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.
It’s a given that startup life will often consist of putting out fires, but as a founder you least expect one to be started in the board room. That appears to be what’s happened in the case of mobile commerce startup MobiCart. In a Tweet earlier today the UK-based company’s founder Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine announced his resignation as CEO and with it his seat on the board. → Read More
BIG DATA costs big bucks. Perhaps then, it should be no surprise to see ERN, the London-based startup that’s planning to use Big Data to enable banks and merchants to create loyalty-based offers for cardholders, has announced that it’s raised more funding before actually managing to launch. Following a $2 million funding round raised last December, the company has added another $1.6 million in… → Read More
There’s some interesting news coming out of London today in the form of VC musical chairs. DFJ Esprit, the European VC firm that is also part of Silicon Valley’s DFJ Global Network, has announced that Associate Scott Sage has been promoted to full VC Partner. However, that isn’t the big story. In events that seem somewhat related, TechCrunch has learned that long-standing DFJ Esprit Partner Nic… → Read More
Hoping to lighten the recruitment burden for its portfolio companies, Passion Capital, the London-based early-stage VC, has announced that it’s hired ex-Facebooker Melissa Trahan to the new position of “Head of Talent”. → Read More
You’d think that social bookmarking as a startup opportunity has had its day. But in actual fact, linking to, and therefore sharing content, is built into the Web’s plumbing, while the success of Pinterest has no doubt inspired other startups to try their hand. One of those — at least on the surface — is Paris-based Minilogs. → Read More
Desktop virtualisation startup WorldDesk has raised $1.25 million in new funding, in what is effectively a follow-on round from existing backers Lough Shore Investments, the Belfast-based angel investment firm, and a number of unnamed California and New York-based angels. Today’s funding news also coincides with what WordDesk is describing as a “significant overhaul” of its free ‘WorldDesk for… → Read More
It’s often said that if you’re not on Facebook you don’t exist, so dominant in our social lives has the uber-social network become. Therefore, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that businesses — big and small — may feel the same way. Hoping to cash in on the rise of Facebook advertising is Stockholm-based Qwaya, which offers a cloud-based tool for SMEs to create, publish and measure the… → Read More
MyJobCompany is another take on the social recruitment idea. Its platform, which expanded beyond France and Latin America to the UK last week, enables anybody to become what it calls a “social headhunter” by recommending friends and acquaintances for a job. Or, put another way, by sending their social and professional networks job adverts, which if lead to a qualified application or actual… → Read More
The ability to drill-down and target specific groups of people on Facebook, based on their interests or affinity with a brand or its competitor’s, is sort of a given. On Twitter, however, it’s not so easy. That’s the hole that SocialBro wants to fill, along with educating companies on how the 140 character-driven social network can be used as a tool to do business. → Read More
This is pretty neat. OpenBrand, the UK/Czech startup that provides a ‘Dropbox for designers‘ and an online space for brands and agencies to manage brand-related design assets, has added the ability to generate “Live Comps”. What is a comp? Well, in this context, it’s referring to a composition that shows what a design will look like in the real world. → Read More
Playtox, the Russian developer of free-to-play mobile browser-based games, has closed a $3 million Series A round of funding from VC firm Runa Capital. The company said it will use the funding to expand on the startup’s massively multiplayer online (MMO) titles “globally,” including the U.S., as well as in emerging markets. → Read More
Swedish startup Dexplora is on a mission. Through its GetSalesDone mobile app and supporting service it wants to dramatically improve the User Experience of CRM systems, thus making data entry less of a chore and more accurate, and in doing so improve the sales bottom line. Much easier said than done, of course, but then this team has form. → Read More
Card.biz originally launched in Summer 2012 as a me-too offering along the lines of About.me. But as startups are wont to do, the Paris-based company, backed by Kima Ventures, has since pivoted to offer a service that enables companies to create an org chart and staff directory hosted in the cloud. → Read More
Stamplia, launching today from French startup Kiwup, is an email templates marketplace where web designers can sell HTML templates for newsletters, transactional emails and signup forms, and in turn let companies focus on the messaging of their email campaigns rather than design. → Read More
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Spotify community and playlist sharing site ShareMyPlaylists is rolling out a new feature today: Moods will let users select playlist based on, er, mood.
Feeling happy? The site has you covered. Feeling cool? There are playlists for hipsters, too. Feeling intimate? Ok, you get the idea. → Read More
CBTec, the e-learning startup founded by ex-Nokians and members of the now defunct MeeGo team, has released an Android app for its Eliademy MOOC platform that’s also compatible with the widely used open source VLE Moodle. That’s because both Eliademy and Moodle are based on the same codebase, while in addition it provides CBTec with a nice new revenue stream. → Read More
As mobile gaming has exploded, it follows that startups helping to feed and in turn feed off the mobile gaming ecosystem are poised for growth. One such company is AppLift, the mobile games marketing platform co-founded and backed by games distribution incubator HitFox, which today is announcing that it’s closed a $13 million Series A round from Prime Ventures. → Read More
Housebites, the London, UK-based startup that enables independent chefs to sell home-cooked meals as an alternative to a take-out, has shuttered in its current form as it gears up to pivot — once again. Its website has been replaced by a holding page that apologises for the withdrawal of the service and thanks “loyal and valued” customers for their support. → Read More
Qriously, the “question network” that’s trying to reinvent the mobile ad, has announced that it’s closed a $3.5 million Series A round led by Spark Capital — funds it will use to expand its U.S. and European footprint and, more interestingly, to push its new mobile ad product based on what it calls “opinion targeting”. → Read More
Betapond, the Ireland-headquartered Facebook marketing technology startup, has raised €2 million (~$2.5m) in a new round of funding led by The Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund — money it plans to use to “accelerate development” of its forthcoming social commerce offering to retailers, which will power product recommendations from a consumer’s trusted Facebook friends. → Read More
MyCadbox, from Finland’s CadFaster, is probably best described as a Dropbox for CAD files, but unlike its competitors it largely shuns the Web for native desktop and mobile apps that it says affords it the ability to share and view much larger 3D models and at a higher frame rate than browser-based technologies allow. In the future, however, it has more ambitious plans to add Evernote-style… → Read More
Applications for Ignite100′s third programme have duly opened. It’s seems that rumours of the accelerator’s death were greatly exaggerated. In fact, I’m hearing that this year’s plans are more ambitious than ever, and include extending the length of the programme, raising funds for a new Google Campus-styled co-working space, and building a permanent bridge to New York City. → Read More
Carnet de Mode (CDM), the Paris-based online fashion marketplace, has announced that its closed a $1.5 million Series A round — yes, in Europe we call that a Series A — led by Elaia Partners with participation from a number of angels. This brings the total raised by the company to approximately $1.8 million, having previously raised €100k in seed funding in July 2012. → Read More
Spanish startup Ticketea, the leading DIY ticketing platform in Spain, has raised $4 million in a Series B round of funding. The investment is being led by newly-established Spanish VC Seaya Ventures, and will be used by the company to consolidate its position in Spain through new m-commerce products, as well as for international expansion with a specific focus on emerging markets. Latin America… → Read More
In this post, I’ll attempt to scratch beneath the surface a little and explore the story behind the undisclosed investment or exit. It will draw on conversations with investors and founders who have been directly involved in multiple funding rounds, acquisitions and exits, all of whom agreed to be as candid as possible for the purpose of this article and on the strict condition of anonymity. → Read More
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
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