Mike Butcher
Mike Butcher is currently Editor of TechCrunch Europe. In addition he is involved in a project to bring European technology entrepreneurs and investors together in a club environment called TechHub (@TechHub), in London initially. A long time journalist, Mike has written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. He is a former editor of New Media Age magazine, the leading new media weekly in the UK, and the European edition of The Industry Standard magazine.
Since 1996 he has launched or re-launched numerous media web sites and in 2000 he was nominated as NetMedia’s European Internet Journalist of the Year. In 2004 he was voted ‘One of the 100 Innovators of the UK Internet Decade’ by GfK NOP, the fourth-largest custom research business in the world. In July 2008 he was put at No. 47 out of the Top 100 people in London’s creative industry by The Independent newspaper and The Hospital Club.
In August 2008 TechCrunch Europe was awarded the best “Web 2.0 and business blog” in the UK, by the readers of Computer Weekly magazine. In 2009 it was named as one of the Top 10 blogs out of the UK. Also in 2009 he was named one of the Top 10 bloggers on Twitter in the UK. In October 2009 he was named one of the Top 50 most influential Britons in technology by The Daily Telegraph. In April 2010 he was named as one of Britain’s Top 100 “digital power-brokers” by Wired UK magazine. Mike is a regular commentator on the technology business, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4 and Bloomberg. Mike’s personal blog is mbites, while he Twitters as @mikebutcher.
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Latest from Mike Butcher
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Ripio Credit Network launches, aiming to attack bank loan fees in emerging markets
Ripio Credit (formerly BitPagos), the project that reached the finals at last year’s TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield in New York, is about to launch its new venture. The Ripio Credit Network (RCN) will be public in November and is designed to grow the product and platform outside Latin America, into the fast-emerging developing world. Born in Argentina, the original idea was to widen… Read More
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Boundless helps you navigate the US immigration labyrinth for your partner
Boundless is a Seattle based startup addressing the enormous issue of applying for immigrant status in the US. Founder Xiao Wang came to the US over when he was young from China. “My family spent five months of rent money on immigration lawyers because we just didn’t know how to do it and didn’t know any better. And this is an experience that’s repeated by millions… Read More
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Roots Studios’ ‘Shutterstock for cultural art’ could transform rural communities
Roots Studio, which launched today at Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt, aims to connect millions of isolated, cultural artists around the world to global markets via the licensing of high-quality scans of their designs. Read More
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Le Collectionist raises $10M to expand luxury travel platform and offices globally
There are many solutions when a traveler wants to rent a property: websites like Airbnb, local agents, hotels, private properties to name the obvious. When it comes to luxury properties, the options become a tad more rarified. Luxury travel estimated to be worth between $25 billion and $30 billion per year. So far only OneFineStay and LuxuryRetreats come the closest in delivering it online… Read More
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Ex-Googlers launch Bellgram, an AI-driven virtual assistant for the enterprise
Three ex-Google engineers have banded together to launch what can only be described as a sort of replacement for a human PA, but one which can be used by a whole company to improve communications across the board. Bellgram literally tracks conversational data and applies AI to it to enhance how the business operates. The startup has already won Lyft, Woopra, OnFleet and other companies as… Read More
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Brent Hoberman launches new $85M pan-European seed fund, firstminute capital
Back in June Brent Hoberman, who famously founded and floated Lastminute.com, unveiled his new investment vehicle . The first $60m close for ‘firstminute Capital’ was announced then with Atomico being the cornerstone investor. The fund was also backed by 28 unicorns founders. In the end, it turned out to be oversubscribed and they can now announce a second close for the fund. This… Read More
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Zello tops US app store as the walkie-talkie for hurricane volunteers
With Hurricane Irma hitting Florida’s southern islands as a category four storm, and more than 6.3 million being told to evacuate Florida, being able to stay in contact with the outside world is a high priority. As a result, smartphone apps which can help coordinate rescues and responses have become crucial to efforts. The main one that’s being talked about — and downloaded at… Read More
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Taxify’s London launch halted after transport regulator mounts investigation
Ride-hailing startup Taxify launched this week in London to a big PR-push and fanfare. Most of the coverage was about how this plucky startup was going to take on the Uber giant. But Taxify has now had to pause its operations after a transport union questioned if it had a license to operate, and official body Transport for London announced it would investigate Taxify’s operations. Read More
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Straight outta Siberia — inDriver raises $5M for its flat-rate ride-hailing app
