This is a guest post written by a London-based VC. For the purposes of them being able to speak plainly without jeopardizing their fund or their career, I’ve allowed them to post anonymously. Why are we doing this? Well, while the startup eco-system is long in the tooth and highly developed in the US, the European scene is still a spotty, shy teenager, sometimes making a few mistakes. And as a result startups need educating. Make no mistake, LondonVC is a genuine VC and TechCrunch Europe met them face to face. Over the next few weeks they are going to offer a unique insight into the VC and startup world in Europe. I hope it’s enlightening for European startups. Read and learn.
One reason I started this column is because I see a lot of “injustices” in the VC-start-up universe, and while I’m obviously aware that we don’t work in the charity sector and that business is business — and we’re here to maximise investment returns! — I do think we should let market forces determine what’s reasonable or not for business practices and deal terms. However, this works only if entrepreneurs actually have access to experience and insight into what really has been “standard” or acceptable in the past. → Read More
We all like the idea of setting aside a nice chunk of money in a savings account and putting it to work for us, but it’s a bit easier said than done — if you want the best rates, you have to choose from one of hundreds of CDs and savings account products offered by various banks, each of which has its own rates and restrictions. BillShrink, the startup that targets a variety of verticals to help users save money, is launching a new service today that looks to help make this decision much easier.
If you’ve used any of BillShrink’s other services before — which include cost cutters for cell phone plans, gas stations, and credit cards — you’ll be right at home here. To get started, BillShrink asks you where you’re currently keeping your money, as well as the amount that’s in your account. → Read More
Although the iPod and iPhone are versatile gaming platforms, gamers have been skeptical for a number of reasons. No buttons, to start, and no room for serious assets (though recent games have really been pushing the limits). That doesn’t appear to be stopping Apple from pushing the iPod touch as a gaming device in this clever ad on IGN. → Read More
No, it’s not a physical manifestation of a computer virus. Made by Japanese artist Mio I-zawa, the mechanical tumor serves as the most biological CPU meter ever seen. → Read More
That fact that Apple has rehired Michael Tchao, one of the original Newton developers, is likely to stir up stories and posts about the Apple tablet. But the man has had a storied past in the CE field and Apple might have brought him back on board after a 15 year hiatus just because of his impressive resume. Or they need help on the Apple tablet marketing. Actually, that’s probably exactly why Apple needs him back. → Read More
The Kindle DX might be a good e-book, but the consensus among students at Princeton is that it is a very poor replacement for real books. Very poor, sir.
It’s not secret that students make a holy mess of their books, annotating, dog-earing, doodling in the margins — and none of that is easy (if it’s even possible) on the Kindle, or any other e-book at the moment. Sure, if all you need to do is read plain-text book, it’s handy. But what about diagrams? Full-color illustrations? Scratch-and-sniff patches?
The Kindle is, in its current form, “a poor excuse of an academic tool,” according to Aaron Horvath, Princeton class of 2010. (I think our Ivy League correspondent meant a poor excuse for an academic tool) → Read More
Thermaltake is one of my personal favorite case makers, I’ve owned a few of their products in my time, but this Level 10 is exceptional. Announced at CeBit in March, the Level 10 was designed with the help of BMW DesignWorks, and it is amazing. MaximumPC got one first, but they were kind enough so share some unboxing pictures with the world. → Read More
Remember the littlest drill in the world? Well it’s now available for purchase. Sure, €85 seems a bit much to pay for a drill that won’t put a hole in anything, but let’s face it, we’ve all spent more on less at some time or another. Buy it here, but expect a couple weeks for construction and shipping. → Read More
The iPhone has all the ingredients necessary to build the first popular location-based game that combines the real world with fantasy — a scenario long dreamt of by gamers. A handful of games like Parallel Kingdom have gotten some traction, but they have yet to really catch on on a large scale. And while Foursquare has gotten quite a bit of attention, particularly in tech circles, its gameplay elements are very rudimentary. Now a new game called gpsAssassin may have struck gold by fusing location and the popular campus game Assassins with the text-based games that have become immensely popular on social networks, Twitter, and the iPhone.
