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.
The hype about the Berlin tech startup scene has continued this year, but as 2013 ebbs into spring, many are asking the same question: When will the hype turn into real results? As many of my contacts said to me on a recent visit: what we need in Berlin for all this hype to be real is a big exit. The most recent evidence that Berlin is capable of producing a decent startup exit is the sale of… → Read More
Back in November last year image giant Corbis acquired Demotix, the crowd-sourced breaking news picture and video agency which had launched in 2008. We present for you a lighting fast ‘exit Q&A’ with founder and former CEO Turi Munthe, who has since left to pursue new projects. → Read More
Songza, a free streaming music service that has expert-made playlists and runs on the web and various touch screen platforms, raised $3.8 million according to a SEC filing. While Amazon has long been an “unconfirmed” investor listed on AngelList, it parlayed its investment in the earlier Aime St vehicle into Songza. In late 2011 the startup closed what was reportedly a ‘seven-figure’ round of… → Read More
While world of Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games has ballooned in the last few years, the content available to people who’d rather not play a character from Western-inspired troops beating the crap out of some vague Eastern enemy has been somewhat limited. Culture is important, right? Which is why ‘Knights of Glory‘ – a sort of ‘Arabian Knights’ inspired MMO where warring Sultans of old… → Read More
We have not seen a hell of a lot of innovation in the ticketing space for a while. Granted, Eventbrite has done some great things in this arena, but Amiando, for instance, seems to be withering on the vine now that the founders have long gone. So it’s interesting to see brand new start-up Tito.io have a crack at this issue after a stealth/private beta in which it claims to have already processed… → Read More
With the relative decline of Plancast and Upcoming, the Lanyrd startup has solidly stepped in to the breach, aggregating content around speakers, attendees, venues, books, video and anything to do with conferences. It’s also benefitted from the shut down of the LinkedIn Events application. Now all it has to do is work out a business model. Well, today it does the big reveal on that, announcing the… → Read More
This week Japanese tech giant Fujitsu acquired an obscure French company called RunMyProcess for an undisclosed amount. This “integration Platform as a Service” (iPaaS) company offered a platform to allow businesses to build and deploy business workflow apps in the cloud using simple drag and drop functionality. It sounds mundane enough, but the acquisition looks like being yet another pointer to… → Read More
Hey folks. This is just a little reminder that early-bird ticket sales for Disrupt NY (April 27 – May 1) and Hackathon end on Thursday April 11. So grab yours today. We’d also like to remind you that TechCrunch Disrupt Europe: Berlin will be held, of course, in Berlin, Germany. This will be TechCrunch’s only conference outside North America this year and we hope to make it as international as… → Read More
In a widely rumored move, serial entrepreneur and investor Max Niederhofer has left his Vice President position at Accel Partners in Europe but not – as some thought – to create another startup, but to join another VC firm. This time, however, he will be a full venture partner with Sunstone Capital working out of Copenhagen. He will focus on early stage technology investments and support existing… → Read More
Somo, the UK’s largest independent mobile marketing agency, has secured a second investment round led by MMC Ventures and participated in by existing investors. While we normally don’t bother with investments where terms are undisclosed, it’s worth noting that Somo, while it’s a large independent mobile agency, is also rapidly developing a reputation as a ‘product Lab’ than simply pure agency. → Read More
London is about to get a shot in the arm as a hub for UK and European technology startups that choose to HQ themselves there. For a long time the funding problem for startups here was at the Seed stage. That pain has been greatly eased in the last few years with multiple seed and early stage funding sources appearing such as Passion Capital, EC1 Capital, Playfair Capital and Hoxton Ventures for… → Read More
Just this week Rosetta Stone acquired Seattle-based online language-learning community Livemocha for $8.5 million in cash. At exit Livemocha had a 16 million member online language-learning community. It had also raised $19 million over six years. But today Busuu, a competing language-learning community based out of London, announces that it has reached 30 million users and its launched a… → Read More
Nutmeg is a UK-based online investment management startup backed by the likes of Tim Draper and intends to pull of something of a bank-job by disrupting the world of financial investing, and it has some heavyweights to help it. It launched last year after raising $5.3 million from Pentech, Tim Draper, Spotify board member Klaus Hommels and Armada Investment Group chairman Daniel Aegerter. Clearly… → Read More
The recession has fuelled a boom in mobile workers as businesses down-size to consultants and freelancers. So there has clearly been an upsurge in platforms to aggregate that talent in marketplaces. Back in 2009 Daniel Callaghan and Adam Riccoboni created MBA & Company to aggregate all those business school graduates who have no doubt found that its easier to consult than it is to fight over… → Read More
Not to be out-done by Payleven, iZettle and all the other Square clones out there, Italian mobile POS startup Jusp has now secured a $6 million equity round with two Italian VCs, making it one of the biggest rounds in Italy this year. The round was led by Principia Sgr together with Vertis Sgr with the participation of some Angel Investors: Stefano Calderano (previously BNP Paribas and Intesa)… → Read More
