David Hornik just announced the LeWeb 2010 Startup Competition winner(s). The three finalists selected by the jury were Paper.li, Waze and Super Marmite. After their presentation the jury was supposed to choose gold, silver and bronze winners but it seems they weren’t able to find a winner so they revolutionized the prizes and decided to award three different prizes, making all of them winners:

First prize for virality: Paper.li

First prize for technology: Waze

First prize for originality: Super Marmite

BTW, got 2 out of 3.

Today was the startup competition day at LeWeb, and the 16 finalists got the chance to pitch the audience and be judged by some pretty high-profile people. David Hornik, from August Capital, was moderating.

You already know what this startups are doing but I’ll refresh your mind anyways.

• Badgeville

Badgeville is a white label social rewards & analytics platform to make it easy to increase the loyalty and engagement of your web audience. Basically they bring Foursquare-like badges and other kind of achievements to your website.
Badgeville is projecting some $1m in revenues for Q1 ‘11 and is officially launching in Europe today. They already got some investments and coverage.

• Deways

Deways is a personal car sharing community born to target the suburbs. People share their own cars. The average price will be around €0.20 per km. Read TechCrunch Europe article.

• Garmz

Designers can promote and present themselves through uploading their work and get instant feedback from a worldwide audience and customers. If a design is successful, Garmz handles the complete production and offers a complete webshop system, selling the finished fashion to customers worldwide.

Garmz is a Seedcamp 2010 winner.

• Greendizer

A free and open platform to aggregate invoices, messages and payments with customers using only their email address. The team, from Morocco, is very passionate and has a really big vision. Execution will be a problem.

• GreenPocket

Green pocket is a software provider for the interpretation and visualization of smart meter consumption data. The company already secured its Series A round. The centerpiece of the GreenPocket technology is the Energy Expert Engine (EEE), which uses algorithmic and heuristic processes to enable the intelligent interpretation of energy and water consumption data. Energy monitoring tools enable this data to be visualized via web portals, wall-mounted devices or iPhone applications in a consumer-friendly and trendsetting way.

• Needium

Needium monitors social media sources and detects business opportunities based on local user needs and life events. It also listens for merchant name mentions (reputation management). Same stuff as a LOT of other people around.

• Nuji

Nuji makes shopping better by revolutionizing the way you interact with real-world objects. You can tag real world objects via pictures and barcode scanning and online objects via a bookmarklet, you will then get deals on the objects you like.

Nuji is a Seedcamp 2010 winner.

• Paper.li

Paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag. A great way to stay on top of all that is shared by the people you follow – even if you are not connected 24/7. Paper.li is already established having got some pretty good coverage, investors bidding on it and Guy Kawasaky as an advisor.

• Phonedeck

Phonedeck is a call productivity application for mobile aficionados. For every incoming call phonedeck shows you automatically who is calling on your computer. Caller profile displays information from your phone book, emails, past SMS, twitter and various social networks. Not bad at all. Read TC EU coverage.

• Pinpoints

PinPoints allows an address to be converted in a short url that can be then shared via emails, SMS, forum posts, blogs, tweets etc. Basically a Bit.ly for maps. Big deal. TC EU covers it.

• Sociablitz

Still not sure what Sociabliz was doing there as they advertise themselves as a social media agency. They have some proprietary software for Facebook Pages marketing. Super big deal.

• Super Marmite

The first social network to buy and sell homemade dishes. Won’t comment that much on this. Basically if you’re hungry your neighbor can cook you dinner and you pay him.

• TagPay

TagPay’s revolutionary technology can transform any mobile phone into a secure payment or authentication tool. This sounded pretty cool indeed, but the founder didn’t explain very well the technology. They are using audio to make payments. You don’t need a bank account, you just need a phone number, and once you receive a payment you automatically have an account. They are targeting african countries.

• Tinypay.me

A very easy was to start selling whatever you want online. Hmm.. it’s 2010? Anyways, they announced a new version of their service which includes marketplaces.

• Waze

Waze is a social mobile application providing free turn-by-turn navigation based on the live conditions of the road. The israeli company is moving to Palo Alto and news just broke that they raised a MASSIVE $25m series B round. Not really fair. They already have some 2.2 million drivers on their platform.