Founder Nicholas Holland says that he’s had some difficulty describing the game, largely because it looks very much iMob, Mafia Wars, and similar games that don’t rely on your location when you play them. And while gpsAssassin may share some of the same mechanics with these — it’s primarily text based with leveling, attack/armor ratings, and other key RPG elements — its location features turn it into a different beast entirely. → Read More
I’ve just hooked up the LifeCam Cinema to my desktop, and thought an SD comparison was in order. In a stroke of genius, I attached the LifeCam to the top of my Mac so it and my iSight were pretty much aligned — though not so much that it’s seamless. I did a little video so you can compare color, fidelity, and all that. → Read More
We’re used to seeing this message flash across the Apple Store every time Steve Jobs graces the stage – but on a random evening at the beginning of the work week? That’s a bit strange. Any guesses as to what’s in the oven? The latest whispers around the Interwebs all suggest that iMac and MacBook revisions are on the way – but they weren’t expected to trickle out for a few more days. Might they be sneaking out a bit early? Perhaps. Might Apple just be adjusting their gradient-y drop shadows and bumping some margins? Perhaps. We’ll see soon enough. Update: It was something along the lines of the second one. It just came back up and, as far as we can tell, nothing changed. Let us know if we missed something. → Read More
After Google dropped the L-bomb on Cyanogen, he reportedly opened up talks with the boys in Goo. It sounds like they may have finally reached a compromise in their little disagreement. Is it a good thing? Maybe, maybe not. → Read More
Ever since the DirecTV‘s CEO stepped down back in July, there has been talk about someone buying up the satellite TV provider. The latest analysis chatter states Verizon might pick up DirecTV to dramatically increase its marketshare overnight. The purchase would make Verizon second only to Comcast in subs when the DirecTV customer base is added to Verizon’s current FiOS subscribers and supercharge Verizon’s influence on the market. → Read More
EnticeLabs, the Provo, Utah startup behind job ad network TalentSeekr, raised $2 million in a strategic seed round led by First Advantage, a publicly traded company which a recruiting arm. Existing angel investors, including Omniture co-founders Josh James and John Pestana, also invested. The company previously raised $1.3 million from angels two years ago.
The company’s main product is an ad network for job recruiting called TalentSeekr. Employment ads are placed across the Web on social networks, industry forums, and blogs, where they are tested and optimized. It tries to target the most qualified job candidates where they naturally hang out online, instead of targeting only the unemployed on job boards. TalentSeekr is in private beta, but some companies already trying it out include IBM, GE, Dell, and Google → Read More
The latest version of the WebOS was released today, with some minor improvements to the bluetooth, email, and the calendar. They still haven’t worked out that pesky iTunes problem though.
As far as updates go, this one isn’t terribly exciting. Palm added support to phone downloads from the Amazon music store (you used to have to use WiFi), backed up your bookmarks to your profile (so you won’t lose them if something bad happens), added a location feature to the calendar function, and added the ability to search to your emails based on the folder. → Read More
Ever since I got it, the album art for Cul de Sac’s Death of the Sun has intrigued me. I’m ignorant of 19th-century landscape painters, which is as far as I could nail the style down, and after extensive Googling I could find nothing on it at all. Ten years ago I would be SOL. But today the whole internet is a community, and you’re only one step away from the answer to your question, whether you know it or not.
I think it’s worth celebrating every once in a while when something goes exactly right on the ol’ internet. Here’s one that happened to me lately. → Read More
API aggregation platform Gnip is laying off 7 out of its 12 employees, or 60 percent of the startup’s staff, we’ve confirmed with CEO and co-founder Eric Marcoullier. He says that Gnip is planning to hire an engineer in the near future, which will bring the final count back up to six employees. We’ve added the cuts to our Layoff Tracker.
Gnip serves as an API hub, collecting data from services like Twitter, Facebook and Digg, and pushing it out to other data-consuming services and Websites. Data consuming sites using Gnip’s platform can get public data streams for over 30 social media networks and sites, including Twitter, Digg, Delicious, YouTube, WordPress, Flickr, Six Apart and others without ever visiting those sites or accessing their individual APIs.
Marcoullier says the reduction in headcount is necessary to streamline the business. Orginally, Gnip tried to build its own database, but it has seen a massive influx of data to the system, which Marcoullier estimates at around 150 million Tweets, status updates, Diggs and bookmarks pulled into the platform per day. Gnip has been forced to restart from the ground up when it comes to building a database that can be a central part of Gnip’s platform. It is abandoning its own effort and will move to an existing database that can be integrated into its service. → Read More
Social media applications are increasingly abstracted from their web-app roots, be it in Adobe air or an iPhone app. Devices like the Chumby have made some inroads towards completely breaking something like Facebook away from your desktop, but they haven’t been popular enough or good enough to catch on. I doubt that will change too much with the Lighthouse SQ7, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong. It’s just that incorporating voice recognition technology into your device seems like overreaching, as cool as it would be if it worked.
At any rate, it’s good to see companies still plugging away at what seems like a sort of awkward tweener device, but honestly, one I might like to have around. A combination alarm clock, social media doodad, and lightweight browser — fitting somewhere on the twisted continuum between tablet computer and digital picture frame. → Read More
The Nintendo Wii is finally $199. We knew the price cut was coming and are glad it’s here. But now that the MSRP is only $199, online retailers and brick and mortar stores have the opportunity to sweeten the deal. We’ve done some searching and have the best deals after the jump. → Read More
I was just installing some software for this new LifeCam HD when I saw this picture. That looks familiar, I thought. In fact it’s more than familiar, I was just there. And I’ve met that girl (very attractive in real life). But why in the world is Microsoft taking candid photos at Bauhaus? → Read More
