Happy Holiday Season!

As the year approaches its well deserved finishing line, I would like to wish all people who have been reading my blog or have given me suggestions and feedback along the last year a very happy holiday season and all the best for the upcoming year!
2006 was exciting for the VC and start-up business! I [...]

German MNO Alliance for Mobile TV

What a big bang announcement! T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2 and e-Plus have announced a cooperation to deliver 14 TV Channels and 2 Radio Channels based on the DVB-H Standard.
Takeaway: This is a big move in the overall mobile TV landscape. So far, only young and motivated start-ups (MFD, etc.) have started to set-up their own programs [...]

Congratulations to the RedHerring 2006 Winners – Germany coming in only at 4th place!

Congratulations to the winners of the RedHerring 2006 contest. Some remarkable winners worth mentioning from Germany are (in no particular order): Actionality, OpenBC and Spreadshirt. A positive surprise from a German side is clearly PV Crystalox Solar, examplifying Germany's competitive edge in the cleantech space. Other European companies who made it on the list this [...]

RedHerring 100 Event – Recap

I am just on my way back from the RedHerring 100 conference, which took place in Paris this week. Definitely one of the top events here in Europe, where you can meet the best VCs and start-ups in Europe. 100 “start-ups” from technology and life sciences got awarded there and had the chance to pitch [...]

Meeting Ms. Web 2.0 Blogging Lady Valerie Thompson

At PrivateDC I finally had a chance to connect with Valerie Thompson, No. 1 blogging lady on European Technology start-ups through her blogs Swiss Ventures and The alarm:clock euro.
 
Takeaway: It is great to see that there are many motivated and talented people out there, who believe in the emerging opportunities around Web 2.0 and the [...]

PrivateDC – Premium Business Angel Platform

The Private Deal Conference organised by Brains-to-Venture has become the platform for seed investing in Germany. Celebrating its 5th anniversary, PrivateDC “aims to become the world’s leading platform for entrepreneurial investors solely dedicated to private investment activities in high-growth companies.”
Over 120 business angels, private investors and leading VCs came together to discuss early stage investing, [...]

One new blog every minute!

Amazing! According to Technorati every second somewhere a new blog goes online!
“The Pew Internet study estimates that about 11%, or about 50 million, of Internet users are regular blog readers. According to Technorati data, there are about 70,000 new blogs a day. Bloggers — people who write weblogs — update their weblogs regularly; there are about [...]

Digital Identity 2.0

I recently got pinged from a consultant in the US, who knew pretty well everything about me. When I asked him, how did he know all this, he told me: “Look at ZoomInfo! They know you in-side-out!”.
“ZoomInfo, the premier summarization search engine, delivers fresh, comprehensive information on over 27 million business professionals and two million [...]

Good news for start-ups!

European start-ups and entrepreneurs can look positively into the future. European venture capital firms raised the highest amount in three years in 2005, with fund-raising totaling €3.7Bn according to VentureOne.
Takeaway: The years after the new economy hype were the most difficult years for start-ups and entrepreneurs to get funding. The recent pick-up in M&A or IPO exits [...]

Google And Skype Join forces with Serial Entrepreneur to form FON Web Start-Up

What another bolt move by serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky. After establishing several leading start-ups such as Ya.com or Jazztel, he has now started his next “big thing” FON.  As he has demonstrated recently at the DLD conference here in Munich, he is a great visionary! And getting top tier investors and supporters on board deserves a lot [...]