3D printing startup Shapeways raises $30M led by Andreessen Horowitz
Shapeways has raised $30 million led by new investor Andreessen Horowitz to grow its 3D printing service, marketplace, and reach of its API. Read more »
Here is an IPO you didn’t expect: Moleskine
Who says paper is worthless in the age of iPad! Moleskine, the favorite notebook of tech people, went public today, and is valued at $626 million. It is a nice windfall for technology investor Index Ventures. Read more »
Path reaches settlement with FTC, agrees to pay $800,000 fine for COPPA violations
Path, which got into privacy related hot water in early 2012, found about 3,000 minors (below 13) on its network, purged them and now has reached a settlement with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to become COPPA compliant. Read more »
Take that, Geico caveman: MetroMile remakes car insurance with data
A new startup from the founder of The Climate Corporation is looking to use driving data to remake the stodgy car insurance sector and is launching in Oregon on Wednesday. Read more »
Meet the man who’s beating Airbnb in Europe
European vacation rentals site HouseTrip has everything going for it right now: not least fast growth and a fresh new round of funding. Co-founder Arnaud Bertrand lays out why he thinks his site can carry on winning — and reveals the scale of his ambition. Read more »
Zendesk refreshes and rakes in $60m for European push
The cloud-based customer service suite now has a simplified and more unified UI, and has also pulled in major funding from big names such as Index and Goldman Sachs. Read more »
What can anybody do to make London better for tech IPOs?
photo: Zef Nikolla
European technology companies looking to go public usually desert their home turf and head to the U.S. — creating an echo chamber that has made some local investors angry. Now reports suggest that the British government may be trying to reverse that trend. Can it work? Read more »
Red hot Codecademy gets $10m from Index and KPCB
Education startup Codecademy — which promises to help anyone learn to program with its game-like online courses — is stepping up to the international market with a $10 million round of funding from new backers including Index Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. Read more »
The latest VCs to sour on cleantech: Index
The VC exodus away from cleantech startup investing continues. One of Europe’s most well-known venture firms, Index Ventures, has closed a new €350 million fund for early stage companies and Index partner Mike Volpi tells Fortune that the firm is no longer focusing on cleantech investments. Read more »
Index gets another €350m for early stage investment
photo: Shutterstock / Glovatskiy
Skype and Lovefilm backer Index Ventures has just added a new €350 million early stage fund to its arsenal, and now plans to use it to back dozens of companies across Europe, America and Israel over the next three years. Read more »
So who got hosed when Facebook bought Lightbox?
The team behind London-based photo app developer Lightbox are joining Facebook. But it’s a long way from Instagram’s billion-dollar deal: in fact, while the company’s employees are rejoicing, users and investors appear to have been left out in the cold. Read more »
Meet the man behind Europe’s hottest VC firm
Index Ventures co-founder Neil Rimer has helped steer his company to success with investments in Skype, Betfair and many more. He explains why he’s obsessed with education and marketplaces — and why he wishes he’d invested in Kickstarter. Read more »
If the shoe fits: Ozon, Russia’s Amazon, buys Sapato
In a move that echoes Amazon’s purchase of Zappos back in 2009, Russian web store Ozon is buying online shoe seller Sapato.ru — a deal that Ozon CEO Maelle Gavet says will turn it into a “powerhouse online retailer”. Read more »
Outbrain Adds Another $35 Million For European Expansion
Outbrain, whose content recommendation engine lets publisher sites add related news links, is taking a $35 (£22.6) million fourth funding r… Read more at paidContent »
HouseTrip gets $17M: Is there more room at the inn?
The founders aren’t happy when people call HouseTrip a clone of Airbnb, but the European holiday rental site is hoping to go head-to-head with its American rival after scooping a substantial new round of investment. Read more »
Index Ventures Launches $690M Fund To Invest In Late-Stage Startups
Index Ventures, the London-based venture capital firm best known for investing in LoveFilm and Skype, has defied the eurozone debt crisis to… Read more at paidContent »
Index goes big with $690m growth fund
It already has a reputation as Europe’s top investor in startups, but now Index Ventures is adding more firepower with the announcement of a €500m new growth fund aimed at making big bets on rapidly-expanding companies on both sides of the Atlantic. Read more »
WeatherBill morphs brand to focus on climate
Startup WeatherBill has built a business around offering farmers financial protection against weather, but the underlying goal of the company has always been to help companies adapt to a changing climate, the company’s CEO and Co-Founder David Friedberg told me. Read more »
What can startups do if the euro topples?
