Posts Tagged ‘venture capital’

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mg // 02.01.2009

Ibrahim Evsan und Thomas Bachem: Neues von Sevenload (German) @ LeWeb

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Ibrahim Evsan und Thomas Bachem gründeten 2006 Sevenload.com, Deutschlands führende Social Media Plattform für Fotos, Videos, interaktives WebTV und User Generated Content. Inzwischen sind T-Online Venture Fund, Burda Cross Media, Media Ventures GmbH und dw capital GmbH an der sevenload GmbH beteiligt. Auf seiner Plattform zeigt sevenload über 600 interaktive Sendungen in thematisch sortierten Kanälen: „Das ist ein Kraftakt, auf den wir ziemlich stolz sind und der eine unglaubliche Herausforderung bedeutet“, meint sevenload-Geschäftsführer Ibrahim Evsan, kurz „Ibo“. Als Europas grösster WebTV-Anbieter will sevenload im nächsten Jahr mit WebTV-Shows möglichst bald die 1000er Grenze erreicht haben. „Unser Ziel ist, dass Leute mit WebTV-Wissen ohne Ahnung von Technik sich bei sevenload eine Präsenz aufbauen können. Wir sind vor allem ein Dienstleister und wollen den Leuten einfach die Instrumente an die Hand geben, um sich selber zu vermarkten.“ „Sevenload will erwachsen werden, mit aller Macht und Kraft“. Deswegen hat Ibo im Rahmen der Unternehmensvergrösserung seinen CEO-Posten an den sevenload-Seed Investor Axel Schmiegelow weitergegeben. Chief Operating Officer ist seit Oktober 2007 Andreas Heyden. Angesprochen auf die Finanzkrise betont Ibo, dass „der Markt Druck macht. Sevenload hält dennoch an seinem Geschäftsmodell fest“. Thomas Bachem rät jungen Startups: „Nicht aufgeben!“ Einig sind sich die beiden sevenload-Repräsentanten auch darüber: „Die schönsten Momente sind immer die, wenn die Mitarbeiter sich freuen – egal worüber.“
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vt // 23.12.2008

Peter Vesterbacka: Tough times generate great opportunities @ LeWeb

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Peter Vesterbacka is a serial entrepreneur from Finland who left HP two years ago with the intent to build further start-ups. Peter had already founded MobileMonday in 2000, a grass roots community for people in the mobile business that has grown into the world’s leading mobile community present in 70 cities around the globe. Peter is also the founder of ConnectedDay, a community site aimed at enriching the dialogue between professional daycare centres, parents and children. Furthermore, Peter co-founded Star Wreck Studios, that has been hugely successful with its first feature film production „Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning“, a film in Finish language with 8 million downloads. Peter has now created WreckAMovie.Com, a new service around fim production. Another new service is Zipiko – described by Peter as „a cool business model all around intention“. Zipiko works well on high-end mobiles and lets your friends know what you would like or are planning to do. Peter started working with Zipiko a while ago and finds „they have a great team and are definitely going to go places. If you know people’s intent, it’s hugely valuable for marketing purposes.“ Although there’s a lot of doom and gloom out there, Peter is positive that „this is the best time to start a company. It’s cheap and people will have lots of time to participate“. As an advice for start-ups, Peter points out: „I’m a big believer in ecosystem. Stand up, look around the ecosystem, ask yourself who your competitors are and with who you could partner with. That’s the best way to understand the big picture.“

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vt // 22.12.2008

Generating most effective online ads – Mathys van Abbe @ LeWeb

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Serial entrepreneur Mathys van Abbe now introduces his fourth start-up Toading.com , the company that funds his hobby projects  like startpix, mobypicture and Spot2be. Toading is an advertising technology tool for organizations in the e-Commerce or e-Recruitment business helping them to save time and money. It enables those companies to link their website offers to online advertising campaigns, i.e. for Google and Yahoo. Toading generates ads for every specific product and service including important features like the exact price and the availability. According to Mathys van Abbe, Toading is quick to implement and reduces ad spending with 25% while increasing conversion rates of online advertising campaigns with up to 300%. While Toadings technology development is based in Budapest, Hungary, most of Toadings clients are currently in the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Spain and Germany. With one or two competitors in the field, van Abbe is still very optimistic since there are lots of clients out there. Mathys also presented his other startups to Tiburon-TV, check them at http://www.tiburon-tv.com/tag/mathys-van-abbe/. BTW, the guy jumping through the video promoting Toading is Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com.
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vt // 19.12.2008