• Work for us

Work for Us, Facebook’s #1 recruiting app, allows companies to find and hire candidates through the world’s largest social network. Over 3,000 companies use the “Work for Us” application (growing at a rate of 1,000 per month). Key clients include Accenture, PwC, Cisco, L’Oréal, American Apparel, P&G, Sodexo, Amadeus, and Areva.

A few words regarding this startup competition.
There was a big french presence and I need to say that while I respect the decisions of the people who selected these companies, in my opinion this is not the best of the european scene. Also, these companies are in completely different stages so its pretty impossibile for someone like Nuji to compete with Waze and its $25 millions in the bank. I think there should be strict rules in startup competition but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be the case. Ever. NY Techcunch Disrupt conference had the same problem. (Soluto won, having $8 million in the bank while Ujam founded just 2 months earlier and with an awesome product got nothing).
But without further adue, here are my 3 predicted finalists:

• Paper.li
• Waze
• Badgeville

This are also the companies that are well ahead and strongly positioned to be big successes (not really sure for Badgeville, lot of things I don’t like there), and the ones that are out of the league in this competition. My special mentions goes to TagPay.

We’ll see tomorrow who the actual finalists and presenters will be. Tonight I’m off at the official LeWeb party with Bob Sinclair.

As you could see from yesterday’s post, there has been a Startup Competition going on at LeWeb, in Paris. Mike Butcher, from TechCrunch Europe and the French Minister of Internet just announced the winners of the competition.

Here are the companies that got to pitch in front of more than 2000 attendees:

• 1st: Stribe


This is one of the services I was looking forward to. It’s one of the first very useful ones, enabling you to create a social network platform on top of your website very easily.
In their own words: “Stribe is a plug and play service to instantly create a social network on any website”

• 2nd: TigerLily


This one was an unexpected surprise, it’s a set of facebook applications to help you manage your pages and make them more interactive. Presentation was a bit boring, slides where cool and product sounds good. In their own words: “Tigerlily is a set of Facebook apps for marketers who want to get more from Facebook pages.”

• 3rd: CloudSplit


In their own words: “Real-time spending insight, real-time cost control.”
CloudSplit is a very cool product, targeting a real business problem. It’s a very comprehensive tool to monitor your cloud spending and see how much each application is costing you, and reduce your overall costs.

There were some very cool companies presenting this year at LeWeb and the choice was very hard for the judges. Please take a time to check the others companies that presented too!

The third batch of startups presenting at LeWeb:

• Kukunu
• Kukunu is a new travel startup, focused on helping you find the best places. They are targeting non tech-savvy users, and obviously has all the now mandatory social features. Monetization will be through commissions.
• Sports Predictions
• Sports Predictions’ product, Get In, provides the user with free scientific premier league recommendation. They claim to have a 50-70% success rate.
• FitnessKeeper, Inc.
• FitnessKeeper is the company behind RunKeeper, the awesome iPhone application that tracks all your running experiences. They are announcing a new and improved iPhone application and a web platform where you can compare to peers with the usual social features. They are announcing also a $400k outside financing round.
• Liqpay
• Liqpay is a new startup in the mobile payment space. They have the concept that a mobile phone number can be a unique payment ID. To use the service you don’t need to sign up, register or have an account. It’s very easy to use. They are also launching a KILLcoin.org initiative.

Here is the second bunch of startups presenting at LeWeb.

• CloudSplit
• In their own words: “Real-time spending insight, real-time cost control.”
• CloudSplit is a very cool product, targeting a real business problem. It’s a very comprehensive tool to monitor your cloud spending and see how much each application is costing you, and reduce your overall costs.
• Sokoz
• Sokoz is a new type of auction-based website. They played a cool video and then went over time.

• Storific
• Storific is a set of tool for stores to manage their real time communication, on Twitter Facebook and of course Storific. They also offer cool tools for retails stores to help them get online with their tools.
• Shutl
• I can finally unveil this, after having signed an NDA. Shutl is trying to disrupt the shipping industry. Since ecommerce was born, the shipping methods are still the same, no changes, no innovation. Tom Allason, Shutl CEO, is changing that with a new web-service. In their own words: “Real-time delivery for the real-time web”. Shutl offers instant delivery (90 mins) in London or Convenient Delivery in a 1h time slot 24/7.

