Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations in Europe.
He is also the founder and on the steering committee of Coadec, the Coalition for a Digital Economy, which works to lobby for legislation that fosters a sustainable and innovative digital economy for the UK. Mike also serve on the Mayor of London’s Smart London Board, advising on Smart Cities and Entrepreneurship.
He is a former editor of New Media Age magazine, the leading new media weekly in the UK, and the European edition of The Industry Standard magazine. Since 1996 he has launched or re-launched numerous media web sites and in 2000 he was nominated as NetMedia’s European Internet Journalist of the Year.
In 2004 he was voted ‘One of the 100 Innovators of the UK Internet Decade’ by GfK NOP, the fourth-largest custom research business in the world. In July 2008 he named as one of the Top 100 people in London’s creative industry by The Independent newspaper. In August 2008 TechCrunch’s European coverage was honoured in the the best “Web 2.0 and business blog” category by Computer Weekly magazine. In 2009 it was named as one of the Top 10 blogs out of the UK. In 2009 Mike was named one of the Top 10 bloggers on Twitter in the UK. In October 2009 he was named one of the Top 50 most influential Britons in technology by The Daily Telegraph. In April 2010 he was named as one of Britain’s Top 100 “digital power-brokers” by Wired UK magazine. In April 2010 TechCrunch Europe was shortlisted in the Specialist Digital Publisher category of the prestigious UK-based Association of Online Publishers’ Digital Publishing Awards. In November 2010 Mike was named as one of London’s most influential people in New Media and “king of dotcom commentators ” by The Evening Standard Newspaper, and again in 2011.
He has spoken at the prestigious Monaco Media Forum and Le Web, among many other conferences, and is a Davos / World Economic Forum “Media Leader”. Mike is a regular commentator on the technology business, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4 and Bloomberg. Personal blog: mbites.com. Twitter: @mikebutcher. Facebook.com/mikebutcher. Google+: Gplus.to/mikebutcher
Mike supports and works with:
Apps For Good: A non-profit which aims to ignite a passion for technology and social enterprise in young people in the UK.
TeenTech: Which runs events to help young teenagers see career possibilities in Science, Engineering and Technology.
Coderdojo: Free not-for-profit coding clubs and regular sessions for young people in the UK, Ireland and US.
Young Rewired State: The philanthropic arm of Rewired State – which aims to foster the young children and teenagers who will become tomorrow’s technology stars.
Disclosures (reviewed, approved and signed off by TechCrunch/AOL): I’m a Co-founder and 50% owner of a co-working space in London, TechHub, established because it solved a problem for startups back in 2009, and today (I’m a strategic adviser only – not operational or ‘commercial’). I’m an adviser on content to the “London Web Summit” annual conference. I’m the founder and chair of “The Europas” annual tech startups awards. I’m on the advisory board of The Coalition For A Digital Economy, a UK non-profit which argues for a ‘digital first’ approach to business legislation. I’m an advisor to Seedrs.com, a crowd funding platform, but I maintain journalistically independent views on crowd-funding. I hold 11 shares in BT which makes about $10 a year in dividends and I can’t be bothered to cancel.