Tableau Software in Seattle recently released a new data visualisation platform with new APIs. But it wasn’t in the cloud and we were, er, unimpressed. Meanwhile, Ducksboard in Spain is trying to disrupt the space with its own real-time dashboard for tracking internal metrics and web services. But now there’s a new kid on the block which might just overtake both of these players as is aiming… → Read More
Nimbuzz, which has become a major mobile messaging application for emerging markets like India, is making a more aggressive moves into smartphone platforms. Today it announces the release of its app for Windows Phone 8. This will take advantage of the platform’s Live Tiles and locked home screen notifications, although in fairness it’s biggest growth platform remains Android and its core base of… → Read More
If there’s one thing tech nerds need more than anything else it’s style – these days, warmth. Which is why TechCrunch’s European team (Ingrid, Mike, Natasha and Steve) are excited to announce the launch of our very own range of softwear: Unerdwear. Knowing that Europe’s weather is starting to resemble a feature-length episode of Game Of Thrones (Winter is coming… it’s still here… when will it… → Read More
A new kind of tech accelerator has launched in one of the more unlikely places: the Italian Alps. TechPeaks (see what they did there?) calls itself a “People Accelerator” because individuals and teams will be able to join it without an idea but a desire to build something. It will launch with €13 million in funding. It’s also taking more of a partnership rather than competitive approach, working… → Read More
It’s often difficult to discern the mind of Yuri Milner. Despite building his investments out of Russia initially, he hasn’t invested in a startup there for over there years. What’s luring him back? No doubt the enormous growth and potential of the market there. So it’s not a huge surprise that he’s invested in one of Russia’s hottest startups today, hotels booking service Ostrovok.ru which has… → Read More
Things are moving fast in the world of Babbel, the language learning startup out of Germany which has been scaling its international presence since we first started covering them back in 2009. Today Babbel is announcing a $10 million Series B funding round led by Reed Elsevier Ventures. Other investors include Nokia Growth Partners as well as existing investors, IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft via… → Read More
Sitting in Snobar, a cool bar shaded by fir trees in deepest Ramallah, George Khadder is practically thumping the table as he speaks. A Palestinian who has worked in Silicon Valley, he talks passionately about his desire for Palestinian entrepreneurs to control their own destiny. “I came back from Silicon Valley because I believed I could affect change,” he tells me. It’s a sentiment that has been… → Read More
Here’s the rub. “Web 2.0″ was an idea which came about to describe the Web not just as a series of pages, but as a platform in its own right. And thus we have seen the rise of a new technology wave based entirely on that idea. But trapped inside the web is enormous amounts of data inside documents which has to some extent been forgotten about in our race to create new platforms. → Read More
BackupAgent, provider of cloud backup technology from The Netherlands, has won a $2 million investment round led by Runa Capital in Moscow to strengthen its global footprint and develop its platform. Previous investor Solid Ventures also participated in the financing. → Read More
Videdressing, a ‘social fashion’ marketplace, has secured $6 million Series A in a funding round co-led by Earlybird Venture Capital, DN Capital and Piton Capital, who were joined by Generis Capital. Videdressing will use it to build its market share in France and go international with an English version of the French fashion site, which has acquired cult status. → Read More
Flattr launched back in July 2010 as a sort of ‘Facebook Like’ but with real money involved. A user that sets up a Flattr account pays a monthly fee — a minimum of $2 — that they are willing to contribute for any kind of online content. When the user finds something they like that has a Flattr button nearby, they can click the button to reward the content provider. The trouble is, flattr needs… → Read More
BraveNewTalent launched as a ‘social recruitment’ platform back in 2010 and went on to secure VC funding a year later. But last year saw the startup pivot in a big way. The original model was geared towards the idea that people would want to follow companies they might want to work for in the future, and companies in turn wanted to educate potential hires about how they work. If the… → Read More
Free messaging apps are a dime a dozen these days. There’s everything from Viber, to Skype, to WhatsApp to GroupMe. But while these startups concentrated on smartphone apps, it has been in the emerging markets that messaging over data has made a huge impression, and that has required paying attention to feature phones which use Java apps. We saw Saya.im appear only last year in Africa for… → Read More
While Foursquare has been concentrating on smartphones for some year now, much of the rest of the world has remained on a feature phone (though that of course is changing). So the opportunity to do location-based services has been limited – though not impossible. It has always been possible to triangulate a phones’ rough location based on the nearest three base stations using. So taking that idea… → Read More
Two Italian VC firms and an institutional player, Fondo Italiano di Investimento, have combined to form United Ventures, closing a first round of funding at €30 million ($39M). The new firm has set a fund-raising target of €50 million, with a term of ten years and brings together Annapurna Ventures, a firm founded by Massimiliano Magrini which has specialized in seed investing, and Jupiter… → Read More
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