On Tuesday night TechHub and Techcrunch hosted the Techcrunch Europe Summer Pitch battle.

The venue

TechHub was chosen as the setting for the battle – the recently launched space in central London offering office space and facilities to startups. It represented an optimal scenario for the event.

The contestants

In excess of 35 different startups entered the field to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges coming from Eden Ventures (Ben Tompkins and Katy Turner), Neu Haus Partners (Paul Jozefak) and Moonfruit.com (Wendy Tan White), alongside angel investor Eileen Burbidge. The startups were requested to go through three consecutive rounds: an initial screening based on a written one-line description of their idea, a one minute slide-less pitch and a three minutes aided pitch, before getting to the final podium. Even though the scene was dominated by anglo-american companies, several continental European (and beyond) startups were present to pitch their ideas.

The battle

Around 30 startups pitched their one-minute introduction to the judges and the spectators. The process was a bit hectic, with the twitter feed being overwhelmed by tweets trying to understand the spelling of the startup names.

Only nine startups made it to the slideshow round, where the judges decided for the following podium:

1) Calaboard: presented by Francesco Masia, it promises to enrich video-conferencing by allowing “in-the-air” drawing with your finger – your counterpart will actually see the drawing appear on the conference window.

2) Duedil: complements Linkedin profiles by allowing users to post complete reviews and feedbacks, allowing professionals to build reputation and clients to make better decisions over the professional figure to hire.

3) Geomium: bringing together social and location services, Geomium creates a recommendation engine for things to do in your neighborhood – friends can see what each of them is doing, propose what to do, chat and meet.

The remaining 6 final presenters were:

- ProspectVision: improve the conversion rate of visitors to your website, turning them into sales leads

- Me-Stars: online gaming network, where the user can actually put his face in the game, thanks to a face recognition and digitalization service

- Gourmetorigins: a service to get information about the regional origins of gourmet food, including the possibility to get in touch with the local producers and the local roots of food culture

- CrowdScanner: ever wondered who is attending the same event you are in? CrowdScanner is a mobile app that allows the user to “ask a question” to the crowd, favoring new encounters and easier networking, based on personal interests.

- MindQuilt: Mindquilt is “an enterprise knowledge management platform with intelligent question and answer matchmaking and gaming achievement dynamics”.

- Oneleep: “a shortcut to hard-to-access influentials: the decision-makers, employers, investors, buyers and experts – “Shakers””.

Special mention to the second Italian team pitching, for the first time on the European scene: Fubles.

You can also find the complete list of startups in this other great recap.

The bottom line

Social-geo-location-community are the buzz-words that are closest to the hearts of the entrepreneurs pitching at the event. Many of the startups tried to answer a social question by implementing a location- or community-based layer around (or on top of) their idea. It is notable, on the other hand, how the event winner Calaboard is not a project in the social or location space. Do the VCs see an excessive proliferation of location-based social services? Is the market getting tired of this sudden abundance? It is probably way to early to tell. Or is it?

A pretty light take on the failing and almost scamming of the PGI conference. Read it on Startup Digest.

Last week Milan saw its ‘Pitch Slam’ event, organised by the Guidwire Group. Threeplicate, an Italian startup whose mission is to create “software that works,” beat out stiff competition to take first place. Runners-up at the Pitch Slam included Sentimetrix, a startup that helps measure sentiments or opinions expressed via electronic media, and Pantea, which allows companies to build tailored mobile media marketing solutions.

The Innovate!2010 Pitch Slam in Milan is one of over 20 Pitch Slam events that Guidewire Group is hosting this year across Europe and the United States. At each Pitch Slam, startups are evaluated by a panel of expert judges using the G/Score, Guidewire Group’s proprietary assessment methodology for evaluating startup success and business viability. The judges at the Milan Pitch Slam were: Maria Teresa Aviles, project manager at the University Incubator of Politecnico di Milano; Evan Nisselson, founder and CEO of Digital Railroad; and Matteo Rizzi, innovation leader at SWIFT.

