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February 07, 2008

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Feature
+ Exclusive a:c interview with super Euro angel Oliver Jung.

Investments
+ Odersun, a thin film solar cell venture, has raised $90M to build its second factory.

+ Collanos, a Swiss/US startup that runs a workplace collaboration platform, sent us the news that it is raising a €3M Series A round.

+ Norwegian fund invests in US-based efficient motor team Direct Drive Systems.

+ Former Skype team invests with Intel in virtual world startup FlowPlay.

Flowplay fun

+ Nexit Ventures announced it has invested in Finland-based Axel Technologies, a DVB-H mobile TV middleware vendor that also supplies the mobile client software.

+ Trayport and Anyware acquired; eBuddy and Badoo funded.

+ VC-backed Lovefilm gets Amazon as investor and wins its UK/German biz.

M&A
+ AOL has acquired the VC-backed company behind buy.at, a five year old UK affiliate marketing company.

+ Venere.com acquires Italian online travel biz WorldBy.com.

Posted at 07:47 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

January 31, 2008

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Cachelogic, which has been sniffing packets and moving content for five years now, has raised a $25M internal round.

+ Mobile Distillery, a startup from the Southern French city of Marseille, has raised €2M from Innoveris and Viveris Management. The two-year old company's software tools and directories make it easier to port mobile applications.

+ Angels back German Woot clone Preisbock.

+ Another internal round to report this week as Virtensys raises $12M. VirtenSys, sells a virtualization solution for data centers.

News & Analysis
+ Scottish startup Crisp Documents makes 10X Smaller PDFs.

+ Top 10 VC-backed IPOs and M&A in tech in Europe.

+ Why two early mobile social startups are heading to the US.

+

The a:c Euro Puzzler
+ 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 were: Last.fm (backed by Index) sold to CBS for $280M, Apertio (backed by Add Partners, Eden Ventures, etc.) sold to Nokia Seimens for $200M+, and the IPO of Blinkx

Posted at 01:11 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

January 24, 2008

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Features
+ Index Ventures gets major growth money.

Investments
+ VC money piles into UK web ventures: W7 and TouchLocal.

+ Austrian printed sensor startup Nanoident has raised new capital of an undisclosed amount from Istanbul-based MV Holding, an investment vehicle that was founded by Murat Vargi, a Forbes 2007 billionaire.

+ Howzat Media, an investment vehicle of two British Internet entrepreneurs, who also invested in WAYN, an online travel community, has made its first investment in Germany, backing trivago.

+ A Dutch/German real-time game engine company, iOpener, has raised capital from German venture capitalist Triangle. It looks like the startup aims to embed satellite nav system chips in racing cars.

+ austriamicrosystems, a SWX traded semiconductor firm, and New Scale Technologies, of Vector, NY announced the completion of a Series B round with the European chipcom making a $6M investment in exchange for a 25% minority share in the company.

+ AdScale, a Germany-centric online ads service provider (based on auction-model) has raised new capital from early investors Holtzbrinck and European Founders Fund.

+ A Swiss angel group is backing an early investment in Cupertino-based gBox, a digital music shopping enabler.

+ United Mobile, a low-cost roaming mobile operator that markets its own SIM cards, has closed a $15M round of equity financing in a deal led by Accel Partners and Grazia Equity.

+ Cisco Backs UK-based small-sized basestation firm ip.access.

+ Momail a mobile email platform provider has raised a first round of funding at $5.4M.

+ Alfresco, an open source content management system provider, has raised $9M in a series C round led by SAP Ventures.

+ Sweden's Tonium, whose first product is a pocket-sized digital music mixer, called Pacemaker targeted at DJs has raised about €2.4M

M&A
+ Audiotube, an online music video portal, has acquired video encoding and playback products and technologies from CineFX.

+ Germany's XING AG acquires cember.net, Turkey’s leading online business Network.

+ VC-backed wireless network provider TheCloud has acquired GlobalAirNet AG (Ganag), for an undisclosed amount.

News & analysis

Tiny speaker, powered by MP3 devices from Austrian startup >Plastic Electronic

Virbac is offering in France a service to locate lost pups via a GPS-based collar attachment that provides info to the cellphone or the web.

