TheStartup.eu

Berlin based SoundCloud, a professional music sharing service, raised €2.5 million in a round led by european VC Doughty Hanson Technology.

Founded in 2007 and now counting 100,000 registered users, SoundCloud is one of the most promising european startups. At the moment their business model is based on pro accounts, but we do not have any real income information.

We will update you once we know what their future plans are, having secured that amount of cash.

To learn more about the service you can read the official press release:

SoundCloud Raises €2.5m from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures

SoundCloud, the internet audio platform which enables music professionals to send, receive and distribute music, today announced that it has received an investment of €2.5 million from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, a leading European venture capital investor, in its first institutional round of equity financing.

SoundCloud provides a simple and efficient platform for music professionals to privately exchange music, allowing for easy collaboration and communication prior to a public release.  With SoundCloud, musicians can easily send and receive studio-quality tracks without cluttering up their email inbox, needing to make use of generic file sending services or having any specialist technical expertise.

SoundCloud was founded in 2007 and raised seed financing from business angels including music producer Chris Zippel, internet entrepreneurs Christophe Maire, Peter Schüpbach, Tariq Krim and Felix Petersen and the founders of music production software company Ableton AG.  The Company launched its service in October 2008 and since then has attracted more than 100,000 registered users.

Stefan Tirtey, Partner at Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures who joins the Board of SoundCloud, commented: “SoundCloud has all the qualities we look for in a business: a solid product solving a real problem, a proven business model, and a capable and ambitious founder team. We believe that Soundcloud has the potential to revolutionize the production and distribution process for digital music and this funding will enable the company to build on its success to date.”
Alexander Ljung, Co-Founder and CEO of SoundCloud, added: “SoundCloud’s business proposition is based on bringing web innovation to the music industry and empowering those who create and promote music globally.  Doughty Hanson demonstrated early on a clear understanding both of our business proposition and of the music industry, and already has a strong track record in backing internet- companies.  This funding, combined with the strong operational and strategic experience they bring to the business, supports our ambitious expansion plans and positions us well for the next stage in the company’s development.”

Watch SoundCloud’s video tour:

Imbera Electronics, a finnish Integrated Module Board developer, announced that it has secured USD $15 million in series B funding from NorthZone Ventures, Index Ventures and Conor Venture Partners.

That’s a good news considering that everyone thought European VCs just stopped investing.
Generally interested in clean tech, electronics and telco companies this VCs have often invested in early stage companies, and have in their portfolio monsters such as Skype, MySQL and Lastminute. Not bad.

For more information about the company and the VCs you can read the official press release.

The great guys over at intruders.tv had the chance to interview Marc Roisin of Vinogusto at Plugg09.

Vinogusto launched in 2007, it is based in Brussels and provides guides for wine lovers. It is completely based on user content.

“Are you crazy?” “Are you starting your blog with a post linking to competitors?” That’s the first question that someone may ask me after reading this post.
Well, the main goal is to help startups, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts providing news, interviews, articles and other resources. I can only be glad there are such sites around already doing this job.
In the past few years I have seen some great companies launch in Europe but no one ever had the kind of media exposure that valley’s startups get, and I think we have to (and we can) change that.
Here is a list of the best blogs and sites that currently cover european startups, I read them every day and I think everyone should.

• Techcrunch Europe

You all know Techcrunch, the most important startup blog in the world, founded and edited by Michael Arrington. This is the continent-specific blog dedicated to europe, it is edited by Mike Butcher. They cover startups and organize  major entrepreneurship events around Europe.

• Techcrunch France (French)

Techcrunch France was founded in 2006 for the fracophone community according to technorati it soon grew to be one of the most influential blogs in France.

• Arctic Startup

ArcticStartup is one of my favorite blogs, it covers all the startups in the scandinavian countries. It was founded by Ville Vesterinen, Antti Vilpponen, Miikka Kukkosuo and Karri Saarinen. If you live in any of the nordic countries this blog should be a daily read.

• The Next Web

TheNextWeb was started in 2006 by the founders of The Next Web conference (which will be held again this year in Amsterdam starting April 15). They cover “everything that influences the future of the Web, in any way“.

• Dutch Cowboys (Dutch)

Too bad I can’t read dutch, because this blog looks interesting and the dutch startup scene is one of the most active around Europe. There are also German Cowboys and Belgian Cowboys.

• Loogic (Spanish, Italian, English)

Loogic is the most influential web2.0 blog in Spain, it is available in spanish, italian and english.

• theStartup

This one, of course. We are aiming high, and we’d like to make it to the top, providing great and useful content every day!

Please feel free to add some others I forgot in the comments, and I’ll update the post.

There we go.. first post! I just want to share with you why I’m starting this blog (and why I think you should read it).

Being very passionate about entrepreneurship and startups, and noticing the lack of information about the european startup scene I would like to fill a hole, while trying to have as much fun as possible and learn a lot from the great people this community is made of. I know there are a lot of other blogs and websites that write about this subject but I feel that currently every blog focuses on a specific country or area, or covers more than european startups. I just think there is a need for a pan-european blog, covering and giving the needed media exposure to european startups, entrepreneurs and events.

I’ll cover pretty much all the topics that relate to startups: entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, M&A, venture capital, but you are likely to see tech news too. My hope is to cover all the major european conferences and events, where entrepreneurs can share their wisdom and most importantly announce great new companies and products.

As you may have guessed I’m not a native english speaker so please forgive my errors, I’ll try to check them but I can’t guarantee error-free posts. If you would like to contribute or have any other suggestion, I’ll be glad to hear from you at the following address: contact @t thestartup d0t eu. I hope you’ll join me in this adventure.

TheStartup.eu will be the place to be for european entrepreneurs and investors.

News, Interviews, Resources and much more.

We are currently looking for some passionate bloggers, if you are interested, have a passion for startups and have a perfect command of English please drop me a line at hello AT stefanobernardi DOT com