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High-Tech Gründerfonds, which looks like is in an investment spree, and BBAF Business Angels Fondsgesellschaft have invested €550,000 into car diagnostics software startup Autoaid

German startup Yoochoose just closed its seed-round with High Tech Gruenderfonds and the Connected Life and Work Fund which is managed by T-Venture.

The Cologne-based company is a spin-off from Deutsche Telekom Laboratories and provides its customers with a high-end recommendation engine.

HTGF is a really impressive VC, they’re very active at the moment and are really pushing in this end-of-recession stage. The amount of the round was not disclosed, but we understand it will allow the company to improve their product in order to offer it to a diverse kind of customers such as e-commerce, media and publishing companies.

“It increasingly becomes a critical success factor for eCommerce companies to offer to its customers the right value at the right time. With a Recommender System as advanced as the YOOCHOOSE engine you know your customer and create a unique selling point,” says Oliver Fietz, Fund Manager T-Venture. “Besides the team we are convinced by the B2B-business model. This made our investment decision easy.”

The company was just founded last February by Dr. Alkemper as CEO and M. Friedmann as CTO.

“Personalized recommendations currently are among the hottest topics requested by customers. With Yoochoose we invest not only in a superior technology but also in highly professional team in this market.” says Holger Heinen, senior investment manager of High-Tech Gründerfonds.

• Germany: Earlybird has led a first round of financing for software company azeti Networks GmbH, alongside NRW Bank.
  Press release.
• France: Ventech and Auriga Partners have invested EUR 2m into software company BonitaSoft.
  Announcement.
• UK: Foresight Venture Partners and Octopus Group, via its Titan VCT fund, have invested, alongside private investors, in online CV and career profile provider iProfile, in a funding round worth more than £1.5m.
• Germany: A consortium of investors including Crédit Agricole Private Equity, Corporate Finance Partners CFP and Founders Investments GmbH & Co KGaA have invested an undisclosed amount into e-sports company Turtle Entertainment GmbH.
• France: Private equity firm Gimv has backed online furniture retailer Made in Design in a first institutional financing round worth EUR 4.5m.
  Press Release.

• Ariadne Capital has launched the Ariadne Capital Entrepeneurs (ACE) Fund, a new vehicle aimed at investing in technology start-ups (Techcrunch Europe post)
• DuMont Venture and seed investor Tiburon Partners have led an undisclosed seven figure funding round for online video technology company stream5, alongside KfW and business angel Klaus Wecken (Press release)
• IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft invested in Affinitas, operator of the online dating portal edarling, in a second closing of the business’ first funding round

Note: This is a post I wrote for Techcrunch Europe as soon as the news broke.

High-Tech Gründerfonds and DuMont Venture has joined existing investors Draper Investment Company and the Business Angel Peter Schüpbach in a new round of financing for Plista. The deal is rumored to be in the low seven figures.

Recently Plista also rolled out OnSite Recommendations, its B2B operations providing businesses with the ability to target their content, products and advertisement more efficiently. The major market will be represented by site operators in the fields of content and e-commerce.

The Berlin-based startup, which was founded just last year and employs 23 people, has scored some large publisher distribution deals such as the Kölner Stadt Anzeiger of DuMont publishing house and Pro.de, a download portal.

The company plans on developing new features for its network of partners, the first one being a marketplace dedicated to trade content and traffic.

Co-founder and CIO Andreas Richter says the focus next is is the expansion of the self-service portal, which – similar to Google AdSense® – allows publishers to generate and individually customize recommendations widgets to be integrated into their websites.

Note: This is a post I wrote for Techcrunch Europe as soon as the news broke.

Scoreloop has just announced it closed its second financing round, with a $2.8 million / €2 million cash injection from new investors Earlybird and existing investor Target Partners, which was the seed funder for the Munich-based company. The funds will be used to fuel the growth of the company and to establish (or solidify) its position, especially in the realm of the iPhone. Since launching its technology in May 2009, Scoreloop has over 500 registered game developers that have published more than 40 Scoreloop enabled games in the iPhone App Store.

So one month after the release of its community application Scoreloop finds a great validation for its product, while Earlybird gets in on one of the most interesting new business areas around.

Scoreloop offers an SDK for mobile game developers that instantly adds social gaming to their applications with features such as challenges and a points system. The company offers its technology for free to developers and monetizes on the points system. To understand better how it works and I suggest you sign up on their community and challenge me (Plus: they have one of the most amazing facebook connect apps I’ve seen).

“We are continuously receiving excellent feedback from game developers and publishers, as Scoreloop offers a unique set of tools for social features and monetization strategies. We are thrilled to be working with two of Europe’s premier VCs with Earlybird as an additional partner beside our existing investor Target Partners.” said Marc Gumpinger, CEO of Scoreloop.

Marc Gumpinger, Scoreloop’s CEO is understandably pleased. Since launching its technology in May 2009, Scoreloop has over 500 registered game developers that have published more than 40 Scoreloop enabled games in the Apple App Store today.

Roland Manger says this is a new market for its fund and Scoreloop fills a gap in their portfolio. Earlybird was looking to get into the new mobile market, without a particular interest in gaming technologies until they found Scoreloop. He points at their significant growth potential: “Scoreloop’s technology and the community platform solve many problems both developers and users are facing in the mobile app-world. Scoreloop will help developers make their games more attractive while improving monetization and users will be able to find games relevant to them much quicker.”