Posted at 11:49 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

January 10, 2008

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Featured Interview
+ German genealogy site (Verwandt.de) on a roll - new VC and new capital.

a:c Euro Puzzler
+ Brand names that have ended 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.

Investments
+ Spain's Trovit, a vertical search engine for classifieds in six European countries, has raised €600K.

+ UK's Palringo raises $5M for mobile and PC messaging.

+ Bolloré (French battery company) and Pininfarina (Italian auto design firm) are together investing €150M in a joint venture to manufacture a 100% electric car.

+ French motion sensing startup Movea raises €7.3M.

+ Fresh Euro Deals - Mirifice and Inside Contactless.

+ Trivid funded for DIY music video service.

+ Sanako, a learning software company, has raised €5M.

M&A
+ Two rare optoelectronics-related M&A deals were announced this week, one in Germany and one in France.

+ Microsoft Bids $1.2B For Norway's FAST.

+ Roundup of German Web M&A above $100M.

+ Intersema Sensoric, a founder-driven pressure sensor company based in Switzerland, has been acquired by Nasdaq-traded Measurement Specialties for up to $47.4M.

The company made pressure sensors to Victorinox for this Swiss Army Knife

News & Analysis
+ Day Software, a content management software company, is the new employer of the founders of Mindquarry, a German open source collaborative software platform provider that had been funded by Hasso Plattner Ventures

Posted at 08:17 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

December 20, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Features
+ Driverless taxis are coming to Heathrow.

+ Buy, Sell or Hold with Atlas Ventures' Graham O'Keeffe.

This Euro VC Digs Radio Controlled Airplanes.

Investments
+ Mangrove Capital Invests in Brands4Friends' €5M round.

News and Analysis
+ Google Zeitgeist: Rise of Badoo, Ebuddy, and Dailymotion.

Posted at 08:04 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

December 13, 2007

This Week In Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Wellington Partners has acquired a stake TravelHorizon Group in exchange for €10M in venture capital.

+ InsideContactless announced a Series C round of $38M in a deal led by Nokia Growth Partners.
+ Bahu, a private social networking site for young students across Europe, announced today the completion of its first round of funding.

+ Dutch startup Libersy raised €1.2M for online booking platform.

Microsoft buys UK's Multimap.

+ SensorDynamics, a company that develops gas and motion sensor products, among other types of sensors used in automobiles, announced a Series B round of $37M.

+ YooMedia, which counted Sony as a backer, and did four dating acquisitions last year has just acquired Spain's Fresh IT, an interactive TV company.

News & Analysis
+ 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.

+ Clean Energy Stocks At A Peak? We've been hearing VCs complain about the high valuations of some alt energy startups at industry conferences, and we've marveled ourselves at the rich valuations on solar energy companies on these pages, but private equity investors are now saying that these valuations are not sustainable.

+ The reviews for Le Web in Paris are positive. One tech sector blogger describes his feeling about being there as being like a kid in a candy store.

Posted at 11:56 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

December 07, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Features
+ Q&A with the CEO and co-founder of Warp Networks, a three year old Spanish startup that is launching eBox, an open source enterprise network administration platform.

Investments
+ BeCheeky.com, the two year old UK-based e-tailer, has raised funding from YFM Group and Internet-experienced business angels in a £630K round.

+ While we are on this subject of European sexy ventures, two of the founders of recently floated Seloger.com, the France-based real-estate classified site publisher, have reinvested along with new investor 123Venture, in a €1.5M financing round YesForLove, a new cosmetics brand that is dedicated to enhancing sex.

+ High-Tech Gründerfonds and Neuhaus Partners have financed antispameurope.

+ Providence Equity Partners, a media and communications private equity firm, agreed to invest over $200M in Volia Cable, a Ukrainian cable TV and Internet access provider.

+ 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.

+ Oodrive Technologies, a seven year old French venture specialized in remote backup, online file sharing and collaboration solutions, has raised €4M.

+ Gigle Semiconductor raised $20M.

M&A
+ In a £54M deal, Swedish investment firm Maria Invest AB has sold its online gambling interests in Malta-registered Maria Holdings Limited to Internet gambling group Unibet.

+ Warburg Pincus has acquired a stake in Centrum.cz in a deal that is rumored to value the venture at about €100M.

