founded IncrediblInc, an enterprise software developer.
One of his business angel investments prior to Atlas was Last.fm, the music recommendation site that was acquired by CBS, a good investment, he told us. But he also admits to selling GOOG at $400.
An avid PC gamer, this VC professional knows from overclocking. That interest and his past experience inform his area of work at Atlas, online and software investments in Europe, focus on Germany. He has a blog on tech, innovation, and VC in Europe.
Posted at 06:53 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
November 06, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler: Italian Job
We know it's a busy week for conferences in Europe, but here's hoping some of you are still reading the alarm:clock euro and are ready to try your hand at this week's puzzler.....
Name one of the two venture capital firms that backed MutuiOnline, the Italian online mortage broker that went public this year on the Milan stock exchange, at a mkt cap of about €245M. Although it is down to €200M or so at the moment, the IPO delivered one of its early stage backer a 20 times money multiple. We will take the old name or the new name for one of the VC companies involved.
The first and the lucky thirteenth will win fame, if not fortune, by writing in with the correct answer.
Posted at 07:22 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 22, 2007
Puzzler Winner - VC Know-Who
Last week's puzzler question
Since early 2006, at least three European venture capital firms have recruited former Yahoo (Europe) executives to their rosters. Name two VC firms that are benefitting from some Yahoo know-how and know-who.
The answer could have been any two of the following
3i - Daniel Waterhouse
Index Ventures - Dominique Vidal
Accel (London) - Simon Levene
This week's Puzzler was a bit too puzzling, and as a result we have only one winner. The first to write in was Yakov Sadchikov (image right in London), founder of VC-backed Quintura, a multi-lingual search technology company.
He is well-informed, which you would expect from a search engine CEO, and often tips us off to news from Russia when he has time. (For more on Qunitura, see our Q&A published last year here)
Just three other readers wrote in with the correct answer to this stumper of a question. We were hoping for at least thirteen. So we thought to give an honorable mention to those that did. Two who answered correctly are venture capital professionals, Max Niederhofer who recently joined Atlas Venture (he has a blog ) and Fredrik Cassel, a principal at Creandum Advisor in Sweden.
The other reader to write in with the correct answer, like this week's winner, is a co-founder of a search engine company. But we are not going to mention his name just yet -- his startup is still in stealth mode.
Posted at 07:30 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 18, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler - Yahoo Know Who
It is time again for the Puzzler...
Since early 2006, at least three European venture capital firms have recruited former Yahoo (Europe) executives to their rosters. Name two VC firms that are benefitting from some Yahoo know-how and know-who.
The first and the lucky thirteenth will win fame, if not fortune, by writing in with the correct answer. If a startup would like to offer one of its products (e.g a year's worth of free usage of a SaaS personal productivity application, or an office productivity tool) as prizes for the puzzler, please contact us.
Posted at 09:00 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 16, 2007
Puzzler Winners - Board Knowledge
The answer to last week's puzzler brought in responses from readers in Germany and Austria, and strangely none from the Nordics.
What is the name of the VC firm that counts Preben Damgaard as one of its six advisory board members?
is Nordic Venture Partners.
The first to write in with the correct answer was Clemens von Bergmann, a senior investment manager with High-Tech Gründerfonds, the German early-stage venture capital fund.
He works with startups to raise funding, find strategic partnerships and helps with post-merger integration. Prior to that, he was an executive at a biometric facial recognition company, which was acquired by Nasdaq-quoted Viisage.com. Software and internet investments are his domain.
The tenth to write in was Stefan Kalteis (image left) of i5invest, an Austrian/Swiss investment firm that he said not only gets involved in supporting portfolio companies, but also funds and builds entrepreneurial management teams around its own ideas.
Previously, Kalteis was with German VC firm Target Partners, where he put to use his background in telecommunications engineering and working in the software industry. He has a blog too, at idee.vc with an interesting format. A dialogue on VC theme, vying the viewpoints of an ambitious investor against an entrepreneur (German).
