Robin Wauters currently works as a staff writer for TechCrunch and lead editor of Virtualization.com.
Aside from his professional blogging activities, he’s an entrepreneur, event organizer, occasional board adviser and angel investor but most importantly an all-round startup champion.
Wauters lives and works in Belgium, a tiny country in Europe. He can often be found working from his home or from the Brussels-based BetaGroup Coworking Space, of which he is a patron.
Starting out as Internet marketing manager for a hosting and domain name registration services company called Hostbasket (acquired by Belgian ISP Telenet), Wauters has worked in the online media industry for many years, including gigs as online media manager for Datanews / VNUnet (acquired by Roularta).
He was one of the co-founders of social media agency Talking Heads until its acquisition by Netlash in 2010. He’s also a shareholder in a tech startup called Oxynade, which essentially helps publishers deploy a hyper-local strategy.
In 2007, he started Plugg, a one-day conference in Brussels aimed to raise awareness for Europe’s most promising Web / Mobile startups. He’s also the organizer of the OpenCoffee Club Brussels meetups.
He also mentors fledgling companies through the Founder Institute and Seedcamp.
He’s not particularly fond of mussels, waffles or sprouts for that matter. He’s a big fan of Belgian beer(s), though.
Don’t you just hate when you’re out skateboarding, minding your own business, and suddenly one of the wheels comes off and you break a kneecap? Well now there’s a new startup called BoardProspects, which aims to help companies build better boards. A quick glance at their website reveals that the company is not going to be able to solve your skateboarding woes, however, but it may help your business roll more smoothly.
If your company is in need of new members for the board of directors (cough Yahoo cough) or the advisory board (cough Honeywell cough), you may want to give Boston-based BoardProspects’ upcoming offering a second look. → Read More
Oracle this morning announced that it is acquiring cloud-based talent management solutions provider Taleo for $46 per share or roughly $1.9 billion, net of Taleo’s cash and debt. Taleo’s solutions basically help organizations attract, motivate and retain human capital, and will serve to boost Oracle’s Public Cloud offering. → Read More
Google has been going to great lengths to keep advertisers who sell counterfeit goods online out of its AdWords program, but as far as Montblanc, the Germany-based maker of ‘writing instruments’, watches, jewelry and whatnot, is concerned, they ought to be doing more.
Montblanc-Simplo GmbH, as the holding is called, is taking Google to court in an effort to obtain the identity of a certain – or more – persistent counterfeit goods seller(s).
TechCrunch has obtained the court documents, which make for an interesting read.
(More after the jump) → Read More
Here’s a puzzler. Back in September 2011, less than 6 months ago, Jesta Digital loudly committed $15 million to establish Jesta Labs, a New York-based mobile services startup incubator. Fast forward to today, and the incubator has vanished from the face of the planet. Their website has been taken down, and we hear pretty much everyone who had anything to do with Jesta Labs has moved on. → Read More
Sprint Nextel this morning released its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011 as well as the full-year results.
The company reported a net loss of $1.3 billion for the quarter, and $2.9 billion for the whole of 2011. → Read More
Vonage has been battling Skype for many, many years, but they’re not letting up now that the latter has been acquired by Microsoft. The Internet calling company, which came dangerously close to dying a few years ago, this morning launched a new Vonage Mobile app for iPhone and Android, offering free calls and texts to anyone who also has the app installed (as predicted a few weeks ago).
This is hardly the first time Vonage has debuted apps for smartphone platforms, but this one is definitely worth checking out. → Read More
Telecom expense management (TEM) solutions company Xigo, which Greg likened to a Billshrink for large companies, has been acquired by one of its partners, IT services and solutions provider Dimension Data for an undisclosed sum. → Read More
Here’s a roundup of recent stories on TechCrunch Europe:
— Internet publishing company Populis is expanding its network operations to South America with the acquisition of Cidade Internet, a popular Brazilian Web portal. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
— Moscow-based Heverest.ru, an online retailer of sportswear, leisure and travel goods, has scored $4.3 million in financing from an unnamed “large” Russian investment fund and previous backer eVenture Capital Partners, bringing its total raised to $6.7 million.
(More after the jump) → Read More
Jeff Atwood, the co-founder and CTO of Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites mostly about programming and gaming, and Stack Overflow, is stepping down from day-to-day operations at the beginning of next month. → Read More
Israeli startup Appoxee has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from early-stage investment firm Cyhawk Ventures.
The company offers a service that helps app developers and publishers increase user engagement through rich push notifications and helps them with things like audience segmentation, targeting, analytics and reporting.
Read more over at TechCrunch Europe. → Read More
Today, Rdio is releasing a brand new application for Android phones chock-full of fresh features, which is awesome. Mainly because it gives me an excuse to write up a rant I would have published at some point anyway. → Read More
Tsavo Media, which operates a network of roughly 300 websites and blogs as an indirect subsidiary of Canadian online publishing and advertising company Cyberplex, is being retroactively charged $4.8 million “over a reasonable time period” by Yahoo for sending the latter company’s advertisers “low quality traffic” in 2011.
To boot, Cyberplex president Ted Hastings (formerly Tsavo Media’s CEO), apparently jumped ship. → Read More
In an effort to expand its reach into the e-learning market, Kenexa, a publicly listed provider of business solutions for human resources and talent management, has agreed to acquire Boston-based OutStart. → Read More
Smartphones and tablets maker HTC this morning said it foresees a huge drop in revenue (PDF) in the first quarter, citing “short-term difficulties” as it gears up to – reportedly – launch four new phone models at the Mobile World Congress later this month.
The Taiwanese company sees revenue dropping as much as 36 percent in Q1, to between NT$65 billion and NT$70 billion (roughly $2.2 and $2.4 billion) due to this “product transition”. → Read More
BTjunkie, a popular BitTorrent search service, has been ‘voluntarily’ shut down by its operator(s). In a goodbye message, BTjunkie writes:
This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down.
Mobli, the startup behind the eponymous, much-hyped realtime photo and video sharing service, has struck a partnership with road racing cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong.
Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France champion, will be making use of a private Mobli channel to keep his fans and followers up-to-date on his life through videos, photos and whatnot. → Read More
Olery, an Amsterdam-based startup that offers reputation management and media monitoring tools for the leisure industry, has raised 750,000 euros ($1 million) to boost its international expansion and develop new products.
Founded in 2010, Olery offers simple online brand, reputation management and performance benchmarking tools for hotels that help turn online reviews and social media feedback into actionable business intelligence.
Read more at TechCrunch Europe. → Read More
Exclusive - On a mission to democratize e-commerce and help take the concept of social shopping from fad to reality, Shoply is making its formal debut today after a year of bootstrapping.
The bootstrapping days are over now, as Shoply has raised an undisclosed amount of seed financing from former Facebook VP Chamath Palihapitiya and serial entrepreneur / prolific angel investor Fabrice Grinda for its “Fab.com and Pinterest love child”. → Read More
Forgive me if you’ve seen this on Boing Boing yesterday already, but I’m always looking for interesting startups in the digital music space, and I think The Sound Supply‘s idea is, well, sound.
Basically, The Sound Supply bundles 10 DRM-free digital music albums and lets you buy the lot online for a mere $15. According to the website, all participating bands and artists – including the wonderful Sophie Madeleine and Colour Revolt – agreed to collectively share their music this way. → Read More
HouseParty.com, a site that helps people throw brand-sponsored home parties, has raised $5.3 million in Series C funding in a round led by New York-based Acadia Woods Partners. → Read More