+ Referencement.com, a French online web marketing specialist with a mkt cap of €29M announced two acquisitions this week, buying a 100% stake in Agorad, an independent interactive media agency, and Daooda an ad network.

+ Glowria, the French DVD rental and VOD startup, has been sold by its French VCs to Netgem for at up to €18.9M .

+ Pennsylvania-based e-commerce solutions provider GSI Commerce has agreed to acquire Manchester-based Zendor.com for approximately $7.9M.

News and analysis
+
+ Contrary to the commonly held belief that the bulk of private technology companies left over from the boom are on the verge of fizzling out, these companies that were "conceived during the 2000 bubble-era comprise one-third of all private technology companies today, and the bulk of them — 70% — have received fresh funding within the last three years.

+ Arma Partners, the London-based investment bank, has a new "whitepaper" available for download that attempts to dig through the "excitement" and "hype" to find out what's real in the SaaS market today.

+ Just who are Europe's hottest software companies?

+ Where are they now: Marc Fleury of JBOSS. The French-born entrepreneur who founded open source company JBoss is still in the US, and he's reportedly taking it easy, doing some gaming, studying some biotech, and being a DJ.

Posted at 01:11 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

November 30, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ France's Maeglin Software raised capital to acquire Ipracom, which develops peer to peer software for mobile and PC data exchange applications.

+ South Africa's blog platform Synthasite raises $5M from luxury label's corporate VC arm.

+ Alt energy consultancy Semplice attracts venture finance.

+ Bac2 has raised £2M of private funding from London Business Angels.

+ Scottish Equity Partner led a €26M investment in Kiala, the Pan-European package delivery company founded and led by serial entrepreneur Denis Payre.

+ Thermoelectric semiconductor startup Nanofreeze has raised an additional $1M .

+ Spotzer Media Group, the low-budget TV and video ad enabler, has acquired two more investors for a €10M financing round.

+ Five year old French startup Mobile Devices, which recently launched a driver information and fleet management applications mobile tool kit, has raised a first round of €3.1M2.

+ Hedgies invest in Baltic and E European job seekers site - Startup CV Market.

+ eCommerce pioneers see potential in shopping site iliketotallyloveit.

M&A
+ UK's Email Systemsbought by Webroot.

+ Prague's 1C buys Moscow games studio from Akella.

+ Applied Materials buy Italian solar cell equipment maker Baccini for €225M.

News & Analysis
+ Buy, hold, or sell with VC Alexander Straub. Gadgets beloved by Euro VCs.

Puzzler

Name this open source man and his position.
email: valerie@thealarmclock.com with your answer

Posted at 01:17 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

November 23, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Features
+ Here's some of what we heard and saw on Thursday at the European Tech Tour's Web & Communities Summit in Montreux, Switzerland where selected companies were able to make their pitches for free to a roomful of investors from all over Europe.

Investments
+ Zurich-based Spectraseis announced this week hat it has raised $ 32.5M from Warburg Pincus in a deal that sees the investor acquiring a "significant minority stake" in the geographical surveying technology company.

+ Irish wind energy power generating company Airtricity is in play with a €2B valuation

+ European investors are backing a seed round in Tokiva, a Chinese mobile communication platform company that provides services, such as discounted mobile calls.

+ Romania's Gecad Technologies, the company behind AXIGEN Mail Server software, has raised €2M for an 18% stake in the company.

+ Recently funded for expansion, Sweden's CINT has created a new kind of online platform that matches consumer panels with big name brands that want to survey consumers in key markets and regions abroad.

+ Scottish Equity Partners Invests in Skyscanner - a flight search engine.

a:c euro 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)

News & Analysis
+ French eCommerce firm Vente Privée proves unconventionally successful with a turnover of some €300M annually.

Posted at 01:28 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

November 15, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Displaylink raises another $24M for multi-monitor computing.

+ Fresh French venture capital investments: PolySpot Is Crawling The Enterprise, Spartoo.com, a French shoe e-tailer, and digital forms for digital pens.

Frenchies are nuts for Converse

+ German Web investment roundup: Adscale (Text and banner ad network startup), Weblin (Avatar to surf the web with you), Youmix, (Platform for bands and fans), Townster (Local search)

Weblin = German Web Gremlins

+ Huddle.net, a UK-based SaaS venture specialized in collaboration tools for project teams and co-workers has raised a first round.

