Entrepreneurs in Europe often lament the lack of venture capital flowing into early-stage businesses in these parts, and it’s true that access to smart seed money leaves much to be desired across the continent, overall.

Today sees the formal launch of a new early-stage VC firm called Connect Ventures (not to be confused with CollegeHumor Network owner Connected Ventures). The firm will be based in London, make investments across all of Europe, and is currently managed by two partners, an American and an Italian.

Connect Ventures is today announcing the close of an initial €16 million ($21.2m) for its first fund. The target for the fund is roughly €43 million ($57m), we’re told.

The goal is to invest between 250,000 and 1.25 million euros ($330k-$1.7m) in consumer web, digital media, e-commerce, entertainment and gaming startups, across seed and Series A rounds. The firm aims to make investments in early-stage businesses across Europe, but initially focus primarily on the larger tech hubs like London, Berlin, Stockholm and Tel Aviv as it is still limited in resources.

The fledgling VC firm was founded by Pietro Bezza (an Italy-born serial entrepreneur, angel investor and Seedcamp mentor) and Bill Earner (originally from the United States, a former startup tinkerer and an investment manager at Amadeus Capital Partners before starting Connect Ventures).

The firm has already announced one investment (participating in London-based Secret Sales’ £6.3 million round in January 2012) but Earner tells me there have been two more investments already, which will be announced shortly.

One is an e-commerce startup based in Berlin, the other one is a company focused on mobile applications based in Berlin.

In a presentation to BELTUG, Belgium’s largest independent group of ICT managers, Facebook’s head of its Brussels office, Erika Mann, a former member of European Parliament and board member of ICANN, talked about her role at the social networking behemoth and the work she does out of Europe’s capital city.

Mann is no stranger to the world of international lobbying – she was formerly an executive vice president at Computer & Communications Industry Association.

As transcribed by Data News (article in Dutch), Mann said she and one other team member make up the entire staff at Facebook’s Belgian office today, but that the company is looking to fill 2 more positions (3 according to Facebook’s Careers page), including a Public Policy Manager EU and Administrative Assistant.

The main activity of the Brussels office is, unsurprisingly, building and maintaining relationships with a variety of European institutions. That includes lobbying work and setting up conversations about privacy and data security issues.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg recently subtly criticized Europe as the European Commission prepares to release a draft of a strict data privacy regulation that stands to affect companies like the social networking giant.

Facebook reportedly spent $1.35 million on lobbying in the U.S. in 2011.

At the event, Mann said that Facebook doesn’t censor content as a policy but needs to have ‘moral and ethical standards’ in place, considering its social network is now host to roughly 850 million active users (4.6 million in Belgium), 80% of which are said to live outside of North America.

Mann cited a recent Deloitte study that said Facebook brings Europe about 15.3 billion euros in ‘business value’, as well over 230,000 indirect jobs.

She thinks companies like Facebook couldn’t have come out of Europe because startups need to make significantly more investments to reach critical mass in these parts, although she’s aware of Spotify and Skype’s European roots.

Also read:

Facebook snags former Boehner aide to boost Congressional lobbying

Facebook is killing local social networks around the world

Facebook reveals it has 58M mobile-only users per month…its post-PC world is still emerging

There are tons of startup incubators and accelerators operating all across Europe today. Often, they are modeled after the successful Y Combinator early-stage fund, but sometimes there’s a twist that makes them unique, particularly when they focus on a single region or type of business only.

Anyway, I was delighted to find out today, thanks to GigaOM’s Bobbie Johnson, that there’s something called Startup Factories, which says it aims to be a “guide to accelerator programmes in the European Union”.

At this stage, there are a lot still missing from the list, and the guide does not include Seedcamp, apparently because the organization thought it “didn’t quite match” their definition of an accelerator programme. I’d argue otherwise, but hey.

Startup Factories, which grew from a research project by the UK’s NESTA, says its guide includes details of all the programmes it knows of in Europe, but invites anyone to get in touch to point out omissions. Let’s help them out.

The BBC is to start rolling out its iPlayer service to international audiences later this year, but it will be available to iPad owners only at first.

As reported in the Guardian today, fans of BBC programmes such as Fawlty Towers and Doctor Who in western Europe will be able to pay the equivalent of around £6 per month, though the final figure is yet to be settled. We reported late last year that a subscription-based model would be available abroad at some point on the iPad, and now a launch could be a couple of months away.

Internet users in the UK have been enjoying iPlayer since 2007, and it seems the pending international edition will differ from its UK equivalent. The monthly fee will enable viewers to access a mix of old and new programming, whereas UK viewers are able to access recent ‘catch-up’ content only. The BBC is aiming to collate programmes into collections, covering genres such as music, comedy, documentaries and natural history.

This is the first step in the BBC’s global subscription testing phase, and when it rolls out in late summer, it will be treated initially as a pilot project. The funding model and the exact programming included is likely to evolve over time before it’s taken further afield into potentially lucrative territories such as the US. Also, the fact that it will only be available to iPad owners is further testament to the BBC’s initial caution.