Huddle, the real time collaboration startup based in the Uk, just announced a major investment and the opening of a US office.

The funding was led by Matrix Partners, an investor in Apple, HubSpot and Gilt. Existing investors Eden Ventures and Huddle’s chairman Charles McGregor also participated in the round.

The London-based company is already profitable and will quadruple in size in the next few years, said Alastair Mitchell,

Huddle’s CEO. Mitchell will move to the US and the company will use the latest funding to continue building its US customer base, which includes Disney and Procter & Gamble.

Huge congratulations to the very friendly team at Huddle for keeping the eu scene interesting to foreign investors, I am sure they will have a very successful adventure.

Read more on their blog and Techcrunch.

TechCrunch Europe, aside from covering perfectly what happens in the always hotter EU startup space, is also fostering the community like very few people and organizations ever did. One of the best ways to do so is by throwing the best Startup conferences (and parties).

On April 20, next week, most of the people involved in startups and VC in Europe will be at Geek’n'Rolla, a conference Techcrunch Europe is hosting in London. 15 startups will be launching their product in front of 18 judges, and some of the most influential european entrepreneurs will give keynotes.

Here is the keynotes line-up:

Mike Butcher, TechCrunch Europe
“How to Dive Bomb The European Tech Scene In 5 minutes Flat”

Tommy Ahlers, founder of ZYB which was acquired by Vodafone for €31.5m
“Exit: The How, When And Why Of Exiting Your Startup”

Jason Trost, Smarkets
“Nobody told me: practical startup advice”

Pete Smith, Songkick
“Hiring And Recruiting In Startups”

Nigel Eccles, Fanduel.com
“Customer Development for startups”

Katy Turner and Andy Chung, Eden Ventures
“How not to pitch a VC”

Ewan MacLeod, editor of Mobile Industry Review
“The disruptive opportunities for startups in mobile, and getting traction fast”

Nick Bell, Quick.TV
“How to manage PR when you’re a startup”

Lukasz Gadowski & Kolja Hebenstreit, Team Europe
“How to extend you startup to Germany”

Cedric Giorgi, Goojet
“Launching your service into the French Market”

Alicia Navarro, Co Founder, Skimlinks
“The trials of the US funding trail for European startups”

Morten Lund, Skype investor & serial entrepreneur
“Rebels With A Cause”

Mike Butcher says: “Not until GeeknRolla appeared last year have we seen such a comprehensive attempt to create a new business culture in London. A culture of open sharing of information about how people really do create the kinds of companies that become the next Google, Twitter or Facebook. Our speakers are ingrained in Europe’s technology startup culture, and are as good as any on the planet. In addition, the fact we are launching 15 new companies onto a public stage in one go shows how innovative the UK and the wider European technology scene is. We whittled down the entries from over 150 to this final 15 and I think the innovation will speak for itself on the day.”

Disclaimer: I write for TechCrunch Europe covering the italian startup scene.

YFM Private Equity has invested £300,000 in UK software vendor, FreshTL.

The financing is part of a £600,000 co-investment deal with Greener House Investments, and marks YFM’s first investment from the North West Interim Venture Capital Fund.
FreshTL has created a crowd computing platform that is a combination of software from IBM and Bricsys – a Belgian software vendor.

A lot has been said and written about group-buying lately, following the success of US-based Groupon. It certainly is one of the hottest online sectors at the moment and, given the low barriers to entry, has attracted a significant level of competition across the planet. For those who are not familiar with the model, group-buying is about aggregating online demand around local services and getting large discounts for the end users. For the local merchants it’s a new channel to market their service and acquire new customers on a ‘per action’ basis. Unlike the late ’90s, when online group-buying first appeared (Mercata, Letsbuyit, etc.), this is the perfect time for such a model: the penetration of social networks in fact allows users to easily share the offers with their friends or followers, which creates scale and virality.

The European scene has heated up in early 2010 with the appearance of a number of group-buying startups in Germany and in the UK. Some have already been backed by well-known investors, like the German CityDeal and DailyDeal and, lately, the UK-based Keynoir. Some have rushed out too quickly and have already entered the deadpool (Snippa, VivaVoucher, DealBunch, alongside a number of German clones) or are about to enter it. Some others, like the one I am reviewing today, seem to be doing well despite being self-funded.

Founded by fellow italians Yannick Roux and Luca Faloni, Likebees defines itself as a new and engaging way of discovering, experiencing and sharing the coolest things to do in town with friends, while saving money. They are currently live in London only, but they confirmed they have expansion plans across Europe once their model has been oiled up. As it currently is, Likebees looks like a traditional group-buying website, although I must point out a few differences. First, it just looks a lot better than its competitors from the design and branding perspective. While this might not be seen as a unique selling point, a distinctive image definitely helps with brand awareness (for instance, I still get confused between CityDeal, DailyDeal and others). Image also helps them secure quality deals, as merchants are, according to the founders, increasingly reluctant to be associated with brand-diminishing “voucher” sounding websites.
The second element which differentiates Likebees from the crowd, and which perfectly ties in with their brand name, is the social focus. Likebees in fact also allows users to purchase the deal for a group of people rather than only for a single person. “We want to encourage the socialisation at the moment of consumption, not only at the

moment of purchase. This is only the first step towards a more social and user-generated model” say the founders. We will certainly be looking forward to new and more social features coming out, as the two co-founders did not want to give away too many details. Likebees has so far been completely self-funded, but the founders are in discussions for a seed investment.

