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.
Brightpearl, which provides a cloud-based integrated suite of applications for SMEs, has secured $5 million in Series A funding from Notion Capital and Eden Ventures. Both VC firms have previously backed the Bristol, UK-based startup to the tune of $1.5m.
Founded in 2007 by Chris Tanner, Brightpearl’s pitch to SMEs is that its SaaS helps take away the pain of implementing information systems and lets business owners get on with actually running their business. The new investment will be used by the company to expand faster in the U.S. and other markets and further its cloud offering that includes accounting, CRM, order and stock management, ecommerce and helpdesk capability. → Read More
MobiCart, the free service that lets users build a native storefront for Apple’s iOS, has announced that ex-Google European Director of Online Sales and Operations, Stephen Lusty, has invested £100k in the UK startup in addition to joining as Chairman.
The company had previously scored $500,000 in a seed funding round in March this year led by the UK’s Finance for Business North East Angel Fund → Read More
After its initial funding from pan-European seed fund and incubator Seedcamp, Server Density, the server monitoring tool, has secured £135k in an Angel round from Christoph Janz, Qamar Aziz, Kyle McGinn and Distilled.net.
The new investment will be used to accelerate growth through “several new projects.” To that end, the UK startup is also announcing its new “app store for sysadmins” at today’s MongoDB conference in San Francisco. → Read More
Frooly launches out of beta today as a market place for local boutique and independent stores from the UK who want to set-up shop online.
It’s similar in some ways to Etsy with its focus on “luxury, handcrafted and unique sellers” but in this case certainly aimed at merchants who already operate off-line but need a low barrier to entry to entering the world of e-commerce. The service isn’t restricted to arts and crafts either but includes food and other local produce. Naturally, the site also offers social media tie-ins, helping these independent and local stores gain greater word-of-mouth exposure. → Read More
You know what’s hipper than Hipster? Actually launching.
OK, that’s not quite what the three-person team behind new local Q&A site Gootip said but it’s true that this tiny French startup launched this week has got their product out in the wild in full before their US-based rival.
Ignoring the host of other location-based Q&A offerings, Gootip is also keen to point out that it isn’t a Hipster clone and that the company started work on their product before the Hipster buzz. Unlike Hipster, Gootip hasn’t taken funding either. → Read More
There’s a lot of excitement (and hype) at the moment around smart payment solutions, not least in relation to the potential of NFC now that mobile operating systems and handsets are finally supporting the technology. As a result, VC money for startups in the space has been coming thick and fast, while the likes of Silicon Valley-based Jumio and Boku have been getting plenty of attention.
It’s in this context that today’s news is particularly interesting: Two UK startups, sQuid and ACT, which have largely been flying under the radar, are merging and with it not only will they supply 85% of the UK’s smart cards and payments, but look pretty well poised to exploit the growing opportunity around NFC. → Read More
Pitchero, the UK startup that makes it easy for amateur and semi professional sports clubs to build their own web presence with social networking features, has seen a major revamp and with it is announcing a milestone of 1 million monthly unique visitors.
In addition, the network, which aggregates and links those club websites and user profiles via sport, location and competition, houses 4,000 sites overall, while in total 250,000 individual users have signed up to the service. In terms of where Pitchero is bedding down, it claims to cover 46% of all UK amateur rugby club websites and says it’s poised to cash in on this year’s Rugby World Cup (yawn) with advertising partnerships “already signed”. Other core markets are football, cricket and hockey. → Read More
LoveYourLarder, which soft-launched late last year, is pitching itself as an “Etsy-for-foodies”. It’s an apt reference since the site offers users a way to discover and buy hard-to-find ingredients or “artisan” food and drink from independent producers in the UK.
Like Etsy, it’s also a classic long tail play in that it aggregates the products of those who might not otherwise sell online. A web version of a farmer’s market, perhaps. In fact, LoveYourLarder founder Tristan Watson says he was inspired to start the site after seeing a friend who ran a bakery trying to sell online and being “really disappointed with the results”. What was needed, he says, was a single site “where it was really easy for customers to find and buy from great producers”. → Read More
After fours years of tweaking and pivoting, WorldTV, which brings a TV channel-viewing experience to online video publishing, finally thinks it has the model right and is flicking the switch on an in-app store for à la carte premium features.
The ‘friends and family’-funded company has been cashflow positive since 2009 but after experimenting with an ad-supported model, which proved disappointing, and pitting this against selling add-on ‘subscription’ products, World TV has settled on the latter with the launch of its own custom-built store offering 33 subscription/add-ons available for instant purchase, some of which are available for a one-off payment while others produce recurring monthly revenue. → Read More
Music streaming services are are becoming a dime a dozen, and that’s before we factor in the expected launch of Apple’s own cloud music offering. Today, Best Buy-owned Napster, the Old Skool player of yesteryear (by brand name only) has unleashed its mobile apps here in the UK.
