With over 5 million Twitter followers, UK actor/author Stephen Fry is the closest thing we get to an “Ashton Kutcher”, given that he has a big following and occasionally takes an interest in tech startups (sometimes a financial interest). But his choices are hit and miss. One was a startup which allowed you to put virtual post-it notes on websites… But his picks have improved and recently Yplan… → Read More
With the holiday season upon us, let’s take a look at some of the gift-giving services and how well they work, writes contributor Natasha Starkell.
Facebook’s acquisition of Karma earlier this year must have caused quite a few sighs and fading hopes of the gift-giving websites, and Giftiki was even acquired by LaunchRock a couple of months ago. Yet Facebook Gifts differs from other gift… → Read More
What do European startups want for Christmas? We’ve come up with a list of ideas. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
1. Inspiration – We want European tech founders to think more collectively, lobby government more effectively and put themselves out there as heroes for the next generation to emulate. Don’t be shy! → Read More
What’s the secret to making a $35 mini computer? The basic recipe is having some extremely skilful cooks who can craft batch after batch of Raspberry Pis as quickly and with as few duds as possible. Sony’s U.K. factory makes an average of 4,000 Model B Raspberry Pi’s every day — or one every 7.5 seconds — and it needs to to keep up with demand for Pi which continues to sell like hot cakes. → Read More
Stefan Glaenzer, a partner in London VC firm Passion Capital has been spared jail after pleading guilty to, and being convicted of, sexual assault on the London underground during the Olympics period. As we reported in November, the former chairman of Last.fm admitted sexually assaulting an American tourist on a packed Central Line train by thrusting his groin into her back, Westminster… → Read More
SocialSafe, the social media back-up tool co-founded by Julian Ranger‘s iBundle and 1minus1, has announced that it’s raised £250,000 (~$400k) in what’s being called a Series A round. That’s because Ranger, who is a prominent angel investor in the UK, has already funded the startup to the tune of £300k, bringing the total raised by SocialSafe to £550k (~$885k). → Read More
Q: Is Silicon Valley’s Series A crunch causing a chill in Europe? A: Yes and no. A lot has been written about the Series A crunch/palpable chill in Silicon Valley that’s making founders pull their cardigans a little closer. Most recently a report by a venture capital analysis firm CB Insights suggests there hasn’t actually been a reduction in the amount of money available, but… → Read More
This is a guest post by Simon Montford, a serial entrepreneur who also runs Inspire-For-Tech, a monthly event that aims to both motivate and inspire tech entrepreneurs in London
I bet you’ve seen that movie about a certain social network and now you want to create the next big thing. Maybe you shouldn’t give up the day job as being a tech entrepreneur is a really tough gig. Movies, as I… → Read More
The European Commission has delivered a “statement of objections” to Samsung’s leadership, in which it claims that Samsung was abusing its standard-essential patents in preventing Apple from making use of the same. Providing written notice is the next step in the EC’s investigation of Samsung, which began due to the Korean company’s many injunction requests and lawsuits filed in EU member states… → Read More
Today, Amazon announced that it has brought Kindle Singles to the UK, with the Kindle Singles store now open for business this side of the pond. The company also says that in the U.S., “over” 4 million Kindle Singles have been sold to-date. → Read More
More UK property listings consolidation. Zoopla, which sits at number 2 in the UK (behind market leader Rightmove), has acquired Globrix from A&N Media (DMGT) for an undisclosed sum, and has effectively absorbed its brand with it — users are already being re-directed to Zoopla.co.uk. → Read More
Apple’s shares, as you may have seen, have been sliding in the market on the back of strong competition from Android device makers. Today, some new figures on recent smartphone sales will give investors both encouraging and discouraging food for thought on that matter as we dive into the final weekend of sales before Christmas. → Read More
Buy Me A Pie!, the cloud-powered grocery list maker for iOS, has released a nifty – and, potentially, relationship saving — update for its app which adds support for Bump, so that users can now sync their shopping lists simply by bumping their iPhones together. The idea is to make it even easier for households to collaborate on and share grocery shopping duties. → Read More
The whole fashion-meets-tech play is really only still emerging, with a wide gamut of businesses pimping various ideas from matching your personal tastes in clothes via your social graph, to literally mapping your body to fit custom-made items. But Fashion startups are notoriously guarded with their numbers. However, one startup has decided to break the mould. Lyst, which is a little like a… → Read More
Distimo, the app store intelligence startup, annually creates a Global App Stores Report covering trends and market data. This year-end report looks at the winners in 2012 which are, predictably, the Apple App Store and Google Play.
