Written on June 16, 2008 – 11:44 pm
Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of Fleck
Germany-based Sevenload, announced at Supernova today that they secured ‘a double digit million euro’ investment from T-Venture which is a part of Deutsche Telekom.
First of all, what is Sevenload, you might think. I’m sure a lot of people have heard of the name, but when asked what the company does, it becomes more difficult. The official statement: “Sevenload is a social media platform for video, photos and interactive show formats”. In my own words, take Flickr, Youtube, Vimeo and Blip.tv, combine them into one company and you have Sevenload. Sevenload is especially well known in Germany, but with this round of funding, they’ll try to conquer the rest of the world. Starting as a sponsor of Supernova 2008, I guess this will be their first effort to enter the American market.
Sevenload also announced that they joined the “User Generated Content Principles” initiative, to protect copyright claims of content owners. This initiative is backed by big US companies like Disney, Microsoft, Fox, CBS and MySpace.
Oh, by the way, that is Ernst-Jan with a Sevenload shirt, a present for my girlfriend.
I hope you like that post!
The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our '
About' page and subscribe to our
RSS feed.
Do you have a start-up that we should write about?
Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!
Written on March 19, 2008 – 2:43 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Mike Butcher from TechCrunch UK started the second panel as a depressed man. The credit crisis not just affects the world’s economy, but also the mood of one of Europe’s best bloggers. Luckily there were four investors at Plugg to cheer him up a bit.
Paul Fisher from Advent Venture Partners noted that lots of the start-ups have an advertised-based business model. And online advertising is still growing. Moreover, there’s a continued roll-out of broadband, specifically in Eastern Europe. He also said it’s a challenging time for VC’s: “Talent is a lot more expensive now”. So an important issue, according to Fisher, is that start-up expect more than VC’s.
Julie Meyer (Ariadne Capital) sees the crisis as a way to seperate the women from the girls and the men from the boys. The one’s that really want a start-up will pursue. So she sees it as some kind of filer. “It forces entrepreneurs to be a Fiat Punto instead of a Mercedes S class. Discipline is important now”. Reshma Sohoni from SeedCamp agreed with her: “Companies are now more careful with cash burn and costs”.
So in a few years, people will ask successful entrepreneurs: “What’s your secret?!” Those guys will then probably say: “Wel, we started in Q1 of 2008 and learned to start a company in an efficient way.”
The investors convinced Butcher. I even heard him saying a remarkable thing, something you would expect from a optimist instead of a guy who just lost his faith in world economy: “Yes, it’s a fantastic time to build a start-up.”
Written on March 9, 2008 – 3:32 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf, Managing Partner of YL Ventures - an European and Israeli early stage technology venture capital fund - emailed me that they will announce tomorrow that YL Ventures is appointing Robert Goldberg as a Venture Partner. He is a Silicon Valley Internet and digital media veteran and now shifts his focus to Europe and Israel.
So I’ve emailed mr. Goldberg with the question: why Europe? Isn’t it more attractive for an American VC to focus on the 300 million English-speaking people market of the US? He replied, saying: “After spending considerable time investigating and experiencing the European market first hand and through Yoav, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a very interesting investment opportunity there for several reasons.”
“First and foremost there is a pool of passionate entrepreneurs with substantial technical talent. Second, similar to what happened in the US in the early part of this decade, Venture Funds grew larger and more risk adverse, largely abandoning their ability to invest smaller amounts of money in early stage companies. That trend has reversed itself in the US, but not in Europe. This leaves great entrepreneurs with early stage ideas fewer options. The opportunity is filling the excess demand with supply! Thirdly, although in many ways trends and ecosystems often develop first in the US, that can also lead to a kind of group think. I have found a different, often refreshing and more innovative approach to developing opportunities in the market place coming from European and Israeli companies.”
Of course, the European internet entrepreneurs who are reading this article now, wonder whether Robert Goldberg might be interested in their start-ups. Luckily Goldberg is kind enough to give you a profile: “We are focused on companies in the media, mobile and internet infrastructure space that have a passionate founder with domain expertise. These companies have business models that are capital efficient in that expenses can be kept in sync with market traction and revenues.”
Email
Facebook
Netlog
Linkedin
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