I’m at LeWeb in the Startup Competition room.

This has been the first batch of presentations :

• FriendBinder

Friendbinder is another social aggregator, too bad I didn’t arrive in time to hear their pitch as I wanted to understand what is setting them apart from all the other webapps that let you keep all your friends in one place. In their own words: “FriendBinder brings together your friends from different social networks. It lets you keep track of all your friends in one place, saving you time and lets you post updates and replies.”

• Stribe

This is one of the services I was looking forward to. It’s one of the first very useful ones, enabling you to create a social network platform on top of your website very easily.
In their own words: “Stribe is a plug and play service to instantly create a social network on any website”

• Tigerlily

This one an unexpected surprise, it’s a set of facebook applications to help you manage your pages and make them more interactive. Presentation was a bit boring, slides where cool and product sounds good. In their own words: “Tigerlily is a set of Facebook apps for marketers who want to get more from Facebook pages.”

• Task.ly

Task.ly is trying to re-invent task management applications, the product looks very cool. Heavy bashing of all other to do apps such as remember the milk and things.

If you already know what SeedCamp is and can’t wait to apply, please do so right here.

Seedcamp Week will be held from 21^st to 25^th September at UCL in central London. It is a weeklong programme that connects 20 early stage web tech startups with over 400 highly experienced and sought after entrepreneurs, investors, marketers, product and developer experts.  Along with current board members Saul Klein and Reshma Sohoni, the chosen teams will also have access to Seedcamp’s recently appointed board members who have been selected for their broad range of entrepreneurial experience and international background in order to help Seedcamp deliver its mission to build a world-class, sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Just to name a few:

• Fred Destin, partner at Atlas Ventures
• Charles Grimsdale, co-founder of Eden Ventures
• Alex Hoye, co-founder of GoIndustry plc
• Christoph Maire, Head of Maps & Explore Unit, Nokia Services
• Dave McClure, Founders Fund
• Richard Moross, founder and CEO, Moo.com

The week will include interactive panel discussions, master classes and several informal 1:1 sessions. Teams will gain invaluable insight and a solid foundation to help kick-start a viable business in Europe today.

“The beauty of Seedcamp is that a start-up can fill his or her Rolodex in one day with quality business contacts that it would normally take five years to build.  We want to help entrepreneurs experience the whole rainbow, not just the pot of gold at the end.” Reshma Sohoni said.

At the end of the week Seedcamp will invest up to €50K each in 5 teams for a small equity stake (5%-10%). That’s enough money to move to London for 3 months and start building the product and the company. It’s not just work: weekly dinners, topical lunches, conferences, and continued mentorship, culminating in further Demo and Investor Days will make the stay invaluable as well as unforgettable. A trip to the Valley is also planned.

You can check the highlights of the 2007/2008 editions and follow Seedcamp on Twitter. If you missed the application link, here it is.

There we go.. first post! I just want to share with you why I’m starting this blog (and why I think you should read it).

Being very passionate about entrepreneurship and startups, and noticing the lack of information about the european startup scene I would like to fill a hole, while trying to have as much fun as possible and learn a lot from the great people this community is made of. I know there are a lot of other blogs and websites that write about this subject but I feel that currently every blog focuses on a specific country or area, or covers more than european startups. I just think there is a need for a pan-european blog, covering and giving the needed media exposure to european startups, entrepreneurs and events.

I’ll cover pretty much all the topics that relate to startups: entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, M&A, venture capital, but you are likely to see tech news too. My hope is to cover all the major european conferences and events, where entrepreneurs can share their wisdom and most importantly announce great new companies and products.

As you may have guessed I’m not a native english speaker so please forgive my errors, I’ll try to check them but I can’t guarantee error-free posts. If you would like to contribute or have any other suggestion, I’ll be glad to hear from you at the following address: contact @t thestartup d0t eu. I hope you’ll join me in this adventure.