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Nauta Capital invests €1m in Yuilop

Posted by Stefano Bernardi On February - 12 - 2011

Yuilop, a spanish startup, just raised €1m from Nauta Capital.

Nauta Capital, is a very active firm founded in 2004 with offices in Barcelona, Spain and Boston, USA, is a venture capital firm specializing in technology, media and telecommunications investment. It is now investing it’s third fund, Nauta Capital III, which has around €100m under management. One notable investment is Groupalia.

Yuilop is still in stealth mode, but we understood it is developing an innovative mobile application and service. The company is based in Barcelona, Spain and was founded by Jochen Doppelhammer, the founder of Simyo Espana, what looks to be Spain’s most successful MVNO and self-describes itself as the world’s largest Internet-based MVNO. Julian Moreno Beltrán, ex-ceo of Veotrip, joined him as CTO.

Update: we found what seems to be an old description of the app. “Stream live video and audio from your phone to multiple phones or the web using a 3G or Wifi connection. You can chat with your viewers and show them your position/orientation in Google Maps. Twitter integration. Visit Yuilop.com to see what’s happening right here, right now.

SeedRocket Entrepreneurs Camp 2010

Posted by Stefano Bernardi On April - 1 - 2010

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.

SeedRocketSeedRocket has finally announced the finalists for the third edition of its Entrepreneurship Campus that will take place in Barcelona, July 7th-15th.

During the campus, the entrepreneurs will attend different workshops hosted by some of the most famous and successful spanish entrepreneurs. The classes are divided per day with the following subjects: marketing and communication, business development, finance, community, internet, business administration. They’ll also have the opportunity to get tips from the mentors regarding their business plan. Eventually, on July 15th the teams will pitch their projects to an audience of mentors, SeedRocket team and, of course, investors. The winning projects will be awarded a €20,000 funding and a 6-months stay in their incubator.

TheStartup is an official media partner for the event.

You can find the program (in spanish) embedded at the end of the post.

The are still too many “social networks” in my opinion, but I think there are a few very interesting and innovative products in the list. Here they are:

  • and.roid.es, an android-focused developers community with its proprietary framework.
  • Arpamet is using the power of videoconference for customer support, consulting, education, etc.

  • BioWallet, a very cool android biometric authentication system.

  • Blinkast, a green digital platform, e.consumer social network.

  • Laralia, social network for home decorators with nifty app.

  • Makoondi simplifies the life of people sharing flats.
  • ProjecTravel.com, exchange travel experiences, tips and information.

  • Transket, freelance translators network.

  • SportLink, sport social network.

The mentors for this edition will be some of the biggest names in the spanish scene:

  • Vicente Arias, cofounder of SeedRocket.
  • Jesús Monleón, cofounder SeedRocket.
  • François Derbaix, founder of toprural.com
  • Jaume Gomà, general manager at Segundamano.es
  • Eneko Knörr, founder Hostalia.
  • Mario Brüggemann, founder of OcioJoven Networks and AsesorSeguros.com
  • Nacho González-Barros, founder of InfoJobs.net and Salir.com
  • Carlos Domingo, manager at Telefónica I+D.
  • Yago Arbeloa, founder of sync.es.
  • Román Martín, founder of Interbel.
  • Josep Mª Tribó, COO of MediaContacts.

Seed Rocket Program

Flash: Spanish AlienVault getting cash for Open Source Security

Posted by Stefano Bernardi On July - 2 - 2009

alienvaultAdara Ventures and Neotec have invested an undisclosed sum into software company AlienVault, the creator of OSSIM (Open Source Security Information Management).

AlienVault was founded by Julio Casal and Dominique Karg, the creators of OSSIM, to improve the business utility and offering of the widest adopted Opensource SIEM solution.

eRepublik is a massive online social strategy game (as they like to call it) that started popping in 2007 when it received a seed funding of €200.000. The game is set in a mirror version of the real world in which players (citizens), join in local and national politics, set economic policy, start businesses and wage wars with other countries.

agfTechcrunch reports of a €2 Millions Series A round from french fund of funds and venture capital AGF private Equity. While AGF wins hands down the Worst Website of the Century award it certainly is a very interesting venture capital fund, with €2.5 billions under management and investments in some of the best european startups, such as Meetic, Dailymotion, Viadeo, Yoono and others.

The spanish company will also use the funds to finish the development of the game and launch the spanish version, while also launching new games based on the eRepublik platform.

“We sometimes invest as early as the seed stage in exceptionally exciting companies and eRepublik was one of them last year. We are happy to confirm our first judgement with this new round: eRepublik creates dense and long-lasting games on a low-cost basis, while leveraging fully the strong engagement of its players – something the gaming industry would be very glad to industrialize,” comments Guillaume Lautour of AGF Private Equity.

erepublik_logo“The existing game represents 25% of what the final product will be,” states Alexis Bonte, Co-founder and CEO of eRepublik. “With the help of AGF Private Equity and Guillaume Lautour, whom I am delighted to welcome to our board, we will have the means to make our ideas, along with those gathered from our enthusiastic community, come true,” ends Bonte.

Abengoa starts operating world’s largest solar tower

Posted by Stefano Bernardi On April - 27 - 2009

abengoa-1
Spanish company Abengoa announced it has finished its tests on a 20-Megawatt Solar-Power Tower in Sevilla, and started the commercial operations today.

The PS-20, located in the Solúcar platform, can serve more than 10.000 homes with its 20-megawatt power, and save us almost 12.000 tonnes of CO2.
solar
With a height of 160 meters and 1,255 mirrored heliostats the PS20 is an impressive technology plant. Each heliostat, with its 120 square meters reflect the solar radiaction coming from the tower producing them vapor that will then generate electricity. The whole platform is developed by Abengoa Solar.

Spain is now a  3,000 megawatts ”solar country”, aiming very fast to become the largest in the world: Germany has 4,000. Abengoa already has a 10 megawatts solar power tower in service and plans another 20 megawatt plant as part of the Solúcar platform, which is expected to produce 300 megawatts by 2013 covering the needs of more than half a million people.

Abedonga is based in Barcelona Spain, with an office in San Francisco, and has a market capitalization of €1100,11 millon.