More berlin Stories

Petitebox maternity leave

Germany’s Rocket Internet may have not made its big U.S. push yet, but one of its early plays — parenting subscription service Petitebox — has failed amid logistical problems. Will it make up for that by resurrecting the service under a new name? Read more »

Photocircle

There are plenty of sell-your-picture platforms out there already that give people the chance to become semi-professional photographers. But German startup Photocircle has a twist: it’s encouraging those taking pictures to support social projects in the photogenic places they visit. Read more »

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Rocket ventures

The Samwer Brothers have stopped being furtive about the extent of their many clones, with a new site that lists their full portfolio as part of a wider rebrand. But what can we learn from this dramatic shift? Is Rocket Internet looking to America? Read more »

Harry Potter 2

Papagei.tv wants to use movies and other video entertainment to help people learn new languages — and it’s doing well out of the gate, with at least €10m to extend its immersive language-training courses and a role as the official language trainer for Germany’s Olympic team. Read more »

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Fashion For Home

Germany’s notorious clone merchants have sold their stake in furniture operation Fashion For Home, but that still leaves them with good alternatives in the space. Whether they can produce strong players in less traditional e-commerce markets is another question. Read more »

6Wunderkinder CEO Christian Reber

Productivity startup 6Wunderkinder made a big noise on the Berlin scene when it launched, but it’s been quiet for a few months. Now CEO Christian Reber explains why other German startups should follow suit and focus on their product — and why he’s worried about Windows 8. Read more »

magiclandisland2

The reasons cited by games factory Wooga when it pulled out of developing mobile browser-based games for Facebook’s platform are not going to be fixed anytime soon – and that fact should be cause for concern in the social network’s quest to conquer mobile. Read more »

samwers-tall

Payment startups hoping to conquer Europe will be watching their backs a little more closely today, with the news that the Samwer brothers have just pulled together “double digit funding” for their Square clone. PayLeven (previously known as Zenpay) is a straight-up copy of Square: a […] Read more »

Gidsy screenshot

Gidsy CEO Edial Dekker says the experience marketplace is working on a relaunch that will make the service more social and take it to new places — but he warns that whatever happens, he doesn’t want to suffer from Europe’s ‘ego problem.’ Read more »

Groupon
photo: Getty Images / Scott Olson

Swedish investment group Kinnevik has cut its ties with Groupon, selling up its remaining stake in the daily deals company for $81.5 million — a shareholding that was valued at almost $200 million when the company went public in November. Read more »

6wunderkinderlogo

Why did one early investor in apparently thriving Berlin startup 6wunderkinder sell up? We’ve solved the mystery: it looks like the German public-private HTGF venture capital firm hit the limits of what it was allowed to do and decided to cash out. Read more »

SoundCloud tweet

Twitter’s deal with SoundCloud to embed audio in tweets isn’t just a deal that gives the Berlin music startup a ton of exposure: it’s a signal that while Twitter may carry a threat for media companies, it could be a serious alternative to Facebook. Read more »

readmill-horizontal

Berlin startup Readmill’s iPad-based social reading app has got plenty of attention. Now it’s getting a significant update that will make it simpler and easier to use for everyone — including making it more useful for independent publishers to hook themselves in to. Read more »

rene obermann deutsche telekom, PR handout

You might think Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann, the man at the very top of T-Mobile, enjoyed life in a big corporation. On the contrary, he says: big companies are slow and need partners who can be nimble on their behalf… just as long as they’re not too disruptive. Read more »

privacy / spying / eye in computer
photo: Shutterstock / vlad_star

One of the world’s leading credit agencies is courting controversy with an experimental program that will use data from Facebook and other social networks to inform its ratings decisions. And the biggest surprise? It’s happening in privacy-mad Germany. Read more »

txtr

German e-reading service txtr hopes to take on Amazon and Apple by becoming the biggest provider of third party reading apps — and a deal with four major American publishers and a New York office could be the latest steps in that journey. Read more »

Eric Wahlforss, Soundcloud co-founder

Eric Wahlforss, the co-founder of sound-sharing platform SoundCloud tells GigaOM where the company is going — including a new mobile-friendly version and the potential for TV integration — and explains what it’s like being an impromptu ambassador for the Berlin startup scene. Read more »

KeyRocket

What use are hundreds of shortcuts if you don’t know them? Berlin’s Veodin has come up with a free tool called KeyRocket, which trains users in the way of the shortcut with more relevance and less irritation than Microsoft’s hated old Office assistant. Read more »

berlin

Berlin’s attempt to become one of the world’s premier cities for startup culture is taking a serious blow, with a new airport months behind schedule and a ‘crazy’ compulsory pension contributions scheme that has nascent companies warning that it could prove too much. Read more »

Sabunta

The fact that Germany’s Rocket Internet is launching another clone should come as a surprise to no-one. But even with their copycat reputation, cutting and pasting code for their new Nigerian online store seems more than little bit lazy. Read more »

konstantin guericke, LinkedIn, Jaxtr, Earlybird

Konstantin Guericke, a co-founder of LinkedIn, has become a Silicon Valley-based venture partner for the Berlin firm Earlybird, giving its investments a direct link to Californian capital and business networks. Is this a turning point for German startups? Read more »

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