Posted at 09:30 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 11, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler - On the Board, Not Bored
A couple of weeks ago we posted that Preben Damgaard, had invested in e-sport startup Regroup. Because he is one of the more successful Euro tech entrepreneurs - he co-founded Damgaard Data A/S in 1983, listed it in 1999, merged with smaller rival Navision, and then sold the ERP venture to Microsoft for $1.55B in 2002, we followed up with him to find out more.
Damgaard told us by email that he actually has several such investments and is quite busy advising and working with the teams. Damgaard is also an advisor to a European early stage VC firm and sits on the board of at least one of its recent investment, which leads us to this week's quiz question:
What is the name of the VC firm that counts Preben Damgaard as one of its six advisory board members?
A clue is that the managing general partner of this fund also worked at Damgaard's ERP company as a biz dev, sales manager, and several other management roles.
The first and 10th reader to write in with the correct answer will win fame if not fortune by being profiled here. We would like to be able to offer the winners a free week of driving the Lexus gas-electric hybrid SUV, dubbed the RX400h, but the promoters of that cleaner-conscience vehicle are not jamming our phone lines with offers.
Posted at 08:42 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 07, 2007
Puzzler Winners - VC History Buffs
The latest puzzler question
Name the entrepreneur and investor who is considered the "father of venture capital".
generated quite a pileup in our inbox. We tried to answer them all but if we missed one, thanks for writing in and making us realize that we have a lot of interesting readers at the alarm:clock euro.
As we said, the first and the seventh to write in with the correct answer would win. The name we were looking for was Georges Doriot , the French-born Harvard professor and US Army officer, who earned the 'father of' title because of his investment fund called ARD. (More details inPBS' Who Made America )
Its goal was to "transform technological research into profitable enterprise", without government support. Its best-known deal was DEC, where ARD invested $70K in 1957 and sold the stake in 1972 for $350M (source is a ppt file.)
The first in our inbox was Kerry Ritz (image left) who is the London-based managing director at the US-headquartered broadband telephony company Vonage.
Kerry launched Vonage in the UK in 2005, after being part of the team that launched 3, the Hutchison Whampoa owned third-generation mobilephone operator.
Ritz said that the clue of the French/US connection was the giveaway.
The seventh reader to write in with the correct answer was Stephane Valorge, co-founder and partner at Clipperton Finance, a Paris-based investment banking boutique with a strength in high-tech and media. He's modest and didn't mention in his email that his company has raised about €70M in venture capital for tech companies in France this past year or so. We are linking to Valorge's LinkedIn profile to cover up for his modesty.
Your a:c euro reporter was not aware of Doriot and that he was considered the father of VC when regular reader Alain Revah suggested the quesiton. (We won't forget it now). In the meantime, we learned that Doriot was an influence on Arthur Rock (see the last paragraph here), who is also known as the father of VC in the US, and whose name several of you gave as the answer.
Another nugget about Doriot is that he contributed to startup up of Insead, the b-school in France, which is how several other readers, all Insead alumni, had the ability to answer the question without using a search engine.
Posted at 04:43 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 04, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler - VC History
It's time once again for the alarm:clock euro's quiz question.
Name the entrepreneur and investor who is considered the "father of venture capital".
The quiz question was an invited suggestion from Alain Revah, an enterpreneur and early stage tech business advisor, whose French/US career is a clue to the answer to this week's puzzler.
To give readers in time zones other than GMT+1 a chance, the winners will be the first and the 7th reader to write in with the correct answer. When Revah suggested it, your a:c euro reporter did not know the answer. Her bad. So there's extra 'points' if you know it without looking it up in a search engine.
Write in and have a chance to win fame, if not fortune, by getting profiled here. It would be nice if we could say you'll win a new Nespresso coffee-machine, but as regular readers know sponsors are not exactly lining up at our door here.
Posted at 08:23 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 01, 2007
Turing Influence - Puzzler Winner
Last week's puzzler question, Name the venture whose founder was inspired by Alan Turing's legacy when he named his current company. The startup's name references Turing's efforts during WWII...
The company name we were looking for was Enigmatec. We only have one winner this week, Bal Balaji, currently CEO of online photo editor and special effects startup flauntr, which was incubated by his other company DeviceDriven .