+ Lithuanian startup GetJar financed by Accel Partners, moves to London.

M&A
+ VC-Backed Coding Technologies acquired by Dolby for $250M.

News & Analysis
+ Psylock claims password-killer.

Posted at 11:22 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

November 09, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ bmp Media Investors and Mangrove have invested an undisclosed amount in Republika Kobiet, the company behind a 'web 2.0 lifestyle portal' targeted at women and based in Poland.

+ Ever since Vente Privée, which sells home-shopping channel-like products on the web, raised capital from Summit Partners at a stellar valuation, we've been keeping an eye on French eCommerce innovators. A couple of deals this week to report along those lines.

+ German startup HumanGrid financed for Mechanical Turk-like business that lets users outsource online tasks.

+ <strong>Xtract out of Finland is is getting its board in place, typically a prelude to a financing round of some sort, as it pulls out the stops to promote its behaviour analytics software to social networking communities and communications companies.

+ Greenhanger has raised an undisclosed amount of capital for its concept to replace metal coat hangers used in dry cleaners with cardboard ones.

+ YouDoo Dolls founders had with winning a Dragon's Den episode, not only getting backing from Dragon's Den jury member Deborah Meaden but also some traffic that apparently was intent on buying.

YouDoo Dolls Became a Hit After Being Featured On British TV

M&A
+ Mapsolute acquired by Navteq for $40M.

+ Ireland's S3 acquires Portuguese VC-backed Acacia Semiconductor.

IPO
+ Sophos, a UK-based anti-virus and security software company, is planning to IPO on the London Stock Exchange, possibly before the end of the year.

+ One week after its IPO on the Swiss Stock Exchange, GPS chipset maker u-blox is looking at a 30 percent gain on its issue price.

Puzzler
+ Name one of the two venture capital firms that backed MutuiOnline, the Italian online mortgage broker that went public this year on the Milan stock exchange.

Posted at 11:05 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

November 02, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Two former leading lights from DMA Design (part of Rockstar North/Take Two Interactive) the company behind Grand Theft Auto and State of Emergency, have raised seed financing for their one and a half year old mobile games company in Dundee Scotland called Tag Games.

+ Fatfoogoo, the Austrian startup that runs a marketplace to auction virtual items for getting ahead in popular role-playing games, has raised an undisclosed amount in a Series A.

+ A peek at valuations from the FastBooking deal which values the French travel site at €45M.

+ German startup Process Relations has raised €700K from the HighTech Gründerfonds.

News & Analysis
+ Headweb: legal video download to DVD out of Sweden.

Posted at 01:29 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

October 25, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Features
+ From Austria: Semiconductor 2.0. NanoIdent specializes in printed semiconductors using organic and inorganic materials.

+ A self-financed software venture out of Germany that has been selling its software on its website, breaking the taboo that enterprise software can only be sold by salespeople.

Investments
+ Ekinops, a French optical networking startup has raised €20M from French VCs.

+ The Lord of the Dance Michael Flatley, has invested in UK-bsed Audiotube - a new pop music destination site, featuring music videos on demand, along with record industry giant Chris Blackwell.

Dancer Turned VC Michael Flatley (seen here promoting The Lord Of The Dance, Feet of Flames

+ Kelkoo's co-founder Chappaz to finance best two minute video pitch.

News & Analysis
+ US vs. Euro VCs investment trend. The US went from investing 2.6x Europe in the first quarter, to 4.7x in the second, up to 5.1x the total amount invested in third.

+ Fast German tech companies.

Posted at 04:07 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

October 19, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Features
+ We go to conferences as much for the content as for the people you meet on the sidelines, and in this respect DEMO in Munich didn't disappoint.

+ More from DEMO Germany: international teams, laser pointers, and no PowerPoint.

Investments
+ Neuhaus invests in Fishlabs- 3D mobile games.

+ Estonia's United Dogs & Cats, a SocNet for European pet-owners, sold a 15% stake to fund the launch of four new language versions.

Nice Looking And Popular Swedish Pup

+ AirInSpace, a developer of devices that ‘catch and kill’ infectious bacteria and viruses, has raised $8.5M.