You’d think all the business models around on-demand taxis and cars had been invested, but straight out of Siberia comes another one. Ride-hailing app inDriver has raised a $5 million Series A round from Russian venture fund LETA Capital. They aim to use this cash to launch inDriver in India, the USA and Canada, where the service will of course compete with Uber, Lyft and Ola Cab. How… Read More
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Blackmoon to ICO its blockchain-based platform for tokenized investment funds
As the Blockchain and Crypto world gathers pace, vehicles to allow for the creation, promotion and management of crypto investment funds are growing. The Iconomi Digital Assets Management Platform enables users to invest and manage various digital assets. Meanwhile, Melonport is building a blockchain protocol for digital asset management, initially built on the Ethereum platform. This is… Read More
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Taxify launches in London, acquiring a cab firm to scale and discounting prices
London’s long-suffering Black Cabs have yet another competitor to deal with, alongside Gett, and Uber. Estonian start-up Taxify has launched this week in the UK capital, after previously concentrating on emerging markets in eastern Europe and Africa. It’s signed up 3,000 private hire taxi drivers by simply acquiring a taxi company which already holds a licence, City Drive Services. Read More
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Index Ventures is coming in force to TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin this December
We are delighted to announce our next wave of speakers for Disrupt Berlin. And what a wave. Index Ventures is one the world’s leading international venture capital firms. And we are incredibly excited to have 3 of its partners on stage at Disrupt Berlin! But before we outline the details, please just be aware that our final batch of Disrupt Berlin 2017 tickets at the deeply discounted… Read More
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Jaguar Land Rover is backing DOVU to bring the Blockchain to the mobile future
The Blockchain was created as an open-source, free, decentralized accounting system where transactions are recorded across multiple computers. Its first use was for tracking the first genuine crypto-currency, Bitcoin, but it could be could be adapted to track anything, including, for instance, electrons. So, for instance, if you can automatically record the flow of electricity units… Read More
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Sherpa secures $2.3M to build AI-driven insurance platform tailored to individuals
Price comparison websites for insurance products have been around for many years. However, typically, people buy from these based just on price, with zero customization based on the person. What’s required is a much more tailor-made service, changing the culture from strictly price-only focused to the “best cover for you.” That’s the pitch of U.K. startup Sherpa. Read More
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GraphPath’s “Knowledge Graph as a Service” could insert AI into global corporates
There is no shortage of AI and machine learning startups being born today. But one of the biggest opportunities remains in turning AI into some kind of platform that others can leverage, especially businesses. In recent years a new area has been developed in relation what’s know in the tech industry as knowledge graphs, a concept which been around for quite some time, especially in… Read More
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UK’s Prodigy Finance raises $240M to crowdfund students from emerging markets
UK fintech startup Prodigy Finance has raised a whopping $240 million funding round, certainly one of the largest by a UK company this year. The company provides loans to international students from emerging markets, enabling them to study at business schools in the US, the UK and Europe. The fundraise includes a $40 million Series C equity round led by London’s Index Ventures, with… Read More
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Online hate crime to be treated the same as face-to-face crime in the UK
Sometimes the most obvious solutions might be the best. While the U.S. wrings its hands over what to do with online haters and abusers on social media, other countries have a more direct approach: throw the book at them. That’s effectively the U.K.’s new approach, which will now treat online “hate crime” as seriously as offences carried out in real life. Read More
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Value Voting launches from YC to supercharge the work of political advocates
The ascendance of the so-called “hard right” in the US and the Trump administration’s work to protect its power means it’s unlikely the movement will be beaten by Democrats or left leaning parties at this point. The power of the hard right in red-states has become
institutionalized. So perhaps the answer is, instead, empowering traditional Conservatives who are… Read More -
Welltory packs a lot of science into its app to measure your stress levels
There’s a lot of talk about the quantified self, but one of the grey areas remains working out your levels of stress. Usually this requires hardware devices. Now a New York-based startup thinks it’s come up with an approach based on specially developed algorithms and machine learning using simple heartbeat readings taken with a smartphone app. Read More
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The growing band of startups donating their platforms to refugees
Since founding the Techfugees non-profit two years ago, I’ve come acutely aware off the huge problems refugees face. With over 65 million refugees globally (according to the UN), and their ranks being swelled considerably by the civil war in Syria, it became clear to me that any solutions might help refugees would have to be scalable. Scaling solutions to problems is what the tech… Read More
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