The skinny on the headlines are: Google Play showed tremendous growth, but the Apple App Store maintained its course. Growth in revenues in Google Play is close to… → Read More
The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards are happening in January (grab a ticket) bringing together a global scene of technology companies. Similarly, The Europas – The European Tech Startup awards – on January 22 in Berlin, honours the European tech startup scene annually, and, after hitting it’s fourth year, it’s become something of an institution on the European tech scene. The awards celebrate the… → Read More
Mixlr, which these days describes itself as a platform for social live audio, has finally debuted on the iPhone with a dedicated app to let users broadcast live audio on-the-go, and browse and listen to streams hosted on the service.
It follows a relaunch of the Silicon Roundabout, London-based startup’s web offering which saw the service turn up the dial on its social features significantly … → Read More
Earlier this week European Commissioner Neelie Kroes spoke in platitudes about how the EU would be putting more effort into kick-starting the region’s hardware industry — to create the ‘Airbus of chips.’ Her words seem particularly ironic (and possibly more empty) today, as the world’s largest telecoms company, Ericsson, admitted it would have to take a writedown of $1.2 billion (8 billion… → Read More
Berlin as a startup hub continues to heat up, with some commentators placing it alongside or overtaking London (heresy!), so it should be no surprise to see the German city’s best and brightest tech companies attract investment from Silicon Valley. And so it is that news comes today that Dave McClure has made what is thought to be his first German investment: $100k in VERSUS IO, the natural… → Read More
We first heard about Stevie under the radar a few months ago. The company was in stealth and wouldn’t say too much, but we gathered it was some kind of clever mashup of social feeds which could be displayed on smart TVs. They they came out the door earlier this year with a very interesting product at TechCrunch Disrupt – so interesting that they have now secured a $1.5 million Series A funding… → Read More
Another day, another BIG DATA play. UK-based ERN, a Big Data startup targeting banks and merchants who want to create customer loyalty-based offers, has announced that it’s raised a $2 million funding round. Interestingly, it’s keeping schtum on exactly who is backing the company, except to describe the list of 20 or so investors as “high net worth individuals with backgrounds in the banking… → Read More
More news in the European mobile payment dongle space this morning: Rocket Internet’s Payleven is expanding the availability of its Android app — previously only offered in Germany — to three more markets: the U.K., Italy and Poland, where the app can now be downloaded from Google’s Play Store. → Read More
When people think of consumer VoIP services, the first name to come to mind for many is Skype. But while Microsoft’s recent acquisition begins to explore a new role as a social advertising network, a competing VoIP provider, Rebtel, is hoping to gain some new ground. The Stockholm-based company, which has been in operation since 2006, today is announcing that it has passed 20 million active… → Read More
BlackBerry maker RIM has clearly been on the phone to its carrier chums in the UK: EE, O2 and Vodafone have all this morning announced they will be offering BB10 devices starting in January next year. The EE deal covers the U.K.’s first 4G network, 4GEE — suggesting RIM will launch a 4G BB10 handset in the UK — as well as EE’s 3G mobile brands: Orange and T-Mobile. → Read More
SumUp, another Square-style mobile payment dongle that launched in Europe in August backed by more than $20 million from b-to-v Partners, Shortcut Ventures, Tengelmann Ventures and Klaus Hommels, is continuing its rapid rollout by expanding into three more markets to take its total business footprint in Europe to 10 markets. The three new markets SumUp is adding are Belgium, France and Portugal. → Read More
Facebook’s thorny relationship with Europe and European lawmakers took another barb in the side yesterday as a German Data Protection Commissioner issued a ruling that Facebook’s real-name policy violates German Law. The privacy regulator is demanding Facebook “immediately” stops enforcing that its users use their real names but Facebook says it will “vigorously” fight the order. → Read More
Bidmanagement, the company behind Adspert, a web-based bid management tool for Google AdWords campaigns, has raised funding from the ProFIT finance programme, the early-stage investment arm of Investitionsbank Berlin. The amount is being disclosed only as a “seven-figure financing”, though TechCrunch has learned that it is just over €1 million (~$1.3m). → Read More
Back in July, we made an attempt at listing the best annual tech startup events in Europe, with some included from the Middle East and Africa. It was a ‘first attempt’ and as you can see, it’s a complex patchwork of events. But in general we tried to focus on the biggest events (not weekly or monthly meet ups) which cater to an international audience (so held in English). We have also synched some… → Read More
The not-for-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched an app store for the $25 mini computer — called the Pi Store — to “make it easier for developers of all ages to share their games, applications, tools and tutorials with the rest of the community”. The Pi mini computer was designed with the mission to get more kids learning to code. → Read More
Explicitly or implicitly, users are generating an insurmountable amount of data online, hence the plethora of startups touting their BIG DATA credentials by building applications or services that create utility out of these mass data points. Kreditech, which describes itself as a ‘Scoring as a Service’, is one such startup, with technology that claims to process over 8,000 data points in… → Read More
The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards
San Francisco
New York City
