Steve O’Hear is probably best known as a technology journalist, most recently at TechCrunch. He still occasionally blogs at last100. Until February 2012, he was 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.
Last100 was co-founded with Richard MacManus in May 2007 as part of the ReadWriteWeb Blog Network. However, the network was disbanded in November 2008 and Steve now runs the site as an independent property.
Along with TechCrunch Europe and last100, Steve has written for numerous publications, including The Guardian, Macworld UK, Mobile Industry Review, TES, ZDNet and ReadWriteWeb, on topics ranging from the social web, educational technology to consumer electronics.
From 2006 to 2008 Steve wrote the ZDNet blog ‘The Social Web’. He also wrote and directed the 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 and awarded a bursary to support the development of innovative and practical uses of online technologies in a variety of learning environments. From 2004 to 2005 he served on the board of governors for the University of East London.
KashFlow, the UK startup that competes with the likes of Sage with its cloud-based accounting software for SMEs, is today widening the net: It’s launched a fully re-branded white-label offering aimed at organisations that have existing SME customers and want to get in on the cloud-based action but don’t have the resources or inclination to build their own service.
At first glance this may look like little more than a glorified affiliate type deal but with the lack of self-sign up at KashFlow’s new OEMAccounts.com site and a negotiable revenue share, it’s perhaps more a sign of intent as the company beds down on its growth trajectory minus the ‘strategic investor’ that it recently set out to find. → Read More
Mancx, the “transactional knowledge market” where users trade business intelligence (or answers to any question posted to the site), has closed a second round of funding: $1.1m from the startup’s founders and new backers that include Bo Axel Ax:son Johnson (of the well-known Swedish conglomerate Ax:son Johnson) and Nils-Robert Persson.
Per-Arne Nordlander, the Swedish angel investor, remains as an investor and chairman of Mancx, while the company says that the new funds will be used to support further development of its knowledge marketplace and to “drive an aggressive marketing push.” → Read More
Flattr, the social micropayment startup founded by ex-Pirate Bay associates, has added Soundcloud integration to make it easy to add the Flattr button (and start receiving payments) to any SoundCloud player, including those embedded anywhere across the web. Interestingly, SoundCloud already has an existing arrangement with Flattr competitor BuySimple.
Flattr’s support for SoundCloud follows a similar recently announced tie-in to Twitter, which makes it easy to tip somebody’s Twitter account with real money, although who on earth would pay for my nonsensical tweets, I’m not so sure. But it does bring into focus the company’s strategy to become a sort of ‘Like’ button but with real money, even if post-launch Flattr has slowly and perhaps stealthily begun to deviate from its more altruistic and slightly idiosyncratic payment model into something more mainstream. → Read More
Site Intelligence, a provider of software solutions for “multi-channel customer intelligence”, has raised $7m led by Nauta Capital. Oxford Capital Partners and existing shareholders also participated.
The new equity investment will be used to support the company’s continued growth and global expansion, which includes plans to expand into North America and further European markets while consolidating its presence in the UK and Asia Pacific region. This will be realised through a boost in sales and marketing capabilities, and growing Site Intelligence’s development and consulting teams and customer support.
Carles Ferrer and Al Sisto from Nauta Capital and Colin Watts from Oxford Capital Partners will join the Site Intelligence Board. → Read More
Russian search giant Yandex has brought its email service to the iPhone in the form of a native app.
Users get full access to emails from their Yandex.Mail account, along with an IM feature and camera integration so that they take and send a photo all without leaving the iOS app. In addition, there’s support for external personal email accounts and a nifty location feature. → Read More
Labels.io, the recruitment startup that wants to simplify the resume, has surfaced its social authority algorithm through the introduction of a Labels Weight score on user profiles.
Perhaps similar to PeerIndex or Klout, the Labels Weight attempts to measure a job candidate’s “online professional authority” by measuring the impact of their social web activity – Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and the site’s own internal metrics. However, Labels.io says it’s different from other such systems in that it only factors in relevant content by filtering out social web updates that don’t correlate with a user’s specified skills (or tags) as filled out in their Labels.io profile. → Read More
Zoopla, the real estate startup, has signed an “exclusive deal” to power the property search feature of AOL in the UK, which is now live.
Interestingly, Zoopla already has existing partnerships with AOL competitors MSN, Yahoo and Sky, in addition to the likes of Homes24 and UpMyStreet. → Read More
We7, the UK-headquartered music streaming service, has closed a new undisclosed round of funding.
The new investment comes from existing investors Peter Gabriel and Eden Ventures, along with Qualcomm Incorporated (via its venture capital function) and Pentech Ventures, and will be used primarily for further European expansion (“multiple countries”) and to consolidate its position in the UK. → Read More
Adyen, the Dutch Internet and mobile payment startup, has brought its single-click mobile payment solution to iPhone and Android.
This is particularly interesting with regards to iOS as it gives app developers a fairly easy way to implement an alternative payment solution to the App Store, something that doesn’t infringe on Apple’s in-app purchasing policy if the goods being sold are physical not digital. It’s this scenario that Adyen is targeting. → Read More
Bigpoint, the German online gaming outfit, is pointing to some big numbers today, claiming its 200 millionth registered user. This, says the company, puts it on par with Twitter, which is a bit like comparing apples with oranges but whatever.