It was only in March that one of Russia’s hottest startups — hotels booking service Ostrovok.ru – raised $25 million in a Series B round led by billionaire investor Yuri Milner. We said at the time that this market is very capital-intensive, especially in a market like Russia. But today we learn just how difficult this might be in the mid-term. Today the company has announced on their blog… → Read More
Calling all startups from Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We want you. For the very first time, the full TechCrunch Disrupt conference (complete with the main TechCrunch Editors and Writers) is coming to Europe and we’re looking for the very best startups to launch on our Disrupt stage as part of the world-famous Startup Battlefield. The winner gets a shiny Disrupt Cup, $50,000 cash, and a… → Read More
Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and the Commissioner for Europe’s Digital Agenda has vowed to protect EU citizens from privacy invasion by outside entities like the PRISM monitoring program run by the NSA. Speaking to TechCrunch TV (interview above) at Founders Forum, an annual meeting of global entrepreneurs, Kroes said “We need to protect our people.” She said the EU… → Read More
One of the areas of the tech scene in the UK which has received a lot of enthusiasm in the UK has been social entrepreneurship, especially in tech. But until now, not a great deal of money has gone into the area. That changes today with a new initiative from Founders Forum for Good, the entrepreneur organisation, and the Nominet Trust non-profit. Launched today by Annika Small, CEO of Nominet… → Read More
Codecademy has been a huge story in the last couple of years. Now a new player is emerging with a complimentary real-world model. Code Club, a UK network of volunteer led after school coding clubs, is launching a new open source Code Club World framework to give every child in the world the chance to learn to code. This will provide project materials and a volunteering framework to support the… → Read More
You might not have heard of Spanish social network Tuenti, but it was acquired by Telefonica back in 2010 for $99 million and has garnered over 14 million users. Since then it’s opened up to worldwide users in most languages, launched new apps (Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Firefox OS) and moved heavily into messaging. → Read More
The sheer amount of media produced by film makers, advertisers and ad agencies is exploding. And of course, literally everything from a TV ad to an app like Angry Birds needs a soundtrack. That means money. So-called ‘synch deals’ with this soundtrack music grew in 2011 by 5.7 per cent to US$342 million according to one estimate. Music licensing is a market worth at least $6bn globally. But at the… → Read More
Back in 2010 SundaySky raised $9 million in a Series B to develop its technology capable of extracting content from any website and molding it into videos created on-the-fly. This enables consumer brands to engage people with personalized, real-time video. It’s clearly a hot area. Now another Tel-Aviv company is emerging with a competing product. Idomoo has now closed a $9 million funding round… → Read More
The European Commission today outlined its concerns regarding the widely reported Prism surveillance programme run by the NSA. The Commission plans to raise the Prism matter with US authorities “at the earliest possible opportunity” and will “request clarifications as to whether access to personal data within the framework of the Prism program is limited to individual cases and based on concrete… → Read More
Fab, the design powerhouse, appears to be going, shall we say, gang-busters in Europe. Figures released to us indicate that design-conscious Europe is becoming a crucial cost center, and may even affect the future direction of the startup that has raised $171m in funding to date. → Read More
Breather is a new startup billed as a sort of “Zipcar for rooms”. Announced at the LeWeb conference in London and due to launch later this year, it’s closed $1.5 million in funding from Canadian VC Real Ventures, along with Gary Vaynerchuk, Loic Le Meur, Mike Walsh and others. The idea is to have a network of well-kept rooms – sort of mini business lounges – which a user can unlock with a… → Read More
Larry Harvey is the main co-founder of the Burning Man festival, while John Perry Barlow is a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead and a founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. We caught up with both men at Le Web London to discuss some of the intellectual underpinnings of startup entreprepreneurship have parallels with Burning Man in what might be their first ever joint interview. → Read More
With Google dominant in so many markets, one would thing that search is kind’ve ‘done’. Of course, we have yet to really tap into social search, and Facebook Graph search is showing a clear direction. But traditional Web search could still be re-imagined. That is what Russian based search giant Yandex plans to do from today. They feel there should be way more functionality to search terms. If you… → Read More
Le Web London features, just like other tech events, lots of startups. We did an eight-minute run-through of the startups in the competition here and came up with a few gems. Here’s a run down of those competing. → Read More
Long-time analyst and noted commentator Jeremiah Owyang, partner at research company Altimeter Group, spoke at Le Web in London today about the so-called ‘sharing economy’ and had a few home truths to impart, especially to big businesses being disrupted by startups. → Read More
It seems all you tech people are obsessed with making conferences work better, perhaps because you seem to go to a lot? Thus there are numerous ‘conference startups’. There are apps to schmooze at the event itself, like Bizzabo, Presdo, Oleapark, Shpare, Schmooze, CrowdVine, Eventasaur and Omyconf, not to mention generic location-based networking apps like Highlig.ht, Sonar, Ban.jo and Intro. And… → Read More
A massive anti-government protest in Istanbul, prompted after days of unrest were sparked by plans to redevelop one of the last remaining central public parks, appears to have lead to a throttling of social media both in the city and across Turkey. TechCrunch has independently verified via a number of sources that both Facebook and Twitter have been almost impossible to access from inside… → Read More
During the height of the Cold War the Soviet Union built up a network of “Naukograd” or “Science Cities”. These were state-created clusters of scientists working on technologies that could help it compete with the West, especially in the field of nuclear weapons and space exploration. Those days are of course long gone, but today Russia – though now freed from the days of the old USSR – now faces… → Read More
Calling startups from London to Lyon, from Tel Aviv to Trondheim, from Amsterdam to Athens: We want you. For the very first time, TechCrunch Disrupt is coming to Europe and we’re looking for the very best startups to launch on our Berlin stage.
