Seedcamp, the European-wide programme for tech startups, has opened its annual week of supercharged mentoring for its final list of 20 startups. There are other startup programmes and competitions in Europe but Seedcamp seems to have cornered the market in that scare resource: smart European tech CEOs who can mentor new startups. Put simply, if you’d thrown a grenade into the Costa Coffee at University College London today much of the tech startup scene in Europe would have been wiped out. Which would be a pity. But back to the startups: What are the trends this year?
It’s safe to say the “quality” of the startups is somewhat higher this year. This is not to play down last year’s vintage – however, it’s clear that many of the teams have come to the event much more fully rounded as companies and products. The last couple of years of Seedcamp has tended towards cloud-based companies which are trying to shoot for the moon. The next Twitter. The next Skype. The next Google. That sort of thing. And in the first year they were mostly companies from London. Now, they are literally from all over the EMEA region.
Also, this year, the phrase “revenue” was uttered to a high degree during the pitches, and many of the businesses are aimed at solving users’ or company time, money or both – in other words this is your Recession-Era Seedcamp Week. I counted at least two Travel startups. Mobile startups were thin on the ground, but they were about saving time or money. “It’s all websites not widgets” said one mentor I spoke to, in a side-swipe at Web 2.0 boom-era startups. That pleased him. Another wanted to see more that “changed the world”. You can’t please everyone.
If you liked the Animoto video at TechCrunch50, just wait until you see what French startup and winner of Seedcamp 2008Stupeflix has just launched. Can’t keep up with the flood of tweets and pictures about you, your blog, your event or your company? Stupeflix.TV will mash them up on-the-fly into a live TV channel. The results are stunning, and they’re not limited to your own events or companies: you can enter any search terms you like to see what people are sharing at that moment.
OK, so we’re not talking about a fully-fledged social media monitoring system here (there’s no way to filter the kind of information you receive, for a start), but Stupeflix.TV could be great wall candy for conferences, and a pleasing ego massage for all you auto-Googlers. And it sure is pretty. Here’s TechCrunch 50:
Hack Days are becoming increasingly popular, fostering innovation in technology and helping companies reach out to and engage with users. In this guest post, Dave Haynes (@Haynes_Dave), head of SoundCloud in the UK and founder of Music Hackday, argues that hack days also show a way forward for the wider music industry.
Inside the Radialsystem V in Berlin, one of the city’s “new spaces for the arts”, the second Music Hackday has begun. There’s a real buzz of excitement within this diverse collection of people, some traveling from as far away as Boston, Stockholm, London and Amsterdam, who have just 24 hours to conceptualize, build and present the best possible ‘music hack’. Read More
TechCrunch Europe is hanging around at Seedcamp Week in London this week. We’ll be wrapping up the companies who pitched at the end of the day. Meanwhile, here’s some coverage of the panel sessions.
The first issue to be raised was about credibility. In the first 100 days of operation, how do you get it? According to Munthe, it was all about personal contact from the CEO. For Gadowski, with Spreadshirt, the key was winning competitions and gaining profile in the press. So pretty standard stuff.
But then the panel became a little more interesting.
Channel 4’s 4iP fund has acquired a minority equity stake in former Seedcamp winner, MyBuilder.com for £350,000. As part of the deal, MyBuilder.com’s services will be integrated into Channel 4’s 4Homes website, with the company getting a proportion of CPA revenue generated through the site.
The deal is significantly 4iP’s first investment into a later stage company with a fully formed product and a proven business model. 4iP’s Daniel Heaf says it’s representative of Channel 4’s strategic aims to diversify its own revenue streams, and as such, this could be the first of many similar investments which further the broadcaster’s remit in public service digital media. Read More
With every major handset manufacturer planning an app store launch, the fragmented mobile application market gets ever harder to track. Distimo is a young startup (the fresh-faced founders only started the company in May) which provides free analytical reports covering trends in the main mobile application stores; currently the holy trinity of Apple, Android and Blackberry. It also creates paid customized reports aimed at operators and device manufacturers. A free analytics tool called Distimo Monitor, still in closed beta, is available to mobile developers so they can monitor their applications, and those of their competitors, across all the app stores.
