Mike Butcher
Mike Butcher is the Editor-At-Large of TechCrunch. Mike is also involved in a project to bring European technology entrepreneurs and investors together in a club environment called TechHub, in London initially.
A long time journalist, Mike has written for U.K. 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 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 U.K., by the readers of Computer Weekly magazine. In 2009 it was named as one of the Top 10 blogs out of the U.K.
Also in 2009 he was named one of the Top 10 bloggers on Twitter in the U.K. 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. In November 2010 he was named as one of London's most influential people in New Media and ""king of dotcom commentators"" by The Evening Standard Newspaper. In February he was listed as one of the Top 100 most influential people on Twitter in the UK. He has spoken at the prestigious Monaco Media Forum and Le Web, among many other conferences. Mike is a regular commentator on the technology business, appearing on BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4, and Bloomberg.
CrunchBase profile →Featured Picks from Mike Butcher
Latest from Mike Butcher
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Travel Startup Musement Secures €5M In Series A Funding
Musement, a booking service for travel activities, has announced it’s raised €5 million in Series A funding from P101, 360 Capital Partners, Micheli Associati and Italian Angels for Growth. While there are many startups that claim to “curate travel experiences” Musement does this by concentrating on locations which might be harder to book in a seamless manner. Naturally… Read More
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Cairo Witnesses A New Kind Of Spring: The Egyptian Startup Spring
The Arab Spring of 2011 ignited not just Egypt’s society and political landscape. It also lit touch-paper on the bonfire that has become its new tech startup ecosystem. Consider this: Prior to 2011, it’s clear no-one in Egypt had ever heard of AngelList. In that year, only three companies ended up creating a profile under Angel.co/egypt. Then, as the country went through… Read More
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LeadDesk , A SaaS Call Center Startup, Raises €5.5M In Series A Funding
LeadDesk, the Finland-based cloud call center software company, has announced its first funding led by Dawn Capital with participation from public fund, Finnish Industry Investment. This investment round is designed to drive LeadDesk’s growth in European markets with particular focus on UK/Ireland, Spain, and the Benelux region. If you have not heard of them before it’s because… Read More
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Hiring SaaS Platform Workable Raises Another $5M
Workable has secured $5 million in additional funding from its existing investors, including Greylock Israel (which has since become 83North) and Greece-based seed investors Openfund. Workable enables smaller companies to post to multiple jobs boards, review candidates and schedule interviews. Read More
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A Cold, Dark, East London Cinema Witnesses Techstars London Demo Day
Techstars has had a fast 3 years in Europe. After Techstars London, led by the departing Jon Bradford, had been set up, it opened a further three programmes: in Berlin, the Techstars Metro Accelerator (around retail) and a fintec accelerator sponsored by Barclays Bank. Techstars London Demo Day today saw over 1,000 people signed up (the majority of whom actually turned up to a rented East… Read More
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The Head Of TechStars London, Jon Bradford, Is Leaving For New Pastures
As Jon Bradford, head of TechStars London, hosts their annual Demo Day in a well-worn old cinema in East London, TechCrunch has learned that this will be his last in the role. Independent sources have confirmed that Bradford is leaving the TechStars network to pursue new opportunities, though his next move remains a mystery. Bradford gave me a “no comment” on the story today… Read More
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Grabble Closes $1.8M Angel Round For Its Tinder-like Fashion Shopping App
Various startups out there are trying to create either an Instagram or Tinder for fashion, ultimately leading the buyer towards a purchase. This is the Holy Grail and you will easily uncover a multitude of companies trying to achieve something along these lines, even though the approaches and business models vary. In Europe the main players are new-ish startups like ASAP 54 (a TechCrunch… Read More
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Entrepreneur First Hatches Latest Startups, Partners With Media Power Players
There are plenty of accelerators these days. And it’s commonly known that value created out of Y Combinator is enormous compared to the next nearest competitor in the space, often considered to be Tech Stars. So if you aren’t YC, what do you do? A couple of years ago Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck of London-based accelerator Entrepreneur First hit on a different idea. Their… Read More
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Social Shopping App Shopa Secures $11M Series A To Scale Internationally
So-called ‘social shopping marketplaces’ have slowly emerged as smartphone and tablet adoption has risen. The heady combination of social networks and shopping never seemed to work that well on the web, but on mobile they have proven to have more of the potential that was always promised but rarely delivered, simply because of the better user interface. One such company is… Read More
