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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.

Another huge round of funding in Europe, as AlertMe secures £8 more millions in a series B round from Index Ventures, Good Energies, SET Venture Partners and VantagePoint Venture Partners.

AlertMe offers a really great and innovative product that will help you save energy, money and secure your home. They produce a kit composed of a hub and some accessories. You plug the hub into your broadband connection and power source and then all AlertMe accessories will comunicate wirelessly to the hub, which sends the information to the AlertMe servers. You can then go on their web application and check your energy consumption, control your appliance and electricity usage remotely.
It is cheap, looks easy to install and use and could really be a game changer in the “run to green”. Consumers can save up to 25% of their residential energy costs. This means that AlertMe pays for itself in about 1 year, and saves approximately 1 ton of CO₂ per home per year. If every UK home had AlertMe, this roughly equates to taking half of the cars off the road.
The company claims to have sold more than 15000 units and have no competition in Europe. They will also soon release addons for heating and hot water behaviours.

Pilgrim Beart, AlertMe.com founder and CEO said: ‘We recognize that major players around the world – government, consumers, large retailers and utility companies – have a strong interest in working together to reduce domestic energy consumption as quickly and efficiently as possible. AlertMe.com, with the backing of our investors, offers a truly global solution to this issue that is available to use today.’

Another cool feature of their system is house security. If you buy a standard (£249) or premium kit (£399) you get motion sensors for doors and windows, the ability to monitor and control security in your home and updates on your mobile.

Saul Klein, Partner, Index Ventures said: ‘As energy demand increases worldwide, we see an urgent need for a disruptive and game-changing technology which is capable of leading a true revolution in home energy consumption. As investors, we’re excited to work with the experienced AlertMe.com team who are at the forefront of what we believe will be a huge and beneficial shift for both consumers and energy companies alike.’

IT-focused vehicle Notion Capital has led an undisclosed investment into mobile voice solutions provider Cellcrypt, alongside existing investors.

Cellcrypt provides end-to-end, real-time encryption to protect conversations from being compromised without the need for specialised equipment or expensive new infrastructure. Their product, available for Windows Mobile and Nokia phones, is now supporting Blackberries too.
Notion Capital, the investment firm set up by founders and senior executives from successful internet security company MessageLabs which was sold to Symantec in 2008 for $695M, took part in the round alongside former investors. The additional funding will be used to further expand Cellcrypt’s international presence, following the recent opening of its US office.

“We are really excited to invest in Cellcrypt, as a company with ground-breaking technology and a compelling proposition in a currently under-served market” said Stephen Chandler, partner at Notion Capital. “Traditionally, high security voice calling has only been available using specialised military-specification equipment, but Cellcrypt now makes this easily accessible to all with no impact on service performance.”
Stephen Chandler, a founding partner at Notion Capital and former President, EMEA and CFO at MessageLabs, will join the Cellcrypt Board.

Chandler continued, “Cellcrypt is ahead of the market in delivering unmatched voice call quality, international calling capability and high reliability across wireless networks, using standard devices and infrastructure. We believe that Cellcrypt is well placed to lead this fast growing market and that we have highly relevant skills and experience across the Notion team to help them to execute successfully.”

“Most governments and corporates now secure their email – voice is the last unsecured data service,” said Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO at Cellcrypt. “Cellcrypt has demonstrated product leadership and this funding supports the company’s growth internationally from the Americas, across Europe to the Middle East and Asia. I am delighted to welcome Stephen to the Board of Cellcrypt and look forward to working closely with him and the other industry experts at Notion Capital to benefit from their unique combination of knowledge and experience in this sector.”