We only have one winner because everyone else that wrote in named Enigma, which is a US-headquartered software company, specialized in after-market equipment maintenance software.
We don't know the origins of that company's name, only Enigmatec's, which you can also read here in the second last paragraph, so we decided to stick with Enigmatec as the correct answer.
Bal Balaji was the founder, and is now a board member, of SurfKitchen. He's won the quiz before and has provided these pages with some candid insights on the mobile and venture market here, but also some criticism too, over the past couple of years.
Posted at 05:32 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
September 26, 2007
alarm:clock euro puzzler - A Turing Test
It's time once again for the alarm:clock euro's quiz question.
Name the venture whose founder was inspired by Alan Turing's legacy when he named his current company. The startup's name references Turing's efforts during WWII? Here is a visual clue:
To give readers in time zones other than GMT+1 a chance the winners will be the first and the 10th reader to write in to our European editor with the correct answer.
With our puzzler you have a chance to win fame, if not fortune, by getting profiled here. It would be nice if we could say you'll win a €500 Visa Gold prepaid gift card, or a year's worth of Business Class upgrades from KLM, but sponsors are not exactly lining up at our door here.
Posted at 07:00 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
May 24, 2007
Puzzler Winner - Joyrides
This week's quiz winner is Gayathri Radhakrishnan, the only female associate on the tech team at Earlybird Ventures, the German VC that just recently invested in lending platform Smava.
She was the first to write in with the correct answer to the Puzzler question:
Which Austrian tech and automotive investor races one of these (picture of rally race car) and actually wins?
The answer: Christian 'Toto' Wolff
Radhakrishnan, as we said, is an associate at Earlybird. She hails from SozoTek, a mobilephone camera startup, and before that she was involved with the broadband components biz at Corning. She's is an India-educated engineer that did an MBA at Insead in France, after getting a Masters in E Engineering at Ohio State.
We think that Wolff who runs march.sixteen puts a whole new spin on the term investment vehicle. Check out this photo that fatfoogoo co-founder, Martin Herdina, sent us after reading our posts mentioning his startup.
Wolff's previous vehicle, march.fifteen, backed Jowood, the publicly traded video games company, and ucp morgen, part of which was acquired by Amdoc for a couple of hundred million euros after it merged with Qpass.
The supplementary question about which tech trendsetters drive James Bond's brand: Aston Martin, flopped.
Not one reader wrote in to mention names of owners like Klaus Hommels, a business angel and venture partner at Benchmark and Brendan Hyland (the Irish co-founder of Scotland's Kymata and several other high tech startups).
We were inspired to ask because a recent poll on French entrepreneur Michel de Guilhermier's blog says its the status brand today among his readers. He's a big fan of the British label but we don't know if he's driving one yet.
Posted at 04:46 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
May 21, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler - Joyrides
We have a puzzler today about the wheels of the wheels that turn the early stage euro tech sector. We are looking for the first reader to email in with the correct answer to :
Which Austrian tech and automotive investor races one of these and actually wins?
You can win fame, if not fortune, on these pages if you get it.
And as a bonus, we'll give some coverage too to readers that have an answer to this one (you do not have to give an example for each category, just one, either a founder or an investor):
Name a tech company founder or an early stage investor that drives this brand of speedy sports car.
Send in your answer to
Posted at 04:49 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
March 23, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler - Engel Ueber Berlin, Paris, Lisboa
Sorry for mangling Wim Wenders’ lovely film title but it worked better than Himmel. We note that biz angels like to organize themselves into networks. With that in mind, here’s the puzzler:
Which of the following statements is most accurate?
a) Germany has 4 business angel networks?
b) Germany has 40 business angel networks?
c) Germany has 14 business angel networks?
... you can guess and have a one in three chance of getting it right!
Bonus question: Name the network of angel networks active in Europe?
This week’s Puzzler was inspired by Paul Kedrosky’s provocative post entitled: When Angels Rule The World, Part XXXIV on Infectious Greed.
