This is a guest post by Charlie van de Kerkhof from the Ministry of Web Development
When you’re talking about German start-ups, you’re talking about Berlin. The city is booming. There are cheap offices and a bunch of angel investors of which one might help you to get that so-wanted lead investment. I learned this optimistic lesson at the TechCrunch UK/Twidox meetup yesterday. Mike Butcher had left London to find out how it feels to say ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ and to meet 15 startups – all eager to promote their business. These are my personal highlights:
Undersigned and Chris from Hiogi
Hiogi – the community answers your questions
Hiogi is a mobile search service that is based on a knowledge community. You can ask anything via Twitter, SMS or email and receive an answer on your mobile. I’ve tried it and ask for the best pizza place near Senerfelderplatz. Within 10 minutes I had my answer and I must admit, it was a very good pizza. Hiogi has just released an open API which gives you acces to the latest questions and answers that were posted. Not surprisingly, these guys have received funding this year and won a couple of prices.
Hobnox – platform for professionals from the creative industry
Hobnox is an online music and video platform where users can watch, connect, collaborate and create. The Next Web has already written about this in May 2008. They are now busy with the community feature of their product where you can download and upload the music to the site and share it with friends.
Jimdo – a personal website for everyone
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Jimdo is an online website builder. You can create your own JimdoFree-Page and add several modules to it – like a blog, guest book, photo gallery, etc. The team is now working on adding social modules like Open Social widgets. Jimdo is based in Hamburg and received the first round funding earlier this year. By the way, one of their most important competitors is Webnode, who presented on The Next Web conference.
Hobnox stand
Nimbuzz – call for free with mobile voip
Nimbuzz provides a mobile/PC app that connects cellphone and PC users. The Next Web has covered the launch of their latest mobile application last May. They’re now in the second financing round and working with almost 70 people in three different locations. How fast can you grow?!
Aka.aki – trace down your friends with Bluetooth
Aka.aki is basically a mobile social community application. You can download an app on your mobile and then connect to other aka.aki friends through Bluetooth (works well up to a 20 meters distance). You can send aka.aki messages to them and check their profile. On the web you can track anything you did and to who you were connected in the last couple of weeks. They started last year with eight people and went live this April. Since then they have grown to 16 people and are currently closing their first round of funding.
Check out some more photos on Deutsche Start-ups
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