Written on 27th May 2009
0 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
IBM has reserved $3 billion to fund ’smart infrastructure’ projects in Europe and Asia that are likely to receive government stimulus support.
The announcement follows the group’s statement at the end of April that it would make up to $2 billion available to finance U.S. stimulus programs. That amount has now been allocated to both US and Canadian projects.
This latest move comes as competing infrastructure developers offer financing to cash scarce customers. IBM now joins their competitors in offering low interest rates, deferred payments and structured credit for projects such as the development of congestion-charge schemes in inner urban areas, or health-information technology, as well as for smaller ventures.
“These stimulus projects and other government projects for more sustainable industries are a huge opportunity for us…We can use financing to make things much more affordable and bring forward the break-even point of the project.” IBM Global Financing’s head of marketing, Nick Gallop, told Reuters.
Europe is like to receive the largest share of the total investment.
Written on 28th April 2009
5 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
The European Research Council have granted a Dutch University €2.5 Million to continue developing a Unix-type operating system. The new operating system aims to be more reliable, stable and secure than Linux or Microsoft Windows.
According to a computer science professor at Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands, the recipients of the fund with include three researchers and two programmers, and will allow further research into a making the operating system capable of fixing itself when a bug is detected.
“Whilst on other operating system crashes usually hang up the machine, the new OS is designed so drivers operate like applications outside of the kernel, which means if they crash, the computer will carry on. The concept is called a “microkernel” rather than its opposite, a monolithic kernel.” Tanenbaum said.
The funding will allow research to continue for five more years.
Written on 1st April 2009
13 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
In this economic climate, when large venture rounds are scarce and acquisitions even rarer, it’s fortunate that the depression has not had an impact on entrepreneur innovation and drive.
Today, we’d like to announce a new initiative, lead by European tech blog ArcticStartup along with ourselves, Techcrunch Europe, Techcrunch France. The initiative is called MicroFundr and is focused on providing investments up to €14,000 Euros (USD $18,500). Another interesting spin is that all applications will only be accepted via Twitter (follow @microfundr), by simply submitting a link to your site.
To be eligible, start-ups are required to have a turnover of no more than €140,000 Euros per year (USD $185,000), and should aim at an exit worth no more than €14 million (USD $18.5m).
Full details of the fund are available at over at ArcticStartup, but needless to say we’re very excited and proud to be involved.
The announcement was officially made yesterday evening, our very own Boris had the opportunity to discuss the fund with none other than Andrew Keen. We’ve embedded the video for your viewing pleasure below:
Following YCombinator of San Francisco-California, Techstars of Boulder-Colorado now Austin-Texas has a startup incubator called Capital Factory (from today).
The program is 10 week summer long and was founded by the local entrepreneurs like Joshua Baer, Sam Decker, Bryan Menell, Brian Beard, Jason Cohen, Pat Condon, Chris Sherman. These will select 10 finalists from a pool of applicants and from these will, eventually, pick three winners (this will be announced on April 13th).
What those three winning companies will get?
It seems they’ll get a slightly better deal than either YCombinator or Techstars offers (at least financially): $20,000 in cash (in exchange of 5% of the company) and weekly mentoring sessions with a select group of proven, successful technology entrepreneurs (other perks are included)
The program runs from May 22nd to August 7th with August 14 being the Demo Day where the chosen companies will showcase their products.
YCombinator’s success in funding early stage startups prompted others to replicate it around USA, Boulder-Colorado being one and now Austin, Texas.
Austin is a great place for technology startups having almost all what it needs for a startup to thrive: infrastructure (startups will use Tech Ranch Austin), talent (University of Texas is there), venture capitalists (Austin Ventures is one of them), small town feeling (although it has 1,6 million inhabitants) and nice weather (no winter).
What it doesn’t have is the close proximity to the ocean (like Silicon Valley-San Francisco has) or to the mountains (like Boulder has). The ocean is like 2-3 hours away (driving) and that shouldn’t stop people who want to enjoy the water. But the closest mountains are like 12 hours away (driving) and that could be a problem if you crave that (which rules out spending weekends skiing – unless taking the plane comes to the rescue).
Austin was known before as a technology hub among other “celebrities” like Silicon Valley, Boston, Seattle, New York being a central location for companies like Dell, 3M, HP, AMD, Applied Materials, Cirrus Logic, National Instruments, Samsung, Sun. This gained the city the nickname of “Silicon Hills”. There are also pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
It is also known as the live music capital of the world and that’s not a small thing. Almost everybody likes music but not everybody gets to see artists perfoming live on the city streets.
I visited Austin last spring and I liked it (I have stayed only one day though).
The city feels more european than many other american cities and, for an european like me, that’s a plus (I’m not forgetting my roots).
I hope to hear about companies who originated from Capital Factory’s incubator and have done good things.
Yeah yeah, the credit crunch. I’m sure the travel industry suffers from it as well, but you wouldn’t say if you keep an eye on online travel services. They raise money, appoint new directors and keep launching new products. Like Tripwolf, the Austrian travel site that combines professional editorial travel tips with the usual user generated content – “OMG, you gotta eat at this restaurant! We had a lovely time and the owner was such a gentleman!!. Users can combine these different sorts of content in a free PDF travel guide. Plus there’s an iPhone app on its way.
Anyhow, these European entrepreneurs have raised $2.5 million in a funding round led by European travel publisher MairDumont Group along with investor Dieter von Holtzbrinck, a German entrepreneur who was chief of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group for more than two decades.
In a online world filled with travel sites, why would this one manage to get a few million dollars. According to tech blogger Jason Kincaid, Tripwolf only has attracted 15,000 members since it launched in June 2008. The design isn’t spectacular either and the site is stuffed with ads.