Given Our Nasty Bug, We'd Love To Get Our Hands On This

M&A
+ IRIUM, a French software provider of ERP solutions for the heavy machinery industries, has been acquired by a new management team and Occam Capital.

+ SAP to buy India's Yasu for its business rules software.

News and Analysis
+ alarm:clock euro 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 benefiting from some Yahoo know-how and know-who?

+ Big Euro software deals - impact on startups.

Posted at 12:05 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

October 11, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Features
+ interview with Flauntr founder.

- Interview with Ulteo's new CEO and founder (scoop on seed financing round).

- Hot betas: Wua.la and Comapping profiles.

M&A
+ Founders sell stake in Katshing online mobile telephony retailer.

News & Analysis
+ Mojowatch : DxO, Meetic, and Proximic.

+ a:c euro puzzler: What is the name of the VC firm that counts Preben Damgaard as one of its six advisory board members?

+ Chipcon founder starts up energy-sipping semiconductor co.

+ Varsavsky positioning FON to reach growth targets.

+ One day MBA for software entrepreneurs in Paris.

Posted at 11:06 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

October 05, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

+ Light Blue Optics raises $26M series A with euro investors.

+ UK sports site Sportsbuzz raises $3.2M.

+ Fidlock's magnetic fasteners financed.

+Germany's Proximic launches widget contextual ad network.

+ Balderton takes stake in Top Up TV.

M&A
+ After the Skype bombshell, eBay acquires Germany's Afterbuy.

+ Dassault buys French startup Seemage.

+ The BBC buys travel multimedia's Lonely Planet.

News And Analysis
+ alarm:clock euro Puzzler -Name the entrepreneur and investor who is considered the "father of venture capital".

+ Yahoo mulls sale of Kelkoo, the VC-backed comparison shopping site it acquired back in 2004.

+ Bibob is Danish entrepreneur's latest disruptive mobile venture.

+ We demo Zyb.

Posted at 01:08 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

September 28, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Dutch eBook reader maker iRex gains more funding.

+ Private investors put SFr6.5M into Nivio's virtual desktop ambition.

+ Mobile SocNet's TruTap raises $6.5M.

+ The UK's MirriAd funded for embedded video ads business.

+ VoluBill, a French startup in the mobile data charging business, has raised €10.5M.

+ Purple Labs Linux phones cause investors to link up again.

+ Seznam, probably the biggest player on Czech web today, has acquired a stake in video sharing site Stream.

M&A
+ Lithuania's One.lt buys stake in Russian Facebook clone.

+ Venture capital firm Arts Alliance wrote in to say that it had sold portfolio company PrePay Technologies for £50M to Accor's Services subsidiary, which is in the voucher business.

+ Atlanta, GA-based EyeWonder has bought Cologne, Germany-based digital interactive advertising firm and online-streaming-spot seller Vendi Interactive.

+ Fimatex, ultimately majority-owned by Societe Generale in France, has made a bid for OnVista valuing the company at about €138M.

News & Analysis
+ Meet CSR, Intel, and PicoChip Execs in Edinburgh at the Bridging the Gap event.

+ Euro VC fund news: DFJ goes to russia and UK gets giant cleantech fund.

+ alarm:clock euro puzzler - A Turing Test. 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?

+ Hot betas: MindMeister, Restorm.tv, and RapidObject.

+ Being European:
" We’re in Clerkenwell, which is the literal and spiritual home of print. It’s home to the oldest printing business on the planet, it’s fantastic. We wanted to be somewhere with some significance; Silicon Valley’s not known for its printing..."
Richard Moross co-founder of Moo, the online business card print service backed by Index Ventures

"A lot of people in Europe think entrepreneurs are thieves..."
Martin Varsavsky, FON founder, serial entrepreneur, and business angel.

"Basically I'm just trying to understand all aspects of the game, but of course I find the trade and marketing aspects of the game most interesting. It's also fun to go out there and shoot at somebody, of course..."
Eyjolfur Gudmundsson CCP's Chief Economist aka EVE Online's Central Banker

Posted at 12:47 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

September 20, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Switzerland's Trigami financed to get more bloggers to write about clients' products.

+ Mobile portal startup Texomobile to raise new capital.

+ Copenhagen-based Regroup Esports, an online game community startup, has raised 'several millions' in new capital from Preben Damgaard, the Danish ERP software entrepreneur.