The first and 15th a:c euro reader to write in with the correct answer will win Puzzler fame, if not fortune. Here’s the address...
Posted at 01:10 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
March 16, 2007
Puzzler Winners: Azhar and Bonjour
The answer to this week's Puzzler
Name the French entrepreneur-turned- VC who is now a General Partner at a German venture capital firm, following stints at Benchmark Capital in London and Atlas Venture.
As a lot of you know by the number of emails answers we received it's Eric Archambeau, GP, Wellington Partners. He is well-qualified to be a European VC. He worked in the semiconductor sector in Silicon Valley, later founded two Internet-related companies in the States, one of which was acquired by Ariba for a whopping multi-billion dollar sum during the last cycle. He then worked for Atlas Venture in Silicon Valley.
When Archambeau came back to Europe, he helped to start up Benchmark Captial Europe's operations. Left that firm, was hosted by Chausson Finance in Paris during the downturn, and then joined Wellington's Dutch and German General Partners in 2005.
He's now on the board as part of his Wellignton repsonsibilites of a couple of Euro tech companies, including Xing, the first social network in Europe to launch an IPO.
The number one spot this week was nabbed by Azeem Azhar, a regular a:c euro reader and an entrepreneurial kind of guy. He met Archambeau back in 1999. Azhar is currently Head of Innovation at Reuters Group PLC and a non-executive director, Inuk Networks in the UK.
Before that he was a tech correspondent at The Economist tech correspondent, CEO esouk.com (incubator), internet strategist at BBC, CMO at Albert-Inc (search), MD at 20six (blogs). In the above photo, he's the one on the right.
The 13th reader to write in with the correct answer was Dominique Bonjour, CFO of Oxxius in France. He hasn't met Archambeau, but Bonjour said that keeping tabs on VCs is the kind of background, semi-automatic tasks that are part of the job of being the CFO of a venture-financed laser company. Oxxius is backed by Sofinnova Partners, AXA Private Equity and Sofinnova Venture.
Posted at 06:31 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
March 13, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler: Venture Capital Personality
.Here's this week's Puzzler. To mix it up this time, we will feature the first and the lucky thirteenth reader to email us with the correct answer.
Name the French entrepreneur-turned- VC who is now a General Partner at a German venture capital firm, following stints at Benchmark Capital in London and Atlas Venture.
Visual Clue: For our readers under 28, here's a visual clue. He isn't in the team photo, but among younger web entrepreneurs he's better known for his involvement with this company.
Send in your answer to
Posted at 08:11 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
March 05, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler Winner : Ormigo's Oliver Thylmann Plus
The answer to this week's Puzzler
Name the VC firm founder who made his first fortune in modems and fax cards back in the early nineties before founding a Northern Germany-based tech sector venture capital fund.
Is
Dr. Gottfried Neuhaus of the Neuhaus Partners in Hamburg
He is well-known judging by the large number of correct answers that landed in our euro correspondent's inbox and not just in Germany. Neuhaus is highly spoken of too, even with some former portfolio company founders - which is not always the case when it comes to VCs and founders, in our experience.
The first to file was German entrepreneur, Oliver Thylmann, founder of Ormigo, a freshly launched web-based service that matches potential customers with merchants. The company has a blog and so does Thylmann, who writes a good mix of insightful posts about web business models, advertising and trends.
Other readers that wrote in a little bit later but very close to each other were Pascale Koall, Research Manager at Wellington Partners GmbH, a German VC, and Clemens von Bergmann, Senior Investment Manager at the High-Tech Gründerfonds who - like us - admired the view from Neuhaus' offices.
Posted at 08:15 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
March 02, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
This week's quiz question for our alarm:clock euro readers
Name the VC firm founder who made his first fortune in modems and fax cards back in the early nineties, who then invested a small pool of capital, mainly his own money for a while, before founding a Northern Germany-based tech sector venture capital fund.
Hint: the firm is on its third and largest ever fund now.
