The european internet startup scene has gathered in Amsterdam for this 3-days amazing conference.
Technology entrepreneurs, start-ups, innovators, venture capitalists, industry journalist, bloggers and simple geeks will attend keynotes and speeches given by internet celebrities such as Matt Mullenweg, Eric Meyer and Jeff Jarvis. Speakers include high level executives from Google, Yahoo! and Level 3 as well as entrepreneurs (SoundCloud, Imeem), venture capitalist and writers.
The agenda is really interesting. While today was the “unconference”, with Mobile DevCamp and “The Current Web”, tomorrow the real show begins.
The agenda includes a “Rising Sun Start-up Rally” that will surely have an important role in the event. The 19 companies that will have the chance to pitch to VCs and bloggers have been selected out of 200 with the help of twitter and a special voting system.
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.”
“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.
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 was founded in 2006 for the fracophone community according to technorati it soon grew to be one of the most influential blogs in France.
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.
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“.
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.
The european internet startup scene has gathered in Amsterdam for this 3-days amazing conference.