+ Oanda taps US investors in $100M round for FX trading.

+ PicoChip reveals Samsung funding.

+ Socnet stats France: Skyrock dominates.

M&A
+ GoAdv is an Italian-founded startup that is looking to acquire some 'well-visited' sites or networks with 'underperforming transaction rates' in Europe.

+ Intel acquires VC-backed Havok - Irish gaming middleware.

News & Analysis
+ Deutsche Telekom is reportedly paying €360M for the 66% it didn't already own of online real estate classifieds site ImmoblienScout24.

+ Mojowatch.eu: ACCO, Xcerion, and Floobs.

Posted at 04:59 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

September 14, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Barcelona-based European Telemedicine Clinic has raised €7M to grow its reportedly thriving teleradiology business.

+ Kewego raises €5M to take video platform abroad.

+ Tagsys, the French VC-backed RFID startup must be making its milestones with its announcement that backers have released the second tranche of its $35M series C round.

+ Optical networking startup taps Dietmar Hopp's fund.

+ Capman invests €8M in Maxwell's eHealth -growth deal.

+ Mobile socnets + location not compatible with making money.

+ If Last.fm (acquired by CBS for $280M) was last year’s taste-matching trendsetter, what will be next year’s? A couple of European sites that are onto something are U.[lik] and imagini.net.

M&A
+ VMWare acquires Swiss startup Dunes Technologies.

News & Analysis
+ How to be Habbo Hotel - tips on going global.

Posted at 01:06 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

September 07, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Stealth web 2.0 gets backing of Skype funders.

+ Seeded Sensinode looks to raise new round for Wireless Sensor Net Tech.

+ France's Digitick raises €8M for e-ticketing.

+ Emporis, a German company that publishes a database tracking and describing buildings and construction projects around the world, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital.

+ Six year old Netviewer, whose online collaboration and remote desktop access platform is in demand, has raised €9M.

+ XMOS Semiconductor defines $16M A round.

+ London mobile game maker Ideaworks 3D funded.

M&A
+ Germany's MyVideo bought for $26M.

+ Sweden's online payment processor Netgiro bought for $27M.

+ Publicis Buys Paris' PhoneValley.

Posted at 12:55 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

August 31, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+Optical is back in again - latest deal is Syntune with $7.1M second round.

+ Frankfurt-based social networking platform for sports enthusiasts SportMe.de has gained new investor Mountain Partners.

+ South African mobile banking Fundamo funded for growth.

+ BridgeCo has raised $17M in venture debt from ETV Capital.The Swiss audio streaming enabler is meeting its projected growth figures.

+ Berlin-based ViiF.de says that it has raised an undisclosed amount to seed it prior to launch of a new mobile video service.

+ Copenhagen-based software startup iMotions Emotion Technology A/S, has attracted a couple of more business angels to a $2.7M round.

+ Dutch Investor Marcel Boekhoorn takes €16.5M stake in voice.trust.

M&A
+ Lagardère shops for two online ad agencies.

+ Strasbourg-based iplanto has been acquired by Infoblox out of California. No disclosure on the size of the transaction, but the French startup was just 3 years old and had been making inroads selling its IP address management software to enterprises using Microsoft, Cisco, and VMWare's products.

Posted at 12:32 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

August 23, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Helsinki's Aito Technologies raised a first round but didn't disclose the size. it is targeting mobile operators and service providers with software solutions that enable the users to "segment their customer base more accurately, analyze the adoption patterns of new services, and reduce support calls.

+ Amadeus Capital Partners and Northzone Ventures have acquired a majority stake in EPiServer, a Stockholm-based web content management platform developer.

+ French codec startup Actimagine to raise capital - going international.

M&A
+ Munich mobile ad business Actionality bought by Yahoo.

Posted at 07:18 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

July 19, 2007

This Week in Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Delamaison.fr, which sells home furnishing and decorations, has raised €3.3M.

+ Mangrove invests in Luxembourg's music service Jamendo.

+ Created by the merger of Photoways and Photobox last year, Photoways Group has closed a new round of funding at €10M.

+ We covered pan-European exclusive (invite-only) Internet shopping site, BuyVIP, a few months back when we spotted a Euro trend in online shopping clubs. 3i has announced an investment in BuyVIP.

