TheStartup.eu

TheStartup.eu has partnered with Innovate!2010 to bring you an exciting opportunity and we want to invite you to get involved.

On Monday, April 19^th, at 10am you are invited to participate in the Innovate!2010 Pitch Slam Milan being held at Assolombarda (via Chiaravalle 8 ) for free.

Innovate!2010 is a global competition to identify top technology, media and communications startups from around the world, based on the G/Score assessment methodology. It is designed for companies that have already been established and have a working alpha. Upon successful application, Innovate!100 semi-finalists are invited to participate in the local Pitch Slam to compete to become one of the Innovate!100 and benefit from a year’s worth of global visibility, validation from global investors and partners, and a share of awards valued over $1 million.

You can see what an Innovate! Pitch Slam is like by checking out the videos from prior Pitch Slams in Amsterdam, Dublin, Madrid, Zaragoza, London, Helsinki, Berlin, Barcelona and Tel Aviv (http://www.innovate100.com/blog). The companies confirmed to pitch in Milan include:

• BASE16
• Caja Fuerte Virtual
• Threeplicate
• GET Corporation
• LM
• Noesis:
• Pantea
• SentiMetrix

Local entrepreneurs, investors, journalists and technology executives are invited to attend to have breakfast, support their favorite startup and network for FREE, but register here (http://bit.ly/innovatestartupeu)  right away because spaces are limited.

Innovate! is a great program that will deliver up and coming start-ups global exposure for up to a year, validation from potential investors and partners, and potentially a share of over $1M in prizes, so we encourage you to get involved right away.

TechCrunch Europe, aside from covering perfectly what happens in the always hotter EU startup space, is also fostering the community like very few people and organizations ever did. One of the best ways to do so is by throwing the best Startup conferences (and parties).

On April 20, next week, most of the people involved in startups and VC in Europe will be at Geek’n'Rolla, a conference Techcrunch Europe is hosting in London. 15 startups will be launching their product in front of 18 judges, and some of the most influential european entrepreneurs will give keynotes.

Here is the keynotes line-up:

Mike Butcher, TechCrunch Europe
“How to Dive Bomb The European Tech Scene In 5 minutes Flat”

Tommy Ahlers, founder of ZYB which was acquired by Vodafone for €31.5m
“Exit: The How, When And Why Of Exiting Your Startup”

Jason Trost, Smarkets
“Nobody told me: practical startup advice”

Pete Smith, Songkick
“Hiring And Recruiting In Startups”

Nigel Eccles, Fanduel.com
“Customer Development for startups”

Katy Turner and Andy Chung, Eden Ventures
“How not to pitch a VC”

Ewan MacLeod, editor of Mobile Industry Review
“The disruptive opportunities for startups in mobile, and getting traction fast”

Nick Bell, Quick.TV
“How to manage PR when you’re a startup”

Lukasz Gadowski & Kolja Hebenstreit, Team Europe
“How to extend you startup to Germany”

Cedric Giorgi, Goojet
“Launching your service into the French Market”

Alicia Navarro, Co Founder, Skimlinks
“The trials of the US funding trail for European startups”

Morten Lund, Skype investor & serial entrepreneur
“Rebels With A Cause”

Mike Butcher says: “Not until GeeknRolla appeared last year have we seen such a comprehensive attempt to create a new business culture in London. A culture of open sharing of information about how people really do create the kinds of companies that become the next Google, Twitter or Facebook. Our speakers are ingrained in Europe’s technology startup culture, and are as good as any on the planet. In addition, the fact we are launching 15 new companies onto a public stage in one go shows how innovative the UK and the wider European technology scene is. We whittled down the entries from over 150 to this final 15 and I think the innovation will speak for itself on the day.”

Disclaimer: I write for TechCrunch Europe covering the italian startup scene.

YFM Private Equity has invested £300,000 in UK software vendor, FreshTL.

The financing is part of a £600,000 co-investment deal with Greener House Investments, and marks YFM’s first investment from the North West Interim Venture Capital Fund.
FreshTL has created a crowd computing platform that is a combination of software from IBM and Bricsys – a Belgian software vendor.

Yoom.de, an innovative online platform for tenant-to-tenant residential real estate transactions, has raised further growth capital from Earlybird Venture Capital. Currently, Earlybird manages over 430 million Euros of assets for an international investor base investing in innovative, fast growing companies with outstanding management teams and high growth potential in international markets. Earlybird’s portfolio currently includes more than 25 companies in seven countries, they invested in over 70 companies and scored several successful trade sales and IPOs.