Distimo provided us with some UK-specific trend data for August. The overlap in popular apps between US and UK is much higher in the Android market than the Apple app store. Navigation and travel apps have the lowest overlap because of location dependencies.
One European company that picked the TechCrunch50 conference to launch its web service was DemoPit participant deciZium, which launched its travel planning website YourTour in public beta and gave the audience a demo of its capabilities during the event’s breaks.
Granted, there are a lot of travel-related websites and applications out there which makes it quite difficult to come up with something unique in this space, but YourTour does have a number of interesting features you want to take a look at. In essence, the website offers personal travel planning assistance based on your wishes, preferences and limitations.
So here we go then, the fourth and final part of my award-winning TechCrunch50 coverage; the all-important ’round-up’. This is where I ask appropriately round-uppy questions like “what did we learn this week?” “what were the highlights of the event?” and “is there any chance it will happen again next year, given that the whole spectacle climaxed with Arrington walking off stage as Calacanis lead the audience in some weird, embarrassing clapping game?”
I’ll get to that last question in due course but first, given that the “what did we learn?” question has already been answered by Lacy and Arrington, let’s consider the highlights.
It’s true to say, without a hint of hyperbole, that 25 year old Daniel Ek’s Spotify has taken the global music industry by storm, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Even in markets it hasn’t launched in yet (including the US), Spotify is generating a lot of attention and is now valued at €170 million. Music lovers have discovered ways to circumvent regional limitations on the software and are already using the service heralded by some as the future of the music industry. And that suits the music industry just fine, especially since they’ve invested in it. At a Glasshouse event at the Royal College of Physicians in London last night, an assembled throng of the tech business community listened to Ek’s thoughts.
“Despite making every mistake in the book in my previous companies,” says Daniel Ek, “with Spotify things seem to be working out. It’s true that we underestimated how long it would take the labels to come in, though: we started the company in 2006, but didn’t launch a product until 2008 because it took so long to get the labels on board.”
Ek was interviewed by Virginia Eastman, former BBC business journalist and now Principal at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles‘ London office. At one point she asked “So will you have the Beatles before iTunes?”.
Listen up, music lovers. Mixcloud, the on-demand radio startup that’s re-thinking radio for the digital age, opens its doors to the public at noon on Monday. The site launched in private beta at SXSW earlier this year, and has had some positive reviews. Which is probably why it was shortlisted for a TechCrunch Europas award a few months back. After the jump, we’ve got 500 passes for TechCrunch readers to get a sneak preview of Mixcliud’s ‘cloudcasts’.
Online radio is very much a digital media orphan; languishing in a fragmented space while innovations in other aspects of streaming media have come thick and fast over the last few years. Mixcloud’s vision is to be the YouTube of radio with on-demand radio shows spanning music and talk and truing to make it make it more social, personalised and ‘democratic’.
Seedcamp, the European-wide programme for tech startups, has opened its annual week of supercharged mentoring for its final list of 20 startups. There are other startup programmes and competitions in Europe but Seedcamp seems to have cornered the market in that scare resource: smart European tech CEOs who can mentor new startups. Put simply, if you’d thrown a grenade into the Costa Coffee at University College London today much of the tech startup scene in Europe would have been wiped out. Which would be a pity. But back to the startups: What are the trends this year? 
Hack Days are becoming increasingly popular, fostering innovation in technology and helping companies reach out to and engage with users. In this guest post, Dave Haynes (
TechCrunch Europe is hanging around at Seedcamp Week in London this week. We’ll be wrapping up the companies who pitched at the end of the day. Meanwhile, here’s some coverage of the panel sessions.
Channel 4’s 4iP fund has acquired a minority equity stake in 
With every major handset manufacturer planning an app store launch, the fragmented mobile application market gets ever harder to track. 
Distimo provided us with some 
So here we go then, the fourth and final part of my award-winning TechCrunch50 coverage; the all-important ’round-up’. This is where I ask appropriately round-uppy questions like “what did we learn this week?” “what were the highlights of the event?” and “is there any chance it will happen again next year, given that the whole spectacle climaxed with Arrington walking off stage as Calacanis lead the audience in some weird, embarrassing clapping game?”
It’s true to say, without a hint of hyperbole, that 25 year old Daniel Ek’s 
Listen up, music lovers. 