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Second Screen TV Apps Startup Applicaster Pulls In $10.5M Series B Funding
Applicaster is a startup originally out of Israel which offers a number of what’s known these days as ‘synchronised social experiences’. In other words they can literally sync a TV broadcast with a social app, enabling all sorts of fancy advertising and promotional opportunities. This is the much-heralded ‘second screen’ opportunity. Clearly they’ve convinced… Read More
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AngelList Launches Syndicates In The UK, But Regulation Hampers EU Rollout
AngelList, which has shaken up the world of tech investing by opening up the process of angel investing, is parking its tanks on Europe’s lawn. Today it launches UK syndicates, which will allow individuals to co-invest with early investors in European unicorns like Hailo, Transferwise and Zoopla. However EU and individual government regulations will hamper its wider rollout. Last… Read More
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‘Humanity’ Raises A $9M Series B To Build Out Its Workforce Platform
Humanity.com, which bills itself as a workforce-management platform, has secured $9 million in a Series B round of funding led by MHS Capital. Also participating were Point Nine Capital in Germany, Klever Internet Investments, Team Builder Ventures and Boku CEO Mark Britto. This round follows a $3.2 million round in September 2014. Read More
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Huge Hackathon In West Africa Hopes To Produce The Next Wave Of Startups
The most talented and ambitious entrepreneurs in West Africa are being encouraged to join a new hackathon program this month in Accra, Ghana, which hopes to spin out a wave of new tech startups geared to African needs. The Hack for Big Choices is a non-profit which hopes to impact the fast-developing West African economies by helping to create what it calls ‘sustainable start-ups’. Read More
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Hey LA Startups! — Pitch A TechCrunch Writer This Sunday
Hey Los Angeles! A TechCrunch writer (me) is visiting your fair city and is ready to uncover some startups. Come pitch me tomorrow, Sunday (8th Feb) at Alfred Coffee (in the alley) on 8509 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, 90069 between 3pm and 5pm. I’ll take real short pitches and can follow-up later. Who knows, you may end up on TechCrunch. Fill out this form so we can email you if… Read More
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TechCrunch Meetup In The City Of Seoul, April 16th
Get your Gangnam face on! We’re bringing our world-famous TechCrunch Pitch-Off event to South Korea, namely, Seoul on April 16th, 2015. Details on the venue and location will be released in due course. Apply here to pitch. Presented by Campus Seoul, a Google Space, the evening event (lasting roughly from 6pm to 10.30pm) will feature speakers from the Seoul startup scene (we like how… Read More
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Startup Europe Summit In Berlin To Feature Key Players (And Us)
This is a brief note to make you aware that TechCrunch is officially supporting the launch of a new ‘Popup’ conference in Berlin, on February 12-13. Startup Europe Summit will feature some key leaders of Europe’s technology industry and key decision makers from the European Commission. The aim is to get Europe on the right track in terms of how it deals with tech startups… Read More
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YellowPepper’s Mobile Wallet For LatAm Draws Another $19M From LIV Capital And Others
YellowPepper, a mobile virtual wallet startup aimed at the Latin American market, has closed $19 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total funding to $34 million to date. The round was led by LIV Capital, a Mexican venture capital firm with approximately $130 million in assets under management. Also participating was Mexico Ventures, a program managed by Sun Mountain Capital… Read More
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Podshare Taps Into Social Travel With The Funniest Crowd-Funding Video Ever
We interrupt our normal programming to remind everyone that as well as tech startups, VC and big tech news, TechCrunch loves to cover tech culture. If communities and having a roof over your head fall into that camp, then, goddamnit, so should a project like PodShare, which has tapped into the tech zeitgeist of the sharing economy for the last couple of years, and is now raising money with… Read More
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PayPal And Dunnhumby Put $1.2m Into Pulsate, A Location Marketing Startup
Pulsate, a startup with a platform to deliver content for brands based on a user’s location and preferences, has raised $1.2 million in funding from PayPal and Dunnhumby (the customer science company). The money will be used to expand the platform and service customers. Menlo Park-based Pulsate is a so-called “end-to-end context marketing” platform. Brands use it to surface… Read More
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Restaurant Discovery App Zomato Acquires Turkey’s Mekanist For Cash
Zomato, the Restaurant discovery service which competes with Yelp, has acquired Turkey’s Mekanist. The price was not disclosed but it has been confirmed as an all-cash deal. The move will take Zomato from covering 27,500 restaurants in Istanbul and Ankara to more than over 50,000 restaurants in Turkey. The move is a sign that Zomato is prepared to take Yelp on in significant… Read More
