NextWeb: Startup pitches round 2
Netlog
Netlog are really well known in Europe but here is how they pitched it: A European social networking platform. They have a timeline (it’s a newsfeed guys!). Now over 30m members, 4bn pages views, localised in 15 languages, 20 countries. Even a Catalonian version. Advertisers include Nokia and Fox (The Simpsons). Won a number of awards. Plans are now cross language, OpenSocial / API, hypertagging (a la MySpace), Social entertainment, groups, location-based mobile social networking by Summer. Invested in 2007 by Index and Atomico. (Ok-ish pitch)
Webnode
Czech startup Webnode compares itself to Weebly and Google Page Creator but claims to do more along the lines of Ning’s drag and drop functions and widget integration. Free to use, WebNode aims to monetise through paid-for extra storage space, extra bandwidth options and e-mail accounts. Raised $1.2m from private individuals from the Czech Republic. It’s avery clean and easy to use page creator which is much easier than blogs. Not as much functionality as soemthing like Ning but there are lots of options to change the layout and general structure of the site. It’s more for building websites than social networks or blogs. Weirdly they are on a trend – two website creators have been financed in Germany, e.g. Jimdo and Homepage Baukasten. {The presentation was good)
Lookery
This is Scott Raffer’s new startup and you can read all about it here. It’s a startup that places ads on social apps inside Facebook and Bebo. Anonymous web-wide, anonymous user targetting which complies with European privacy laws. Today’s news is that they can double the guaranteed advertising payments to European companies if you give them exclusivity Still 50c per thousand.
Zilok
Winner of the public award at Plugg, this company pitches itself as an eBay for renting stuff. Anything can be rented. There’s a deposit system, rental agreement, Mail ID, Card verification system, insurance system. Launching in April 2008. Active in US, France Belgium, Partnering with other companies in the rental space.
Radionomy
(Holy cow the guy just smashed up a radio in his pitch). Radionomy covers all costs for setting up an online radio station. More than sharing music tracks, it’s 33m Americans listen to radio online (but isn’t this straming from real stations?). Pre-programmed music slows, libraries, upload your own music library (apparently they will be paying licenses for all this music, even the stuff users upload – sounds like a can of worms…). April sees open beta launch, right now in closed beta. Strong team. Aiming for 200,000 stations and 63mEUR in revenues. This sounds like an attempt to create reach across a long tail of user generated radio stations and monetise accordingly.
Wakoopa
So, back in the bad old days you’d have to work out what good software to put on your Mac/PC by asking friends or going to Download.com. But now live since May, Wakoopa will scan your drive, tell you what you use most and suggest new stuff, as well as hook you into a social network of fellow software users. TechCrunch calls them the LastFM of software. Since 2007 they have gotten 25k users, 100k software items, 150 million hours of software usage. They give software developers a way to connect with their audience better. Aiming to track Web applications, like Facebook apps etc and generate . Closing a new funding round right now and new partners. (Great, slick pitch).