Simplify your money management with SCRED: Kristoffer Lawson @ LeWeb

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The Finish start-up Scred.com, founded by Kristoffer Lawson, focusses on banking for the 2.0 generation. Its version 1 has been successfully launched with around 1000 users already using this basic version. Version 2 with more exciting content will come out before christmas. Lawson tries to revolutionize the banking system by offering easy and fun-to-use tools to handle money. As the creative director of Alternative party - an art event in Helsinki he finds that money has always been a real headache. Users of Scred.com can simplify their money management among friends or on a trip by using Screds calculation, currency conversion and distribution tools and services. They can track debts between people and use Scred on their mobile even without connection!
Lawson, who already designed computer programs at age 7, just loves technology. He wants to make Scred extremely big and has no interest in focussing on the Finish market even if 50% of Screds users are from Finland right now. With regard to the financial crisis Lawson finds that time has worked in our favor since money is becoming more important. He adds: If you fail, its a stupid excuse, that its because of the recession.
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vt // 18.12.2008

Perfect match with Sense2love: Anju Rupal @ LeWeb

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Sense2Love.com is a social networking platform of bringing people together for love purposes. Launched in August 2008 by London-born Indian Anju Rupal, Sense2Love sets up a new paradigm of matchmaking by combining ancient traditions of matchmaking with new trends in social networking: Statistically, 57% of your partners are found through your network, while 10% are found online makes Sense2Loves success rate of up to 67%. Using an invitation only network, Sense2Love helps you not only to find the partner that really matches you but to build sustainable relationships by using Sense2Loves communication styles. In workshops and roadshows Sense2Love teaches on how to keep heartaches low and the so called cup of love full. Sense2Love thereby takes a concept online that has already been proven in the U.S. Sense2Love has an interesting way of making money: Before going on a blind date, you have the option to buy a present perfectly matched to the interest of the person youre about to meet, i.e. chocolate, a massage or even a week-end in a spa. Furthermore, they charge for the dinners they arrange. Rupal and her co-founder and Business Angel Bill Liao, who is also co-founder of xing.com, are themselves looking for business partners to take Sense2Love global. Rupal, who co-founded her first business Finaxis AG seven years ago, believes its all about execution. You really have to believe in what you do, be passionate about it and then go for it, full power especially in the economic climate we have right now.
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vt // 17.12.2008

Easy and fun language learning with BUSUU: Bernhard Niesner @ LeWeb

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Busuu.com is a start-up, based in Madrid, which runs a free online community for learning languages. Launched in May 2008 by Austrian Bernhard Niesner and his university friend Adrian Hilti from Liechtenstein, busuu.com already has 50.000 users from 200 countries, some of them pretty remote. Niesner and Hilti decided to create a new concept of learning languages online and include also less known languages so that they do not extinct. The company name itself is a language spoken in Cameroon by only eight people! Using an integrated video-chat application, students can connect with native speakers, i.e. an English language student from Sudan can directly practice his language skills with an American in New York City. With a high percentage of users in developing countries, busuu.com makes it easy and fun for everybody to learn a language and contributes to the diversity of languages all over the world. Busuu.com is also ideal to prepare a trip by making friends before visiting a country and thus make international friends. On busuu.com one can even learn the almost extinct whistling language Silbo Gomero, spoken by the people of the Spanish island La Gomera. Busuu.com can be used completely for free as a basis-member. To get access to additional learning tools and content, one has to pay a small amount per month. Therefore, Niesners christmas wish is not surprising:Unlimited google ad resources for one year.
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vt // 16.12.2008

Revolutionizing the telecom sector: Jonas Birgersson @ LeWeb

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Swedish IT-Entrepreneur Jonas Birgersson, a.k.a broadband Jesus, now talks about his start-up company ViaEuropa. ViaEuropa is about to revolutionize the telecom sector by putting a fiber cable beside the electrical cable and Via Europas ecosystem on top of it. The enduser can then choose any operator he wants. Birgersson, whose background is in Military Intelligence, points out that this is a fully neutral, open system where the enduser is the winner. The only thing we do is to put away the strange structure of the telecom sector and build a normal marketplace. Everybody is invited to compete on equal terms. This is how it works in all other businesses except the telecom sector. ViaEuropas model is already fully proven in Scandinavia, but once it is proven outside of Scandinavia within the next one or two years, the telecoms will be in big trouble. So it is not astonishing that Jonas Birgersson is one of the most hated people in the Telecom sector since many years.  But according to Birgersson its about reinventing ideas - if you are loved, youre not an entrepreneur, youre not disruptive enough. ViaEuropa is especially interested in the emerging markets both in Africa and South america. Birgersson cites a study that shows that in developing countries 1% increase in broadband penetration results in a 3% extra GDP growth. Jonas Birgersson is a serial entrepreneur, he founded Bredbandsbolaget, framfab and is also CEO of the Swedish broadband company Labs2, based in Lund. In order to make the world an even more interesting place, his advice is: If you have talent, use it to the maximum potential you have!
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vt // 15.12.2008