Like Spotify, We7 and a raft of European and U.S. music streaming services, Napster Unlimited plus Mobile, available on iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android devices, gives users on-the-go access to the company’s 15 million track-strong music catalog for a monthly fee of £10. And again similar to Spotify et. al. the apps include off-line playback so that playlists can be cached negating the need for a persistent WiFi or 3G connection.
All very me-too. → Read More
Just two weeks after launch, ViewsHound, the crowd-sourced news site with daily prizes, has introduced a revenue share option for contributors.
Instead of just being in with a chance of winning a part of the site’s daily prize fund for the best articles, photos and cartoons contributed, in a move similar to UK competitor Blottr, users can now get a share of advertising revenue – I just hope they didn’t take my advice. → Read More
Netcycler, the online swapping site, has seen its UK launch. Up until now the service, which is a European competitor to US-based Swap.com, has been available in Finland first in March 2010, followed by Germany a few months later.
As of this month, however, Brits can use the site to start recycling unwanted items for things they do want – and apparently we’re pretty good at doing the former. Citing its own research, Netcycler says that adults in the UK spend over £2.5 billion a year on items they do not use and over half of those polled say they would utlilise an online swap service if it saved them money. But enough of the PR-friendly survey. Besides, online swapping isn’t exactly a new idea and has seen varying degrees of success. However, this is where Netcycler thinks it’s got the model just right. → Read More
ShareMyPlaylists, the music social network built on top of Spotify with the specific purpose of sharing playlists, has landed on the iPad. Interestingly, this is before the European music streaming service has its own dedicated app for Apple’s tablet.
That’s perhaps a little odd (or preemptive) considering how closely the two services are tied, although ShareMyPlaylists founder Kieron Donoghue says that the company didn’t want to hold out given that the experience of browsing and discovering playlists using the iPad app won’t be prohibited by the lack of a dedicated client on Spotify’s side – the Spotify iPhone app works on the iPad either way. → Read More
Dragontape, which lets users create ‘mixtapes’ of their favorite YouTube videos and SoundCloud recordings, has landed on Apple’s iPad, a device which benefits the service’s realtime editing functionality.
As other video editing or remix style apps on the iPad have shown, a large touch screen device and accompanying OS has the potential to make the cutting, editing and rearranging of clips that bit more fluid with a tactile drag ‘n’ drop user experience. The same features that the browser-based version of Dragontape supports are also present and correct, such as the ability to share finished ‘mix tapes’ via Facebook and Twitter. → Read More
Simfy, the so-called German Spotify, has raised an additional €10m from existing investors, including Earlybird, NRW Bank, Dumont Venture and Klaus Wecken. That brings its funding to date to €18 million.
The new funds will be used to consolidate its leading position in German-speaking countries – the music streaming service operates in Germany, Austria and Switzerland – as well as for “expansion into other European countries”, says CEO Gerrit Schumann. → Read More
9flats, the peer to peer apartment rentals site (or Airbnb-clone), has secured a “major investment round” led by Silicon Valley VC firm Redpoint Ventures. European-based eVenture Capital Partners also participated.
Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed although 9flats says this brings its total funding to $10m just six months after the startup was founded. The new round will be used to expand 9flats’ management team and service across Europe as it aims to become a “global player” in the online travel industry. → Read More
Tradeshift, the free invoicing platform and wider play to become the de facto social network for “B2B communications and processes”, has raised a $7m round from Notion Capital.
As we’ve previously reported, the Denmark and London, UK-based startup was rumoured to be courting VC funding at an $80-100 million valuation after scoring angel investment from former MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos and founding investor in Last.fm Stefan Glaenzer. PayPal, which is integrated into the platform, is also an investor. → Read More
Ask.fm, a European Formspring competitor, has added video answers to its conversational Q&A service.
Rather than answering questions in text, the browser-based feature lets anybody with a webcam record and upload an answer in video to questions sent to their Ask.fm profile, which can be from other Ask.fm members or submitted anonymously. It’s pretty straightforward, with the ‘Record video answer’ sitting right next to the regular answer button, while the video recording functionality itself is powered by Flash. → Read More
Swiss publisher Tamedia has acquired a 49% stake in Doodle, the Zurich-based online service that enables users to schedule meetings and appointments.
Described as a “partial exit” by Doodle CEO Michael Näf, the deal also sees German VC firm Creathor Venture sell its share in the company, although terms are not being disclosed. → Read More
Navmii, maker of Navmii GPS Live, the low-cost Sat-Nav solution for iOS, along with the free OpenStreetMap-powered NavFree, has announced that it has garnered more than 2 million users in 12 months.
But more interesting is that Navmii users have contributed over 300,000 updates to the ‘Wikipedia of maps’ OpenStreetMap project, a trend that is on course to make NavFree “as accurate as most expensive Satellite Navigation system within a matter of months”, says Navmii CEO Peter Atalla. Of course, both Google and Nokia have a free offering too, the latter’s Ovi Maps being the most complete. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