A visual clue
Send in your answer to
Posted at 07:07 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
February 27, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler Winner Neuhaus' Jozefak
The answer to last week's puzzler question:
Name the firm that three of Atlantic Bridge's partners, along with former Amadeus Capital Partners' investment profi Hitesh Mehta, announced -- but failed to raise an early stage European venture capital fund back in 2004.
is
Abbey Road Ventures
The first by a wide margin with the correct answer was Paul Jozefak who writes the Babbling VC blog and is a managing partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany. He used to run SAP's European venturing activities.
Posted at 06:01 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
February 21, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
A recent history question for our alarm:clock euro readers this week...
Three of the partners at Atlantic Bridge (Paul Harvey, former Euro head of technology at Goldman Sachs, Brian Long, founder of Irish semiconductor firm Parthus Technologies (floated by Goldman Sachs) and Kevin Dillon, former Microsoft Euro top exec) along with former Amadeus Capital Partners investment profi Hitesh Mehta, announced -- but failed to raise an early stage European venture capital fund back in 2004, a dark time for European venture. What was the name of the firm?
Visual Clue
Send your answer to our a:c euro newsdesk and win fame, if not fortune in this week's quiz question....
Posted at 07:07 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
February 18, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler winner Brandsma - Two Other Readers Tie
The answer to last week Valentine's Day Puzzler
Which European VC recently invested in a company that makes an aphrodisiac for women?
was Banexi Ventures Partners in Paris.
It invested in LMD Pharmacognosie which is developing a product called Diapensia, a female libido booster.
First to write in with the correct answer was Marc Brandsma, who was also first last time around.
Brandsma got to know Banexi Ventures when he was raising the first round of funding of VIOLET (the company behind the wifi bunny) last year. He is a partner at Chausson Finance, a Paris-based corporate finance advisory.
Brandsma said that working with Banexi caused him to dig into their portfolio and he remember having been pleased to find a company producing medicines from plants. "Usually it’s more about recombined genes or artificial molecules, " he wrote.
Fred Destin from Atlas Venture tipped the winning answer too. His answer came in about the same time as that of another valued alarm:clock euro reader, Alexis Vassilopoulos, a soon to graduate MBB-student at the IESE in Spain who speaks five European languages and has interest in interactive TV.
Posted at 08:54 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
February 14, 2007
Valentine's Day alarm:clock euro Puzzler
Here's a Valentine's Day-themed puzzler...
(Image source: Zlango.com)
Which European VC recently invested in a company that makes an aphrodisiac for women?
Not sure if we need to add this clue: it's a French VC. The VC firm in question had a deal of the year a couple of years back selling a portfolio company to Yahoo for half a billion euros.
Since it's not a tech deal, here's a visual below that partly reveals the company's name.
Send your answer to our a:c euro newsdesk and win fame, if not fortune in this week's quiz question....
Posted at 07:49 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
February 04, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler winner: Marc Brandsma
The answer to this week's Puzzler question:
Whose WeeMee is this? is Bruce Golden of Accel Partners' London team
Quite a few alarm:clock euro readers recognized Golden, whose firm is backing the Scottish company behind the WeeMee concept, but the first to write in was Marc Brandsma, a partner at the Paris-based corporate finance advisory firm Chausson Finance.
As a seed investor and co-founder of Netvibes, Brandsma said he "instantly recognized" Bruce Golden's avatar after meeting the venture capitalist when Netvibes was raising its Series A round.
Chausson Finance is specialized in tech venture finance and also publishes quite a bit of research about the French market. For example, this map showing the Paris VC cluster.
Posted at 08:52 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
January 31, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
This week's question is a visual one.
Whose WeeMee is this?
Hint: He is a tech entrepreneur turned VC. He lives and works in London.
Send your answer in and win fame, if not fortune in this week's quiz question....
Posted at 12:33 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
January 26, 2007
a:c euro Puzzler Too Puzzling?
This week's puzzler managed to generate zero responses, which just goes to show that the a:c euro has zero overlap in readership with eFinancialNews.com, or it could just be that you're too busy with serious business.
The puzzler:
Name the partner at a UK venture capital that made the latest Financial News Rising Star list who was the only VC to make the ranking.
