Steve O’Hear is probably best known as a technology journalist, currently at TechCrunch where he focuses mainly on European startups, companies and products.
He was previously co-founder and CEO of expertise platform Beepl where he helped the company navigate its first VC round, along with seeing the product through development, private alpha and a high profile public launch. In November 2012, Beepl was acquired by Brand Embassy.
Along with TechCrunch, Steve has written for numerous publications, including ZDNet (where he wrote the blog ‘The Social Web’), The Guardian, Macworld, Mobile Industry Review, TES, Last100 and ReadWriteWeb. Steve also wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Silicon Valley documentary ‘In Search of the Valley’, which was released in September 2006.
In 2002 Steve was made a fellow of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. He’s also one half of ProtoBake Labs, an ‘ideas incubator’ he co-founded with Pete Harris.
Launching today is Cookening, a new French startup co-founded by Cédric Giorgi (previously co-editor of TechCrunch France) that combines elements of both Airbnb and Housebites. Starting with France first, a country known for its gastronomy, it enables locals to be matched with tourists so they can invite them into their homes to experience an authentic home dining experience. → Read More
Chalk this up as one to watch closely in the world of consumer fintech. Numbrs, a mobile-first banking app founded out of Swiss company builder Centralway, has raised 7.5 million Swiss francs (~$7.7 million) from its parent, capital it will use to build on its pending German launch, with the UK and Swiss markets up next, followed by Singapore and Hong Kong. → Read More
Brow.si, a new product from MySiteApp, is launching in open beta today as an add-on for mobile websites that promises to bring a number of features to rival the engagement of native apps. These include social sharing, a read it later button, subscriptions, and push notifications (sort of). Developers can also create additional extensions for the Brow.si platform to add further desktop web/app-like… → Read More
In what is effectively a follow-on round, Brightpearl, the cloud software provider for multichannel retailers, has raised $8 million in Series B funding from previous backers Eden Ventures and Notion Capital. Both Eden and Notion seed-backed the UK company, before adding a further $5 million Series A in May 2011. This brings the total raised by Brightpearl to $14.5 million. → Read More
It’s nice to see a startup trying something different and garnering some promising traction along the way. The UK’s Bloom.fm is a mobile-first music streaming service — it currently exists as an iOS app only — that launched four months ago out of the ashes of the deadpooled music social network mflow. → Read More
YouLike, a startup backed by the founders of Turkish eBay clone GittiGidiyor (which in 2011 was acquired by the online auction giant for $217 million), describes itself as an interest-based social network and dating site that takes into account a user’s dislikes, as much as what they do like, when helping to find like-minded people to friend or date. → Read More
BonitaSoft, a provider of an open source business process management (BPM) solution, has raised a $13 million Series C round led by the FSN PME Fund, a French government initiative to invest in technology companies to help them scale globally. Also joining the round are previous investors Ventech, Auriga Partners, and Serena Capital. The new funding round brings the total raised by the company to… → Read More
VERSUS IO, the natural language-styled comparison engine backed by Dave McClure (amongst others), has closed a $2.8 million Series A round led by Earlybird Venture Capital. McClure’s 500 Startups also participated, as did Hightech-Gruenderfonds, Lars Dittrich, and Dario Suter. → Read More
As online advertising transitions from desktop to mobile, it stands that startups operating in the wider mobile ad ecosystem are well-placed to benefit. To that end, click-to-call startup Freespee is announcing a neat tie-in today with Nasdaq OMX, Stockholm-listed Tradedoubler that will see the performance marketing network offer advertisers clickable phone numbers and, crucially, call tracking… → Read More
Rushmore.fm, a new London-based startup founded by Fictive Kin and Betaworks, is de-cloaking somewhat today with what sounds like the rather lofty but noble mission to fix the music industry. Described as a “music ecosystem”, the (currently) invite-only site initially consists of a Wikipedia-like music resource where you’re encouraged to contribute and follow content, although the site’s broader… → Read More
Here’s some encouraging news for the European startup scene, and London in particular. TransferWise, the online currency exchange that uses the crowd to undercut traditional money transfer services, has announced that it’s closed a $6 million series A round led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures — the first investment in Europe by the PayPal co-founder and early Facebook investor’s international… → Read More
Today UK startup VirtualMob is officially launching its Augmented Reality self-service — Point-at-Me (PAM) — which mixes drag ‘n’ drop content creation, e-commerce, and analytics in a bid to make it even easier for companies to get in on the AR action. → Read More
After reading about WeatherSignal, a new project from London startup OpenSignal which makes use of the latest sensors in smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 to crowdsource weather information, I was reminded that I recently caught wind of Shaka, an Estonian startup that has built a wind meter accessory for iOS. → Read More
Since launching in 2010, HealthTap has been on a mission to bring the proverbial “house call” back to healthcare — virtually speaking, of course. With more than 80 percent of people turning to online resources (and to Dr. Google) for health-related information — from insurance to basic diagnostics — HealthTap set out to give people a better alternative to using Google or WebMD for their health… → Read More
