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Financial Innovation is one of the leading sectors of disruption lately. It’s an industry that hasn’t changed for years, with very high profits and very high fees for customers. The guys over at NetBanker understood this quite some time ago, and gave life to a series of awesome conferences: Finovate.

In may they will be hosting Finovate Spring 2010, in San Francisco. I highly suggest that who has an interest in this industry book his flights right away, as it’s an unmissable event. It’s going to showcase the best in financial and banking innovation, and likely to see some of the most interesting startup companies in the field.

You can grab your $100 discount entering this code on the registration page: theStartup10

Here are last year participants, if we were to see half the quality this year, I’d still be happy. Expect an update with 2010 presenters soon.

Private Sale Gmbh, the company operating the private shopping community site brand4friends, acquired TripHunter.de, a private online travel club.

The Berlin-based company, owned by a consortium that includes Mangrove Capital Partners is providing a supposedly good exit for the investors in the 2-years-old travel community, which include famous german business angels Lukasz Gadowski and  Oliver Jung BVP Berlin Venture Partners and the swiss Redalpine Venture Partners.

Private Sale also invested a “multi million” amount into UK’s Secret Sale, as reported by TechCrunch in February.

Brands4friends.de made €80 million in sales in 2009, a three-fold increase on the year before, and it ranks as the biggest online shopping club in Germany and Austria, the two markets where it already operates. It became profitable within two years of its launch in 2007 and has 2.5 million members and currently stocks products from around 400 fashion brands.

This is not so new, but it has been overlooked by the media, while I think it’s a very important event in the european venture capital landscape.

BaltCap has been around since 1995 and has managed four private equity and venture capital funds with total capital of €130m.

In January the closed a new €30M fund that will consist of €20m provided by EIF managed JEREMIE Holding Fund and €10m raised from local private investors, including Parex Asset Management, Hipo Fondi, LKB Krajfondi, Pirmais Slegtais Pensiju Fonds and high net worth individuals.

The fund will provide start-up and expansion financing to companies with established operations and growth potential taking equity stakes of between €300,000 and €3m, with the aim to build a portfolio of 15 to 20 investments.

Plus notably, BaltCap is the first venture capital fund to successfully complete private fund raising under the European Investment Funds managed JEREMIE initiatives in Europe, and the first structured private equity fund to be raised in the Baltics since the economic crisis hit the region.

Today I want to share with you one of the best initiatives regarding european entrepreneurship that I’ve seen in a long time.

Stanford University has in fact developed an awesome seminar series about european entrepreneurship and innovation. The program, called “European Entrepreneurship & Innovation Thought Leaders Seminar” is directed by Burton Lee, a visionary professor and general vc and technology startups expert.

It is a weekly lecture series and is offered each Monday afternoon (4:15-5:30pm) in Skilling Auditorium on the Stanford Engineering campus. It’s open to the public at no charge and all the videos are online for everyone to watch. (Here is the info required to watch the video).

Some of this year’s topics included:”New Venture Funds in Europe”, “French and Irish Entrepreneurs in Software & Cleantech”, “Nordic Entrepreneurs and Venture Spinouts”, “Entrepreneurs & Venture Investors in Spanish Regions”, “Venture Capital and Technology Outsourcing in Eastern Europe” and “Europe in the Global Entrepreneurship Scene”.

I strongly suggest you watch the videos of some of these, there’s some inspiring stuff to take out from them. Also take some time tomorrow and join in to watch the “Venture Capital and Social Media Startups in Spain and Southeast Europe” lecture which will feature Nico Goulet – Managing Partner, Adara Venture Partners and Andrej Nabergoj – CEO & Co-Founder, Noovo. I surely will.

There has been immense interest in the App Store. It has 28,000 developers who have made 140,000 apps to date. It’s amazing how much energy has been diverted to the iPhone and now the iPad platform. In its 18 month history, the App Store has a dramatic impact on our lives, not just as consumers, but has changed businesses around the world. It amazes me.

What I have seen:
Developers quitting their jobs and starting their own companies selling apps. Companies allocating resources and departments to making apps. VCs investing $24 million into an iPhone app and creating funds dedicated to app development. Companies piggybacking on the usefulness of apps. Companies extending their service to mobile. Millions of websites reviewing apps. Companies being threaten by apps.

I’m not even mentioning the impact of the iPhone itself.

If apps are the equivalent  of software, then Apple is Microsoft now. If the app store is the web, then Apple is Yahoo. I wonder who will emerge as Google. Just a thought.

Sofinnova Partners, a Paris-based venture capital firm, announced today the closure of its sixth fund, Sofinnova Capital VI, bringing in €260 million.

The firm is over 35 years old, and has backed nearly 500 companies; it has around €1 billion of funds under management, an office in San Francisco and an awesome track record.

The investors that fueled the fund include CDC Entreprises, Industrial & Financial Investments Co., JP Morgan Asset Management, funds advised by Partners Group and Skandia Life Insurance Company.

Denis Lucquin, a managing partner of Sofinnova Partners commented “Given the context of the global economy and coupled with our successes during the past 12 months, the closing of our sixth fund is testimony to the fact that our investors recognize our solid investment style and our ability to generate returns, even during turbulent economic times”.

Sofinnova Capital VI will invest in all kind of areas, its former investments (already are in healthcare therapeutics, medical devices, green chemistry, wireless and mobile technologies.

The portfolio companies include Celsius, CoAxia, Inc., Crescendo Biologics Ltd, DNP Green Technology, Inc. , Flexion Therapeutics AG, MD Start, Mydeco (UK) and Sagem Wireless (France).

Concluding, Lucquin added: “With the successful trade sales of our portfolio companies and the IPO of Movetis, 2009 confirmed that Sofinnova Partners is a major player in backing entrepreneurs and building world leading technology companies.  This to us proves that one can make money with European Venture.”