Despite being one of the most competitive online spaces at the moment, group-buying allows for a different number of players. Whether differentiation or funding will make the difference remains to be seen, what is certain is that the lack of both will keep adding to the deadpool. The next 6-12 months will define the European group-buying scene and consolidation is already under way.

• 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.

PROfoundersCapital, the new VC fund of Michael Birch and Brent Hoberman who launched at the europas in july, made its first investment.

TweetDeck will receive £1.2 Millions in funding. The money will be used to find revenue streams while completing their product. The company was founded by former computer developer Iain Dodsworth in summer of 2008 and it is now thought that around 10% to 15% of all tweets are sent via the application. The business, which now employs six people, received its first funding injection this year — for $184,000 from a group of investors, including Betaworks in the United States.

Sean Seton-Rogers, general partner of PROfounders, said to the times: “A lot of funds are focused on making sure that the companies they have already invested in survive, they are internally focused, but we are ready to build this legacy. We are open for business and looking for deals.”

The UK looks to make its european leadership stronger, after the launch of PROfounders Capital earlier this month, yesterday news broke about a new £50m fund.

Tim Levene, the son of Lloyd’s of London chairman Lord Levene, has been backed by Lord Rothschild and RIT Capital Partners.

The investments will be targeted on growth and development businesses and will be in the £3m-£15m range. Levene only plans on investing in businesses that could benefit from his experience and insights.

Tim Levene has an interesting background: in 1997, after leaving Bain & Company, he launched the Fresh ‘n’ Smooth juice bars selling the company a few years later. In 1999 he founded Flutter, a betting website, later acquired by Betfair in 2001.

Richard Matthews will be the other partner of the fund.

H-Farm is one of the most interesting projects in the italian and european startup scene. As the name suggests, it is a real farm located in the middle of the venetian country near Treviso where people every day are trying to redefine the traditional incubation process.

Founded in 2005 by Riccardo Donadon and Maurizio Rossi, H-Farm has now more than 15 startups, and some very successful ones too: Zooppa is the best example.

The company already has offices in Treviso, Seattle and Mumbay. The Old Truman Brewery complex located around Brick Lane, very close to the financial district, will host their new Uk office. This addition will help them create that international incubator they are aspiring to.

Here is how Riccardo Donadon, founding partner, explains it to us: “H-Farm objective is to build an international incubation platform that can take advantage of the different economic opportunities and move ideas and business around the world with minimal effort.
With this in mind, the new UK offices are a necessary step that will allow us to offer our startups a unique european visibility and market presence.”

All their services can now be enjoyed by UK-startups, we are talking about capital resources and a full range of of services and logistics to enable rapid growth. Of course the classic incubation services are offered too: office space and facilities, support for marketing, financial advice, human resources, legal, accounting and business development. On top of that they add strategy advice, branding and corporate structure. Read their mini press release.

Mobile payment and banking company Monitise announced yesterday a huge deal with credit cards giant Visa.

The Uk -based company has created the world’s first mobile banking networks, which allow customers of multiple banks and mobile operators to perform banking and payment transactions directly from their mobile handset.

The deal is comprised of a strategic and development partnership and is valued at £5.1 Millions. Visa International will own 14.4% of the enlarged issued share capital of Monitise. Visa will also be granted a seat on the advisory board, with the power to nominate a representative on the main board.

“With the ever expanding growth in handsets coupled with increasing sophistication of mobile networks, mobile payments and services present significant opportunity for Visa as we continue to develop new ways to bring the benefits of Visa electronic payments to more people in more places.” said Tim Attinger, Head of Global Product Innovation, Visa Inc. ”In aligning with Monitise, we expect to expand the delivery of Visa mobile services to consumers around the globe, enabling them to seamlessly use their mobile phones to purchase goods and services, make payments, receive valuable information and offers, and transfer money between accounts, in a safe and secure manner.”

The £5.1m raised, together with existing cash reserves of about £10m will provide Monitise with total cash of approximately £15m immediately following completion. That’s a lot of money in this economy, I think we will hear a lot more from them as they are also looking for more strategic partnerships in every continent.

Alastair Lukies, Chief Executive Officer, Monitise commented: ”Visa is the world’s most trusted, inclusive and innovative payments network. This alliance validates our unwavering commitment to building truly accessible, inclusive and reliable services over the past seven years. It is a landmark announcement in the mobile payment space and we are excited to collaborate with the world’s foremost payments company to accelerate the convergence of payments services and mobile devices.”

“We are also proud to welcome Tim Attinger to our Advisory Board; his deep payments and mobile expertise will make him a valued member to our key contributing body.” Lukies concluded.

The guys over at Smarta have got a nice interview with Lukies.

Some major venture capital activity today around Europe.

• Austria: Mobil Data gets €2.3 Millions

Wiener Wachstumsfonds and tecnet equity have invested more than EUR 2m into mobile working company mobil data, with part of the funding being used to acquire sector rival Tempore Zeiterfassungssysteme.


• France: Systancia gest €1.5 Millions

A Plus Finance has invested EUR 1.5m into Systancia, a server based computing company.


• UK: CMS SupaTrak raises third round of funding

YFM Group, via the South West Ventures Fund, has further invested in vehicle tracking and mobile working solutions company CMS SupaTrak in a third round of funding.