That said, 200 million users is no mean feat and to put it into context, Bigpoint says that 18 months ago it could only boast 100 million users and is attracting 250,000 new users every day on average. Again, not too shabby at all.
More big numbers from Bigpoint: → Read More
Eagle Eye Solutions, which claims to be the market leader in mobile voucher issue and redemption technology for retailers in the UK, has raised £1.5 million in a Series A round of funding.
The round was led by Sir Terry Leahy, the former chief executive of Tesco and who oversaw the introduction of the Tesco Clubcard, and city retail analysts, Bill Currie and Iain McDonald, who have previously invested in the likes of The Hut Group, Metapack, ASOS, QXL Ricardo and Zooplus. The new funding is said to enable Eagle Eye to further expand its team and “consolidate and grow its retail partnerships”, which include Comet, Blockbuster, Aurora Fashions and Virgin Active. → Read More
Bluefields.com, a sort of ‘Groupspaces for amateur football’, has scored £100k from seven angel investors including Julian Ranger of iBundle and Jalin Somaiya, Google Sales Project Leader, although Somaiya’s involvement isn’t associated with Google. Both will join Bluefields’ board.
The other five angels are Lee Strafford, co-founder of Plus.Net and ex-Chairman of Sheffield Wednesday FC, along with Mark Wainwright, Brian Lawrence, Jim Mann and Ami Shipro. The funding will be used to launch Bluefields’ football focused player availability and payment applications this August in time for the start of the football season in the UK. The platform is both browser-based and will have mobile apps for iPhone and Android. → Read More
Day One Capital has launched what it claims to be the first institutional angel fund in Hungary.
The new fund aims to tackle an oh-so-familiar problem faced by much of Europe: the lack of “seed money and management mentoring for innovative early-stage tech startups”, says Day One Capital investment manager Aurel Pasztor. The fund hopes to raise €2-4m and is targeting companies in the IT, telecommunications, energy, biotech and finance sectors with investments between €200-400k. → Read More
Silicon Valley’s YuMe has acquired Appealing Media, a leading mobile adverting company in the UK whose customers include ESPN, IPC Media, Bauer Media, and Universal McCann. Terms are undisclosed.
YuMe, which is heavily funded to the tune of $51m (CrunchBase), is also launching YuMe Europe and opening a new office in London. Obviously, the acquisition of Appealing Media is part of this international expansion. → Read More
Visual search and image recognition startup Cortexica Vision Systems has appointed Iain McCready as new CEO today, while ARM-veteran Malcolm Bird has joined as its non-exec Chairman.
Bird was previously Technical Director with Acorn Computers Ltd. where he is said to have played a key role in business development and negotiation in the joint venture between Apple, Acorn and VLSI Technology that became known as chip company ARM. He went on to become a founding non-executive director of ARM until 1997. Since then Bird has held the post of MD of Phone.com Europe and was a Venture Partner with Deutsche Bank Capital Venture Partners. → Read More
Babbel, the language learning site, has added four new languages to its vocabulary portfolio: Indonesian, Polish, Turkish and Dutch. This brings the total to eleven, joining Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish and English.
Delivered via a number of themed lessons such as “Holidays”, “Life in the city”, “Free time”, “Culture” and “Digital World” each features basic and advanced vocabulary with words, images and pronunciation examples, designed to be completed within ten to fifteen minutes.
And like other Babbel courses, learners also have access to a personal Review Manager to help them stay on track and acquire language skills in the long term, along with Pronunciation Training via real-time speech recognition using Adobe Flash, which as we’ve noted before, potentially pits the service up against more traditional players such as TellMeMore or Rosetta Stone. → Read More
Tradeshift, the free invoicing platform and wider play to become a social network for business, is to provide e-invoicing services to 6,000 suppliers of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).
Although the NHS was already known to be a Tradeshift user, it’s only now that details of the tie-in have emerged, while suppliers to the NHS via Anglia Support Partnership (ASP), the leading shared service provider to the NHS in the east of England, will be told of the initiative this week. Under the arrangement they’ll be asked to start using Tradeshift, which offers a free way to submit invoices electronically and monitor their progress, as the mechanism for which to invoice ASP with the carrot of speedier payments in return. → Read More
Bigpoint, the German online gaming outfit, has signed a partnership with Russia’s Mail.Ru Group, which will see the two companies offer select gaming titles on each of their respective portals. The idea is to help Bigpoint expose its wares to the Russian speaking markets, while Mail.Ru gets broader European distribution.
Targeting Russian speaking gamers, Mail.Ru will house Bigpoint games including Farmerama, DarkOrbit, Seafight and Battlestar Galactica Online. Additionally, they’ll be integrated into the Mail.Ru Group’s social networks, Odnoklassniki and My World.
In return, visitors to Bigpoint.com, which claims 200 million registered users, will be able to access MMORPGs such as Legend Legacy of the Dragons, Juggernaut, Empire Craft, and GodsWar Online. → Read More
Blinklearning, the e-tutoring platform, has raised €350k of public money from the Spanish CDTI NEOTEC program for further R&D into how Artificial Intelligence can be leveraged to offer a more personalised education for learners.
Based on the premise that education must be adapted to the needs of each individual student who may learn at a different pace to their peers, the Spain and UK-based startup currently gives teachers better tools to create learning content along with technology to “track the individual performance of every student and subsequently provide those students with tailor-made content and exercises.” → Read More
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