But a closer look shows there’s an incredible amount of content (250.000 locations, city guides, recommendations and travel reports) and that the community managers do a good job in keeping the site interesting. There’s for example a photo competition going on, co-organized with pop star Dido. Things like this show that Tripwolf has a soul, and combined with great plans (like the iPhone travel guide), the travel site might actually make a difference in the online travel scene.
Written on 17th December 2008
5 COMMENTS Andrew Hyde, Startup Enthusiast, Power User of Many Things, Community Organizer
First Round Capital just send a clear message to startups looking for funding: “If you want to work with us, you have to dance. Dance baby, dance.” Sending a hat tip to Matt, they show all their funded startups doing a tribute.
We wish you all a fine 2009 and hope that you have much to dance about.
Yet when you read Brands4Friends’ story, the financial backing makes complete sense.
Maybe it’s the concept of a shopping club that does it. Fashion victims still want to spice up their outfits with designer brands, yet for a bargain price. Clubs like Brands4Friends, French Vente-privee.com, and Russian KupiVIP.ru are invite only. As soon as you’re among the club of happy spenders, a world of deluxe sales opens up for you. From grand cru wines to a Hermes bag, you can get it for a special, really special price. KupiVIPR.ru recently got a multi million financial boost too.
Brands4friends.de launched in September 2007 and already has 1.2 million online club members – adding 10k users every day. Its current annual revenue run rate is €30 million. I’d say: join the club and start a shopping club for your own country. Successful examples enough.
According to Library House, a Cambridge based research firm, German investors among Europe’s most active VCs. In particular this one VC named High-Tech Gründerfonds Management was the most active investor both in terms of total deal activity as well as first-time investments. Sounds like they REALLY want to get rid of all their money!
With €272 million from a combination of public and private-sector sources, including KfW Bankengruppe, Germany’s federal bank, as well as corporates BASF, Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, Daimler, Bosch and Zeiss it might take some time before they really run out of money to invest.
Feel free to help them though! Send in those business-plans and start your “How to bluff your way into German” courses!
Do know that this fund has fixed deal terms leaving little room for negotiations. They invest no more than €500k in exchange for 15% of the companies they invest in and save some money for a second round, should there be one. So far however, 37 out of the 43 deals it completed during the period were first rounds.
If you start negotiating with Germans here are a few tips: never touch them. They don’t like it. No hands on shoulders or patting on backs. Keep things formal, even during dinner or when they seem relaxed. If they make you an offer, in general, that is the amount they want to spend. The first offer is what they think is reasonable and not an invitation to a counter offer unless you have a REALLY good reason to make one. If they seem angry during the negotiations don’t panic. That is just the way they negotiate. More tips for dealing with Germans? Leave comments!
The European Founders Fund, the investment vehicle of the Samwer brothers, founders of auction site Alando.de (acquired by eBay) and mobile content provider Jamba! (now part of New Corp’s Fox Interactive Media) is pretty busy too. In 2006 and early 2007 they did ‘only’ 6 new investments. In the past 12 months they invested in 14 new companies!
According to Library House the string of new deals by German VC firms over the past year comes as most other European VCs were scaling down their new investment activity.
Mobuzz, founded by Cedric Maloux and Anil de Mello, is running out of money and now begs their loyal viewers (and everybody else) to donate €5 within 7 days to raise a total of € 120.000. If they don’t raise enough money within a week (their burnrate is 50k a month) they will return all the donations.
They made a funny/ironic/sad movie about the whole thing. We are donating €100. Can you spare some change?
In 1999 one analyst suggested that everybody invest in companies that made bubble wrap. He figured that with the huge growth of e-commerce the companies who would benefit the most were bubble wrap companies. Go figure.
Now, with the current economy there are surely companies who are benefiting, right? Right!
One such company is LinkedIn. Last week they announced a $22.7 million funding round which explains the huge smile on their CEO’s face on the right here.
Dan Nye has even more to smile about. Since the economic crisis hit in September LinkedIn has seen a 25% increase in the rate of sign-ups! All over the world concerned employees are updating their digital resumés and strengthening their ties to headhunters and other useful contacts.
Before September LinkedIn had maintained a growth rate of about one new member every two seconds, or 1 million new users about every 20 days. Not bad at all! Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September the growth rate had increased to 1 million new users every two weeks. Suddenly that $ 22.7 million round makes a lot of sense. They are clearly worth it!
LinkedIn has 30 million users worldwide and of those 30 million about 7 million are based in Europe. In the time you read that last sentence (3 seconds?) LinkedIn added 2 new members. Another member. And another. You get the idea. That was two more…
P.S. why not yoin our group on LinkedIn while you are updating your resumé? Will make you look intelligent and innovative. Really!
Written on 27th May 2009
0 COMMENTS 
IBM has reserved $3 billion to fund ’smart infrastructure’ projects in Europe and Asia that are likely to receive government stimulus support.
The European Research Council have granted a Dutch University €2.5 Million to continue developing a Unix-type operating system. The new operating system aims to be more reliable, stable and secure than Linux or Microsoft Windows.
In this economic climate, when large venture rounds are scarce and acquisitions even rarer, it’s fortunate that the depression has not had an impact on entrepreneur innovation and drive.
Written on 30th January 2009
Following 
Written on 23rd January 2009
Written on 17th December 2008
Maybe it’s the concept of a shopping club that does it. Fashion victims still want to spice up their outfits with designer brands, yet for a bargain price. Clubs like Brands4Friends, French 
Written on 20th November 2008
Mobuzz, founded by Cedric Maloux and Anil de Mello, is running out of money and now begs their loyal viewers (and everybody else) to 
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