The answer:
Frédéric Court now 36 was promoted as the youngest partner at his firm, Advent Venture Partners - founded in 1981.
Frédéric joined Advent from ETEXX, a VC-backed e-collaboration software and online services company which he co-founded in France in 1999. Before that he was at Lazard advising clients in the telecommunications and technology sectors.
Posted at 06:23 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
January 22, 2007
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
This week's alarm:clock euro Puzzler question:
Name the partner at a UK venture capital that made the latest Financial News Rising Star list. As far as we could see, he was the only VC to make the ranking. Last year it was Danny Rimer of Index Ventures. The person in question was named because he is the youngest partner at his firm and before becoming a VC, he founded and led a B2B online marketplace. Hint: He's a specialist in internet, digital media and mobile technology investments.
Click the Contact Us link in the right-hand column and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro Puzzler this week.
Posted at 08:38 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
December 18, 2006
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
This week's question:
Which European VC reportedly courted and funded a fast-growing virtual paperdoll company after a tip from his teenage nieces, who told him it was their favourite site?
Click the Contact Us link in the right-hand column and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro puzzler this week.
Posted at 04:34 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
December 15, 2006
alarm:clock euro puzzler winner: Joachim Wolff
This week's quiz winner is Joachim H Wolff who was the first to write in with the correct answer to the Puzzler
Name the early-stage Scottish venture firm that just signed on Mike Ramsay, co-founder and former CEO of TiVo as a venture partner?
The answer: Pentech Ventures
Based in Munich, Germany, Joachim Wolff is a European venture capital fund adviser who also does startup management consulting. He has been in the VC business since 1998.
Posted at 08:40 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
December 13, 2006
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
This week's question:
Name the early-stage Scottish venture firm that just signed on Mike Ramsay, co-founder and former CEO of TiVo as a venture partner? Hint: Earlier this year, Dutch navigation tech company TomTom acquired one of this software-oriented VC firm's startups.
Click the Contact Us link in the right-hand column and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro puzzler this week.
Posted at 10:17 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
December 03, 2006
alarm:clock euro puzzler winners: Lonsdale Capital's Amit R Shah and Index's Greg Marsh
This week's puzzler:
Which London-based communications-oriented VC firm is a veritable Bain & Co. dugout, with a managing partner who was a founding partner of Bain & Company in Italy? Hint: Two of its recently added investment managers were with DFJ ePlanet Ventures before joining.
The answer is TLcom Capital.
Quite a few readers wrote in with the correct answer, but Amit R. Shah who recently founded corporate finance boutique Lonsdale Capital in London and Index Ventures' Greg Marsh, also in London, sent responses quicker.
Marsh wrote that the clue was the communications specialisation and Lonsdale's Shah knew the answer because he worked with one of TLcom's partners at Bain in San Francisco before they both moved to London. Shah is also an angel investor in some well-known starutps, according to his bio on Lonsdale's website.
Posted at 02:38 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
November 30, 2006
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
This week's question:
Which London-based communications-oriented VC firm is a veritable Bain & Co. dugout, with a managing partner who was a founding partner of Bain & Company in Italy? Hint: Two of its recently added investment managers were with DFJ ePlanet Ventures before joining.
Click the Contact Us link in the right-hand column and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro puzzler this week.
Posted at 09:18 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
November 19, 2006
alarm:clock euro puzzler winners: Hitflip's Jan Miczaika and Neuhaus Partners's Jozefak
We have two winners for this week's alarm:clock euro puzzler because timing was close we called it a tie.
The question :
Which early stage German venture fund counts SAP co-founder Klaus Tschira as an investor and supporter?
The answer: Firstventury Equity
Out of Heidelberg, Firstventury, is one of the few VC funds in Europe that is founded by entrepreneurs and financed by wealthier entrepreneurs, as opposed to pension fund managers and institutional investors. It's a model that seems so obvious and yet is still relatively rare in the venture market here.
Both Jan Miczaika, founder of online digital media trading exchange Hitflip - that is him (far right) in the photo on the right - and Paul Jozefak, a Neuhaus Partners' managing partner (before joining Neuhaus, Jozefak was at SAP Ventures, leading the European direct investements as well as its LP activities), wrote in with the correct answer.