Create your own high quality clothes – Tristan de Montebello @ LeWeb

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Trendy-Workshop.com, co-founded by Tristan de Montebello, is a French fashion portal that allows its users to create their own clothes, buy them afterwords and making money with them by sharing it with others on the web. Open since Dec. 8, 2008, users can choose every little fashion detail they want on their piece of clothes on-line and have it made for them by a stylist. Their creations will then be delivered to them within three weeks. Depending on how many people buy their creation, a commission is being paid and one can even reach the status of Junior Creator. Clothes designed at Trendy-Workshop are being produced in China with prices starting at 89 for a cashmere sweater. Different from customization platforms like Spreadshirt, Trendy-Workshop allows you to design the whole product and not only the printing. Soon they will also offer accessories and interiors. Founder Tristan de Montebello started out as a computer ingenieur in love with the web. He points out that he wants to make a real difference in fashion with Trendy-Workshop.com: We would like to be a major trendsetter in fashion industry and break fashion in a good way. He believes it is crucial to think big and start small. His advice for other entrepreneurs is simple yet powerful: Get good people, be fast and very reactive. Further information can also be found on Trendy-Workshops blog.
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vt // 20.10.2008

put out your own talent contest: talentsplanet – Dick Rempt @ PICNIC

At the PICNIC conference in Amsterdam, there have been lots of business ideas flowing around. Dick Rempt is a venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur, he calls himself a company builder. But just investing is not enough for him. Than he got in touch with the idea of talentsplanet, he could not resist and set up the startup himself. Watch the video to discover what talentsplanet is about and what Dick thinks about learning and failing.
Dick Rempt is driven by an approach of partnering and sharing so he is always looking for cooperations and new ideas. You have a service or product which would enrich or promote the idea of talentsplanet? Do not hesitate to contact Dick! picnic conference amsterdam From 24th to 26th of September 2008, hundreds of creative minds from all over the world came together in Amsterdam for the third PICNIC. More information and pictures shot at the event you will find on the eventsite picnicnetwork.org
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vt // 14.10.2008

crowd funded music – sellaband.com – Pim Betist @ PICNIC

While the big labels get afraid of the fundamental changes the Internet and the general technological development causes them, there are some fresh ideas upcoming to revolutionize the music business enabling promising artists to get enough money to release their own album. Pim Betist, co-founder of sellaband.com, explains how anybody can become a micro-investor and fund new talents. Very frankly, Pim provides us with insights about the business model behind, which also entailed some criticisms.
The idea sounds simple, find 5.000 believers who buy one or more shares for $10 each. Once you reached $50.000 you will be the lucky one to get you album produced. The success of sellaband is impressing, 14 artists already reached the required $50.000 and have their albums produced, 12 more artists are funded and are on the way of album production. As sellaband takes an transaction fee for any money purchased and gets the interests of the stored money which is waiting to hit the $50.000 you can get an idea about the profitability of that business model. That also caught the attention of investors and that is maybe why sellabend got its $5 Million funding by Prime Technology Ventures for expanding in the US. So it is no surprise, that there are lots of competitors on the market which also want to have a peace of the cake: forMyBand is a German variation of the same idea, at slicethepie the single investments start at $5. Justaloud.com and talentarena.de have a different approach but also enable independent music and artists to fame, both are based in Germany. A similar concept but for independent films offers indie maverick. Also established bands use their fans to receive a pre-financing. The veteran U.K. progressive rock band Marillion could raise $725.000 by selling deluxe versions and gifts related to their new album like going to the studio with them and participating in the recording. That might also be a very cost-effective sales channel for the musicians because as their audience pays in advance they will save a lot of money for marketing and distribution. picnic conference amsterdam The interview with Pim Betist, co-foounder of sellaband.com, was realized at PICNIC08, where creative minds from all over the world came together to share ideas and thoughts. It took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands from September 24th to 26th 2008.
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