The G/Scores will be aggregated from all of the Pitch Slams, normalized across markets, stages and segments, and then ranked to determine the Innovate!100. Innovate!2010 partners with market leaders like Best Buy, HP, Microsoft, Motorola, O2, RIM, Oracle and SWIFT and serves as a platform for these corporations to quickly identify and partner with high-potential startups.

Congratulations to all of the startups that were invited to present in Milan:

DriveK: Car configuration platform designed to change the way people select, configure, compare and buy their new car.

GET Corporation: Geo-location service to help customers find the nearest taxi driver.

Intelligrate: Application to detect anomalies in user behavior during online banking transactions to prevent fraud.

LiquidWeb: Creator of WiTube, an interactive lamp delivers Web content like podcasts and news through a wireless Internet connection.

LM: Monetization tool for code and content owners to get paid wherever their work appears on the open web.

Noesis: Revenue optimization platform with automatic real-time learning and adapting capabilities.

Pantea: Provides pre-integrated tools that allow customers to build tailored mobile media marketing, mobile media and social media solutions.

Pervactive: Developer of a new genre of Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) that uses a proprietary, patented MMPGTech engine to allow users to play the same game on a PC and on a mobile device.

Sentimetrix: Technology framework to measure sentiments or opinions expressed in electronic media, such as news, blogs or newsgroups.

Spreaker: Social web radio: a platform for creating and broadcasting audio content over the Internet.

Threeplicate: Simplifies and automates the software UI localization process by integrating with existing tools already in use at software development firms.

TechCrunch Disrupt after a great intro by Micheal Arrington, just kicked out in NYC. TCDisrupt might just be the most important tech conference ever, if you want to judge from the unbelievable list of speakers they managed to throw together. Micheal reminded us that disruption is constant, as we now stand in ex Merril Lynch offices… Enough said.
We are now in the third wave, says John Doerr, the most famous and successful venture capitalist ever.

The first wave was the personal computer, the second wave was the internet and now it’s all happening again. It’s a mix of social and mobile that’s revolutionizing the way we think about business and services.

All this are changes in consumer behavior,

“The most successful entrepreneurs were all 20-30yo dropouts of major universities as Standford and Harvard, had no social life whatsoever and were nerds. They had all amazing love affairs with the companies they were creating, they were in love with their products and wanted to change the world.”

“Great companies are limited by their ability to execute. Find great people.”

If you want to read the full conversation between Charlie Rose and John Doerr, you can find it on TechCrunch.

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.

I am very pleased to announce that all our efforts in creating a tech scene in Rome and more generally in Italy are coming through. On Monday, November 23rd we will be hosting our first event, in collaboration with a few roman startups: Publisoftweb, Ibrii, Frestyl and other cool geeks.

UpStartRoma will be a monthly meetup for the italian tech and startup scene. Our fist meeting will be held in Publisoftweb’s offices (thank you) and will feature quite a few pitches and keynotes.

What we aim to do is recreate the London-like ecosystem in Rome. There are a lot of great people, great startups, investors and bloggers but nobody knows each other very well. We hope to help everyone in finding new business contacts, mentors, investors and more generally very cool dudes to hang out with.

We can’t wait to be  able to do this in other cities, but for that we would need your help. Please contact us if you’d like our help with the organization of something similar in your city.

We must say, we got a good inspiration from the first Startup Night, that was held in Milan in September. And, by the way, they are hosting a second one, on Tuesday 24th.

If you’re around Rome this is a must-attend event, see you on November 23rd, 19:00 c/o Publisoftweb, Via Gallonio 6, Rome

I forgot to say that beer and pizza are on us!

LeWeb ‘09 looks more promising than ever. With the recent news of Queen Rania Al Abdullah attending on Dec 10th, the speakers’ list gets even more exciting.

To see the complete list of speakers you can either check the official list or follow the twitter list. As you can see the most famous internet stars will be there, and you should too.

I am an official blogger of LeWeb, and with many others I will be covering the event on twitter and on this blog. I suggest you follow the official bloggers’ twitter list.

The early bird ends on november 10, you can get a 10% discount on top of that with the following code: BLOG09.

Here is a video of the organizers, Loic and Geralindine, explaining the theme, program and speakers of LeWeb ‘09.