Posted at 09:14 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
November 16, 2006
alarm:clock euro Puzzler
We changed the name of the a:c euro venture market quiz to "puzzler" so that we are in line with sister-site alarm:clock, in case you're wondering about the title. This week's question:
Which early stage German venture fund counts SAP co-founder Klaus Tschira as an investor and supporter?
Click the Contact Us link in the righ-thand column and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro puzzler this week.
By the way, not a single reader was able to answer last week's puzzler: Name the two venture capital firms based in Germany that recently dropped "Techno" from their firm names.
The answer was Neuhaus Partners, which dropped the Techno Nord from its name, and TVM Capital, which used to be known as Techno Venture Management.
Posted at 09:20 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
November 02, 2006
alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz Question
Here's this week's quiz question. It's about the German VC market again...
Name the two venture capital firms based in Germany that recently dropped "Techno" from their firm names.
Click the Contact Us link and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro venture quiz question this week.
Posted at 04:07 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 30, 2006
alarm:clock Euro Quiz Winner - Questico's Bryan Leppi
Congratulations to Bryan Leppi, co-founder of German cross-media startup Questico. He was the first to write in with the correct answer to last week's Quiz Question:
Name the early stage VC based in Germany whose portfolio company just received authorization to float next month. If it goes off as planned it will make it the firm's sixth portfolio company to IPO in the past 13 months.
The answer: Earlybird Ventures - The Hamburg-based firm is floating one of its life science portfolio firms, Wilex, giving the VC firm its sixth IPO and seventh exit in the past year.
Leppi keeps an eye on Earlybird's vintage 2000 exits because his company also raised captial around the same time. Questico parlayed a VC-investment in its online horoscopes and fortune-telling site, into a call-center supported online business that now produces call-in television shows, and publishes books. Questico is backed by Earlybird rival, Wellington Capital Partners, based in Munich.
Posted at 03:17 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 27, 2006
alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz Question
Here's this week's quiz question.
Name the early stage VC based in Germany whose portfolio company just received authorization to float next month. If it goes off as planned it will make it the firm's sixth portfolio company to IPO in the past 13 months.
Click the Contact Us link and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro venture quiz question this week.
Posted at 01:18 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 22, 2006
alarm:clock Euro Quiz Winner
Thanks to the readers that wrote in to answer this week's quiz question: name the fund that recently hired one of the key people behind the ARM success story (which was not VC-backed but still grew to a significant size).
Pond Venture Partners with Jamie Urquhart is the answer. The first to respond with the correct answer was Sam Snelson, a content manager at Library House, the technology company database publisher.
Posted at 09:37 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
October 17, 2006
alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz
Our master quiz question generator has been on the blink, but it's back up now. Here's this week's quiz question.
Name the early stage VC that brought in about a year ago one of the key men that built ARM Holdings into a billion dollar chip sector company and an early UK VC success story.
Click the Contact Us link and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro venture quiz question this week.
Posted at 02:59 PM | TrackBack | Permalink
September 15, 2006
alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz Winner
The winner of our quiz this week is Chris Clothier of MMC Ventures in the UK. He was the first to write in with the correct answer to this question:
Name the partner at an early stage British venture capital firm who is the son of the creator of George Smiley?
The answer: Simon Cornwell of Amadeus
Cornwell's father is Richard Cornwell whose pen-name is John Le Carre, the author that created the George Smiley character.
Honourable mention goes to Sam Snelson, a Research Associate at Library House whose answer landed in our inbox a few minutes later.
Posted at 07:48 AM | TrackBack | Permalink
September 12, 2006
alarm:clock euro Venture Quiz Question
Click the Contact Us link and fire off an email to win fame, if not fortune, in the a:c euro venture quiz question this week.
Name the partner at an early stage British venture capital firm who is the son of the creator of George Smiley?
Hint: he is a media and communications tech specialist and he was CEO of an early interactive TV comapny before becoming a VC.