Startup Battlefield is the heart and soul of our conferences. Such companies as Yammer, Dropbox, FitBit, Swype and hundreds more have launched from… → Read More
Everything.me is a clever app that lets users search for specific content across both native and mobile apps. The app, available in beta, is a replacement app launcher and home screen for Android devices. It simply makes apps appear that are relevant to your request. From there you can download the relevant content or apps. It’s launching its app in the UK and Spain tomorrow. → Read More
If there’s one thing we know about the explosion in the use of tablets like the iPad, it’s that people have been increasingly using them to consume video content. However, hard data on this has come in only dribs and drabs. Now a video platform which works with major publishes has released data which shows just how big tablet consumption of video is. → Read More
We’re all familiar with the bill shock associated with roaming abroad with our cellphones. There are plenty of players that allow you to swap out your SIM card and use cheaper traffic, including Cubic Telecom. However, that process is tedious. So Cubic has secured new funding to enable a range of tablets and notebooks to have their technology built into partner devices. To do this they’ve raised a… → Read More
A new report commissioned from research giant GfK claims that the growth of the high density cluster of technology companies in East London (dubbed Tech City by the UK government) is being “stunted” by a talent shortage and lack of access to capital. The ‘Tech Futures Report’ – commissioned by publishing company TechCityInsider and sponsored by accountant Grant Thornton, recruitment firm Vitamin… → Read More
While the world goes gaga for Google Glass, a small startup has come up with an intriguing new take on a device which can display information before your eyes. Instabeat is head-up display unit which attaches to swimming goggles and monitors your heart rate, calories, laps and turns during your swim. It’s been live on crowd funding platform Indiegogo for a few days and is already poised to reach… → Read More
ShapeUp Club is a startup out of Stockholm which has been making waves recently with a lot of under-the-radar growth. Originally built back in 2008 as a side project, it’s morphed into an interactive calorie counter on iPhone, Android, and web. You get a personal weight loss plan, can track nutrition, exercise and weight. Ok, so it might not sound original set against the likes of bigger players… → Read More
Last week we reported that Facebook is in advanced talks to buy Israel-born social traffic and mapping app Waze for up to $1 billion, but that there were still some questions over whether Waze’s R&D efforts would remain in their home country, or move over with the rest of the team, which is in California, to Facebook’s HQ. → Read More
Today in interesting moves comes the news that serial entrepreneur-turned-investor Russell Buckley – who was first employee at AdMob (which sold to Google) is joining the UK government to accelerate its policies around startups, mainly funding. Specifically, he’s joining the UK Government’s Venture Capital Unit. The Unit, launched last year, is designed to help UK companies attract funding from… → Read More
There’s something about soccer (and as a Brit, by that I mean football, puh-lease…) that seems to have captured investors’ imaginations of late. Case in point: FTBpro, a large fan-generated content platform, has now secured $5.8 million from Battery Ventures and Gemini Israel Ventures to fund global expansion.
The site currently has 20 million monthly page views, over 1,000 contributing fan… → Read More
This October we’re looking forward to bringing you a full-blown, all-hands-on-deck, TechCrunch Disrupt Europe in Berlin, the only Disrupt conference outside North America. This will feature the biggest stars of Silicon Valley meeting with the biggest stars of the European and emerging markets tech scenes. Meanwhile, we’ve begun working with local partners to bring you country-based events. These… → Read More
Facebook’s social graph went missing from yesterday’s update to Path’s smartphone app, and Facebook now confirms it has restricted Path’s API access. Path can no longer look up your Facebook friends, which prevents it from sending them invitations or suggesting you follow them. The damaging blow to Path’s growth may be in response to Path spamming user’s contacts with invites last week. → Read More
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