More VC money sloshing around Europe. Creandum, the Stockholm-based VC best known for its early investments in the likes of Spotify and Videoplaza, has closed its third fund at €135 million (~$177m), laying claim to being the biggest technology venture capital fund in the Nordics. → Read More
Australian startup Tapestry, which makes an app for Android tablets to help seniors stay connected to family members, has raised $400,000 in new funding in the form of a grant from Commercialisation Australia — capital it will use to extend its wares to iOS (and beyond tablets), add additional community features, and gear up for a U.S. launch. → Read More
Inventure-backed Froont has launched in public beta today with a web-based tool that aims to make it easy for designers to create, prototype and share responsive website designs, without the need to code. In fact, Froont offers the potential to leave developers out of the design (and even prototyping) process altogether, which in some cases may be a very good thing. → Read More
Well, what do we have here? Somewhat under the radar, Google has hired the computer games veteran Noah Falstein to the position of Chief Game Designer. Yes, that’s right, the search giant, not normally known for its games development, appears to have a major gaming project in circulation, at least something that requires someone as experienced as Falstein at its helm. → Read More
I’m pretty much out of superlatives when writing about Dylan Collins’ latest venture. Box of Awesome, which we previously described as a “free Birchbox for kids“, has acquired trading community Swapit. The newly formed company, which Collins says is now the leading kids and teens discovery platform in the UK, is to be called SuperAwesome. → Read More
23snaps, one of a number of mobile apps that target parents who want to share photos, videos and updates of their children within a private social network, has flicked the monetization switch today. It’s launched an on-demand printing feature within the app to let users turn their uploaded photos into a physical printed product — both photo books and individual prints. → Read More
Finnish startup M-Files, a provider of a metadata-powered content management solution targeting the enterprise, has closed a €6 million (~$7.8m) series A round led by DFJ Esprit, with participation from Finnish Industry Investment. It says it will use the fresh injection of capital to fuel its growth plans in the U.S., and bolster sales and marketing via partner channels globally. → Read More
There are an abundance of startups trying to solve the problem of how to “try on” clothes online, with a range of different approaches and technology. Today, Virtusize launches its virtual fitting solution in the UK via a partnership with ASOS. After a successful six month trial, the “Fit Vitualiser” button is initially being rolled out on the product pages of over 2,000 of the online fashion… → Read More
Sherpa, the virtual personal assistant for Android (and indirect competitor to Apple’s Siri), has launched in the UK, albeit in requisite Beta. It follows the original Spanish version released in October 2012, which has since seen it claim 400,000 downloads to become the No. 1 virtual assistant on Android in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. Meanwhile, Sherpa made its U.S. debut earlier… → Read More
TechStars London, the UK outpost of uber-accelerator TechStars, has announced that its found a permanent home at newly-established Warner Yard, a co-working space owned by early-stage fund Playfair Capital. It follows the recent news that TechStars London has been approved as a Recognised Seed Competition, smoothing the way for participants to qualify for a UK Entrepreneur Visa. → Read More
Today, Nutrino sees its official launch with a virtual nutritionist app for iOS that provides personalised meal recommendations based on a user’s profile, goals, habits and taste. It also includes a grocery list component, which at launch ties into major UK supermarket chains, in addition to support for Withings wireless scales to save on manual data entry. → Read More
We’d been hearing for a while that Storybricks, the AI gaming startup co-founded by serial entrepreneur Rodolfo Rosini, had picked up a major client win since pivoting to license its technology to games studios. We just didn’t say who. Today, the cat is out of the bag. Storybricks has confirmed that it is collaborating with Sony Online for EverQuest Next, the latest sequel to the highly successful… → Read More
The idea of matching prospective dates based on shared interests is about as old as dating itself. But understanding how one set of interests relate to another, certainly at scale, is arguably something that machines can do a lot more efficiently than humans, so why not harness that capability for match-making purposes. Loveflutter, which soft-launched in New York last month, and gets a UK push… → Read More
Snap a photo of the item you want to sell, write a short description, and set a price. Sounds familiar, right? After soft-launching in Italy where it was incubated, Depop gets its official launch today with an iOS app that, at first glance, is the spitting image of other “flea market” mobile apps. However, the company says that its ultimate competitor is probably Ebay, while it also has vintage… → Read More
Fiz, the UK startup behind the “social discovery” app for iOS and Android that helps you find places based on things to do, has closed a seed round totalling £200,000 (~$305k) to further develop its platform and build its community. The service is targeted at anyone planning their leisure time by consolidating the information they need in a single app. → Read More
Sush.io, a yet-to-launch “smart” dashboard to help individuals and small businesses track online/SaaS expenditure, has raised $325,000 in seed funding led by France-based Kima Ventures. Also participating in the round is Venteprivee.com founder, Jacques-Antoine Granjon, French Accelerator 50 Partners, and Mediastay co-founder Jonathan Zisermann. → Read More
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