I’ll live blog the event, but I’d prefer to meet each and everyone of you over there!

This is a guest post by Marc Rosenfeld, a web entrepreneur  currently developing a web based platform for productive groups. Prior to that, Marc worked at Ericsson Brazil in the pre-sales department contributing to managed service proposals, and having knowledge sharing responsibilities.

Last Saturday I went to BizCamp Belgium and, as a newly self-appointed web entrepreneur, I could already tell: this was a perfect introduction to the web-sphere world.
There were around 20 sessions, in 3 different rooms, where a lot of useful information could be learned with more experienced entrepreneurs.

Ok, so let’s have a summary of some topics discussed:

Many discussions get around PR and promotion. As you can imagine, networking & word of mouth was the main trend here. But another one catch my attention: printed media. Yes, there are still a lot of people paying and reading their newspaper every morning, and  they are customers too. More surprising was the discovery that printed media can be cheaper than online advertising. One great tip that was shared is to ask questions in a “…by the way, would you like to..?.” style in order to engage users, and I must say, this works pretty well.

A second topic discussed was funding. This is what we should keep in mind:

• Seed capitalists don’t invest only in businesses, they invest in people. In the beginning “you”= “your business” so they need to make sure “you” will grow with your business. If you don’t have all the competences needed to run your business, go partner with someone who does. Places like BizCamp are a good way to start (most of the attendees were looking for partners there).
• Public grants exist and are very valuable to young businesses. In order to give you a grant, governments usually only want to make sure you will still be alive in two or three years, and they don’t ask high rates of return for their money. So, before VCs, get a look into public grants, maybe they’re less glamorous, but it’ll surely be cheaper.
• For all sort of funding, business & financial plans are needed. Give special attention to your break even point, knowing it will give investors precious information about their risk.
• (Maybe the most important point here) You should keep your capital needs to minimum. Investors want their money back, and getting capital is still expensive in all cases. The expression: “capital is like junk food: you know you shouldn’t, but it’s so good you can’t resist to ask more.” sums it up pretty well

Finally, there were some good discussions about breaking the rules. The main idea is that, if you are an entrepreneur, you already are an exception and you shouldn’t be afraid to look bigger than you are or even to lie, a little, if this will be good for your business. An example? Well, if you need to be an artist to receive a government grant, then you are an artist! But, note, this doesn’t mean you should cross the limits like void paying taxes. You should always run your business responsibly and obeying the laws.

Concluding, there were also a lot of good business tips shared and a great entrepreneurial vibe, but this, I can’t summaries in a blog’s article

This is a guest post by Andrea La Mesa, founder and CEO of PubliSoftWeb, an italian startup focused on developing social media presence for brands with their white-label My.So product. As I could not attend the event, he kindly offered to share the experience on theStartup.

Last weekend more than 100 web developers, web entrepreneur and other web enthusiasts gathered in London at PayPal offices to work on their ideas and launch a web app in 48 hours.

The weekend started on friday night, after a day-long conference where mentors and experts covered various subjects such as legal 101 for startups, digital PR, marketing and social media. (All the slides are online).

Soonafter everyone had a chance to pitch his own idea, in front of the other attendees. 35 people showed up and only 6 made it to the final round of voting.

Each of us had a chance to pick the idea he liked the most, and join the team.

You can find a video of each idea on TechFluff.tv.

The following 48 hours have been very challenging and inspiring. Each group found his balance, some natural leaders emerged, and tasks were split among the team members. Each of us had a chance to prove his value, sometimes in a field other than his core skills.

I was amazed to see that all of the six startups already had a prototype working by sunday at 4pm, with interesting business plans and marketing strategies.

For those who might be thinking that 48 hours are not enough to launch a business, here’s my point of view.

1) The experience of working with a team of strangers is professionally enriching, entertaining and enlightning.

2) I was actually amazed to see how much work can be achieved in a team, in just 48hrs. I will never allow myself to spend days and days thinking about the best way to do something;, after having seen so many results in just a few hours.

Whether or not these 6 startups will keep on developing their ideas is not what matters the most.

It’s the journey, not the destination.