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Euro Ventures - Friday, April 28, 2006

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

- The a:c interviews Skype's Copenhagen-based angel investors - Soren Kenner and Morten Lund.

- The most innovative IT firms at this year's Capital IT forum in Paris this week.
Best demo: VpodTV (content distribution network and video blogging)
Most innovative: Mobile Signal (social and biz networking on mobilephones)
Best Potential: Wanimo. (pet supplies shop online)
Editors award: Friday Ingénierie (contract management back office software)

- Pegasus Technologies, which develops digital handwriting input solutions, has closed a $4.8M Round.

- Banexi Ventures in Paris is backing a low-budget rollup of interactive video and TV startups by the founders of Pulsevision, now called Kewego.

- The state of French software. France's Truffle 100 total sales grew by +28%, which is a higher growth rate than Microsoft and SAP. And R&D spending by software firms in France is growing at a rapid rate, exceeding €970M in 2005, up by 24% from last year's spending. The bad news is that you could put the entire French software industry into Symantec, which alone generates about €3B in annual sales,

- Scotland's AWS Ocean Energy, which makes an alternative energy generator (grid-connected) that relies on wave power, has raised £2M in equity funding from RAB Capital, after completing a trial off the coast of Portugal.

- Mobile media content managment system developer, Streamezzo, has raised €11M in a second round.

- France's Iris Capital has led a $20M third round for Lyon-based Varioptic, a developer and manufacturer of a new kind of lens for cameras and cameraphones.

- Screen Tonic, a five year old French developer of software and services that enable mobilephone advertising, has just raised €5.5M.

- Less than two years after closing its last fund, Nordic early stage VC, Northzone Ventures, has raised a new one, on target, with a single closing at €175M.

- Startup's Cardboard Antenna Boosts WiFi with a small flat antenna, basically a piece of coated cardboard, that claims to double the range of WLANs. It's from a UK company called Tritium.

- eBay Acquires Sweden's Tradera.com for about $48M.

- VC-Backed Oplayo Acquired By Slice Wireless.

- 3i and Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures have taken an early stage stake in garlik. The founders hail from Egg, one of the most successful online banks in Europe.

- WidiWici's Social Networking For Sporty Types thrives.

- Berlin-based Robowatch is marketing a security robot.

- London Business Angels achievied 17X money on an investment in contextual ads company, Vibrant Media. It sold the shares to an incoming VC firm.