+ Norway's electric car company TH!NK GLOBAL raises $60M.

IPO
+ Virgin owned Game Development International is net yet a fully launched business and it is talking up a €1B listing in the UK.

+ Three former Ballard Power Systems employees in Germany have raised an undisclosed amount from business angels to develop their fuel cell business, FutureE Fuel Cell Solutions.

News
+ Upcoming Events For alarm:clock euro.

+ Seedcamp Details

Posted at 10:13 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

July 12, 2007

This Week In Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Zinwave raising capital to make wireless go further.

+ London's LiveRail raises insider round for video ad network.

+ Nanotron Technologies, a low-power wireless sensor networking chip developer, has secured €10M in funding.

+ France's Zlio Raises $4M for social shopping in France and the US with eyes on the UK.

+ TvTrip has raised a $4.8M funding round for its video guide to hotels.

+ Esprit and Intel New Investors In Virtualogix, formerly Jaluna out of France.

+ Inside the Intel and Mirics deal, an interview with a matchmaker.

M&A
+ Georg von Holtzbrinck is continuing bid to acquire Abacho, a daughter company of Endemann Internet AG for €56M. Abacho runs auction platforms for manual labor contracts and services.

+ Wales' vBulletin (aka Jelsoft) bought by Internet Brands.

+ Portugal's EDP buys US' Horizon Wind Energy.

News and analysis
+ Wavecom, a wireless embedded systems company, is back from brink. The French company which almost went out of a business a few short years ago has successfully restructured and now boasts a stock price that tripled over the past year.

+ Sports social nets on the rise in Europe.

+ MojoWatch.eu: Euro Tech Stoxx, XMOS, Asknet.

+ The problem with Euro VC examined.

+ Zooming in Opera mobile metrics.

Posted at 02:55 PM | TrackBack | Permalink

July 06, 2007

This Week In Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ London's Adjug Raises $2M for Euro ad marketplace.

+ ChapDrive funded for new wind turbines.

+ Wonga has received £3M in funding for a soon-to-be-launched UK site that will give decisions on whether to loan money to borrowers within 30 minutes, faster than any other loan provider.

+ Parisian mobileTV chip startup Dibcom raises €20M.

+ Microsoft takes stake in early stage Euro startups.

+ France's Glowria, the Netflix-clone for Europe and VOD white-label vendor has raised €6.1M from existing French investors.

+ Bitlogistics seeded for supply chain visibility solutions.

+ Czech online games site Geewa funded.

+ Cellity funded for mobilephone services: Twitter and cheaper calls.

Germans Just Want to Twitter

M&A
+ IXEurope offered $420M for colocation company.

Pretty colo rooftop snap.

+ Boungiorno, the Italian digital media and mobile content company, has acquired iTouch for $191M.

+ Meetic, the French publicly traded dating site operator whose sites are mainly targeted heterosexuals, has acquired ClearGay.

News and analysis
+ OpenBC users valued at $136 per head.

+ QXL's amazing share price.

+ Eutube launched on YouTube.

+ Alfresco's 6 predictions for Web 2.0.

Posted at 11:08 AM | TrackBack | Permalink

June 29, 2007

This Week In Euro Tech Ventures

Investments
+ Burda backs online gift recommendation site Biz eDelight.de.

+ Sofinnova funds BlueKiwi to make blogs safe for big business.

+ snom Technology out of Berlin has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from a hedge fund for its VoIP phones.

+ French solar power company Solaire Direct gets financed.

+ Spain's OutSystems Gets Growth Capital for Web Business App Wizards

M&A
+ Axel Springer puts €284M price tag on auFeminin.com.

+ German Twitter clone finds a buyer on eBay.

News and analysis
+ Forbes reports on European tech ventures, seeing signs of a mini-bubble but also giving plenty of space to mention some European tech ventures, such as Iminent, Netvibes, Garlik, Smaato, FON, smeet, and Properazzi. These are startups regular readers will be familiar with.

+ Top 10 reasons why tech public relations fizzle rather than sizzle.

+ Niklas Zenstrom, of Kazaa, Skype, and Joost fame, talked about serial entrepreneurship at the Zeitgeist Google confab.

+ Bruce S