The company received seed financing from angel investors in spring 2009 while the new round is rumored to be in the single-digit million Euro amount,  following its successful market entry.

Hopefully they will use the money to put up an english version and enter other european markets.

Malte Niebuhr, Managing Director at Yoom.de, is delighted: ”Earlybird Venture Capital is a high-class investor who has already very actively supported us during our start-up phase and continues to do so in the growth phase we are now entering and very much looking forward to.

Yoom.de enables current and new tenants, landlords and asset / facility managers to efficiently execute the tenant changing process without involving real estate agents, whilst at the same time providing an economic benefit for all parties by revolutionising the value chain.

Dr. Christian Nagel, Managing Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital, comments: “Yoom.de is an innovative business model with the potential to eliminate a market inefficiency – namely high real estate agent commissions without agents providing a noticeable service or value-ad in return. The first transactions on the platform have proven that the model offers significant advantages not only to previous and subsequent tenants, but also to landlords and asset / facility managers compared to the estate agent-model. We are very convinced of the business idea.”

A lot has been said and written about group-buying lately, following the success of US-based Groupon. It certainly is one of the hottest online sectors at the moment and, given the low barriers to entry, has attracted a significant level of competition across the planet. For those who are not familiar with the model, group-buying is about aggregating online demand around local services and getting large discounts for the end users. For the local merchants it’s a new channel to market their service and acquire new customers on a ‘per action’ basis. Unlike the late ’90s, when online group-buying first appeared (Mercata, Letsbuyit, etc.), this is the perfect time for such a model: the penetration of social networks in fact allows users to easily share the offers with their friends or followers, which creates scale and virality.

The European scene has heated up in early 2010 with the appearance of a number of group-buying startups in Germany and in the UK. Some have already been backed by well-known investors, like the German CityDeal and DailyDeal and, lately, the UK-based Keynoir. Some have rushed out too quickly and have already entered the deadpool (Snippa, VivaVoucher, DealBunch, alongside a number of German clones) or are about to enter it. Some others, like the one I am reviewing today, seem to be doing well despite being self-funded.

Founded by fellow italians Yannick Roux and Luca Faloni, Likebees defines itself as a new and engaging way of discovering, experiencing and sharing the coolest things to do in town with friends, while saving money. They are currently live in London only, but they confirmed they have expansion plans across Europe once their model has been oiled up. As it currently is, Likebees looks like a traditional group-buying website, although I must point out a few differences. First, it just looks a lot better than its competitors from the design and branding perspective. While this might not be seen as a unique selling point, a distinctive image definitely helps with brand awareness (for instance, I still get confused between CityDeal, DailyDeal and others). Image also helps them secure quality deals, as merchants are, according to the founders, increasingly reluctant to be associated with brand-diminishing “voucher” sounding websites.
The second element which differentiates Likebees from the crowd, and which perfectly ties in with their brand name, is the social focus. Likebees in fact also allows users to purchase the deal for a group of people rather than only for a single person. “We want to encourage the socialisation at the moment of consumption, not only at the

moment of purchase. This is only the first step towards a more social and user-generated model” say the founders. We will certainly be looking forward to new and more social features coming out, as the two co-founders did not want to give away too many details. Likebees has so far been completely self-funded, but the founders are in discussions for a seed investment.

Despite being one of the most competitive online spaces at the moment, group-buying allows for a different number of players. Whether differentiation or funding will make the difference remains to be seen, what is certain is that the lack of both will keep adding to the deadpool. The next 6-12 months will define the European group-buying scene and consolidation is already under way.

SeedRocket offers a complete Seed Funding Venture Program for Entrepreneurs with technology-based startups. They provide the initial investment and they work together with the founders through the early development stages.

You can apply now to the Entrepreneurs Camp, an intensive 8 day event held in Barcelona on May 2010. SeedRocket provides an incredible experience for the selected teams, with a full program including training sessions and workshops. They also have a mentor network of senior entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that will help the selected teams put together the foundations of a viable business.

They are looking mainly for companies in the following sectors: consumer internet, mobility (android, iphone), cloud computing or internet among others.

In the Closing Session of the Entrepreneur Camp, you will have the opportunity to present your company to investors and Venture Capital Firms, and they will make the funding decision to invest in three teams.

Those teams will be asked to relocate in the SeedRocket facilities to take part on the six month mentoring and support program that is designed to help the startups get to the next leve and prepare to close a larger investment round: SeedRocket provides access to investors and business angels with a strong focus on technology-based startups at a seed stage.