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Earlybird Venture Capital, one of Europe’s most famous venture capital firms, today announces the expansion of its leadership team with the addition of Jason Whitmire who joins as Partner, focusing on early stage venture investing in mobile services, cloud computing, and digital media technologies.

Until June 2010 he served as General Manager & Vice President at Wind River Systems, where he founded and managed the company’s high growth mobile business (which according to the Wall Street Journal was the motivation behind Intel’s acquisition of Wind River for $884 million in July 2009). Previously Jason was shareholder and Managing Director of open source real-time Linux provider FSMLabs Inc. and played a key role in its acquisition by Wind River in 2007. Prior to that Mr. Whitmire co-founded the software business at Infineon Technologies, where he led the global licensing business for Infineon’s wireless software subsidiary, Comneon GmbH.

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.”

High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), DuMont Venture and bAV Consult have sold their stakes in northworks Software to games provider Travian Games in early March.

Now, the same High-Tech Gründerfonds, now together with RapidTainment, have also made a seven figure seed round in online game company UP Web Game GmbH.
“People enjoy playing with each other,” the founders Ibrahim Evsan and Thomas Bachem comment “and the Internet makes it possible to realize completely new concepts.” Evsan and Bachem have developed the idea behind the game since 2005, until they put it aside for some time in order to found the video platform sevenload. “However, we are entrepreneurs, and sometimes you can’t let an idea go. This game is one of those very special projects, and we are happy to finally implement it together with strong partners”.

Tobias Hartmann, who joined end of 2009 as co-founder: “Our two investors complement each other perfectly. RapidTainment AG is a very powerful partner with an exciting strategic vision, while HTGF contributes an excellent VC network and a high degree of professionalism”.

ClickandBuy is to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG. Via its venture capital company, T-Venture, Deutsche Telekom has held shares in ClickandBuy since 2006 and currently owns 20.2 per cent of its shares.

Other investors included Intel Capital and 3i. Deutsche Telekom has now acquired all remaining shares in the internet payment service provider ClickandBuy. The agreement was finalized yesterday. The supervisory bodies of the companies concerned and the UK’s Finacial Services  Authority (FSA) have already approved the process.

Klaus Konrad, Investment Director of Intel Capital: “ClickandBuy has become one of the top three online payment providers in the world and is a European investment success story.This shows that even in challenging economic periods, it is possible to grow top performing organizations through great management and the right investment strategy.”

ClickandBuy’s CEO, Charles Fraenkl, welcomed the deal: “Our minority shareholders T-Venture and Intel Capital with their dedication and commitment have contributed a lot to the success and growth of ClickandBuy.With the support of our new shareholder, ClickandBuy, already one of today’s leading providers of online payments solutions, will continue to strengthen and expand its market position in the future. ClickandBuy is in an exceptionally good position and is very happy about the huge advantages this synergy contains regarding the realisation of its global strategic goals which will be made possible through the involvement of Deutsche Telekom.”

ClickandBuy is one of the leading payment services in the internet.Certified by McAfee and tested by Germany’s Technical Inspection and Testing Association (TUV), this online payment system is used for internet purchases by over 13 million people. Having doubled its turnover generated by traders and end customers to EUR 922 million (TTV) in 2008, the ClickandBuy Group first crossed the billion euro threshold in 2009.

Over 16.000 online traders use ClickandBuy’s e-payment system for their e-commerce, retail, online entertainment, and paid content & services billing, including Deutsche Telekom, Scout24 Group, Apple iTunes, Napster, Orange, msn, AOL, Meetic, Parship, Electronic Arts (EA), Codemasters, McAfee, Panda, RTL, Playboy, Financial Times Deutschland, Foto.com, Deutsche Boerse Group, KPMG, Yamaha, Digital River, Redcoon, bonprix (Otto Group).

Founded in 1999, ClickandBuy represents over 10 years of experience and expertise in the e-payment market. The online payment system is operated by ClickandBuy International Ltd. in London. As an e-money institution licensed by the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA), ClickandBuy’s complete service includes 120 currencies and offers 50 national and international modes of payment throughout 31 countries.

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.