With Europe’s currency on the brink of collapse, is there anything startups and investors can do to avoid risking their businesses? We asked some of the continent’s top venture capitalists what they are doing to try and sidestep the crisis. Read more »
How Lanyrd went from Casablanca to conference circuit
Simon Willison is the ultimate nerd: He’s the face behind several important pieces of web technology and a developer who’s worked for some of the biggest names in the business. Now he and his wife are finding more success with events website Lanyrd. Read more »
Why Index believes Israel is about to have its moment
Index Ventures partner Saul Klein is a champion of Europe’s tech scene, from London to Ljublana. Now he’s in to bat for Israel — a country he says is ready to set aside its history of security, pornography and gambling to become the next great innovation hub. Read more »
Subscriber Content
GigaOM Euro 20: the European startups to watch
Europe’s web scene is now thriving, and we’ve compiled a list featuring some of the best and brightest European web startups — what we’re dubbing the GigaOM Euro 20. Depending on how closely you watch Europe’s online scene, some of these companies may be familiar to you. Others you may not have heard of. But all of them are worth watching closely. In this report, we profile the 20 startups that we feel best represent Europe’s current tech scene. We have organized our list around perception, and as lists go, it is intended to be a guideline rather than a rule book. It’s not exhaustive, and clearly, with such a diverse and vibrant continent as our playing field, it never could be. Companies mentioned in this report include GetJar, Huddle, Made.com and Songkick. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Say cheese! UK photo printer snaps up rival for $195m
After years of effort and a long courtship, Photobox and Moonpig — two of Britain’s most venerable startups that print photos, books and greetings cards — are joining forces, with an acquisition that will create what they claim is the world’s leading personalized printing service. Read more »
Skype’s Real P2P Network
Skype, the web’s telephone and video chat pioneer, has seen a lot since its inception eight years ago. But it’s real legacy is its people. The well-connected network of alums reads like a Silicon Valley who’s who. Read more »
Interview: Index Ventures Says This Is Not a Bubble
Index Ventures made its name as Europe’s most aggressive venture capital firm — backing Skype, Playfish and others. We caught up with partner Ben Holmes to find out whether the company is preparing for a bubble by opening its first office in the U.S. Read more »
Path Gets $8.5 Million. Ahem! Why?
Path, the San Francisco-based company that makes a photo sharing app has raised $8.5 million in new investment from KPCB and Index Ventures. That’s a lot of money for a company that has little traction or not even a hint of a business model. Read more »
There’s No Mystery to The Event‘s Social Media
Whether you liked or loathed the premiere of NBC’s The Event last night, the transmedia elements accompanying the series are super-disappointing. While there are a few sites and Twitter accounts, their level of success ranges from mildly entertaining to flat-out disjointed. Read more »
Chartbeat Raises $3M Round For Real-Time Analytics
Chartbeat, which offers real-time website analytics, has closed a $3-million Series A round of financing from a group of VCs led by Index Ventures. This is the first external financing the startup has taken after being founded by betaworks, the venture group/incubator run by John Borthwick. Read more »
Etsy Raises $20M Led by Index Ventures
Etsy, the “eBay for crafts,” has raised a new $20-million round of financing — its fifth — according to several reports, as sales at the user-generated site continue to grow rapidly. The funding round is from a group of venture capital funds led by Index Ventures. Read more »
The Pivot: How Moo Got It Right & Became Profitable
In 2006 Moo.com had it all: hype that comes along with top venture investors, a smooth-talking CEO, hot social services as partners and an iconic product. Today Moo is less hip, more low-key — and profitable. Here’s how the company did it. Read more »
Further Details Emerge As Skype & Its Founders Close to Settlement
There is a good likelihood that Skype; its founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis; and a group of private equity investors led by Silver Lake Partners are close to settling their legal disputes, allowing eBay to sell 65 percent of Skype for about $2 billion. I had first reported the news this past weekend. As part of the settlement, Zennstrom and Friis are likely to get a board representation, and there is some talk of Index Ventures being out of the deal as well. Read more »
Skype, Founders Settlement in the Works
The ongoing legal scuffle between Skype, a division of eBay, and its founders, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, may soon see a resolution, according to someone familiar with the situation. The parties are in discussions to resolve the various issues. The talks are described to be […] Read more »
Subscriber Content
Report: How Mobile Cloud Computing Will Change Tech
What happens when you promise end-users a persistent connection to data, applications and services regardless of the device they’re using? Mobile cloud computing aims to deliver just such a promise. Mobile access to popular web-based services such as Facebook and Gmail, combined with next-generation smartphones like the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android devices, is driving broad adoption of mobile data. However, the center of economic gravity is shifting. Historically, access to the mobile network was the service. But as users have expanded the uses for those bits, what the user does in a given session becomes fundamental to how much the service provider can charge the user or a third party (e.g. an advertiser). Thus, it’s likely that the mobile, IT and MCC sectors will continue their current marriage of convenience to attack a rare convergence of both short-term and longer term opportunity. However, in the process of adapting to an Internet that’s becoming more global, mobile and web-based by the day, the mobile and IT industries will be forced into new ways of doing business. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Joost Sues Volpi for Taking Tech to Make a Web Version of Skype
Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom’s Joost and Joltid today announced that they have filed a lawsuit against Michaelangelo Volpi, Joost’s former president, CEO and chairman, and his current private equity firm (and Joost investor), Index Ventures. The suit claims that Volpi and Index breached fiduciary duty, […] Read more »
Who Invested How Much to Buy Skype
[qi:gigaom_icon_voip] Earlier this week, a group of investors led by Silverlake Partners, a Silicon Valley-based private equity group, acquired 65 percent ownership in Internet telephony company Skype for about $1.9 billion in cash and $125 million in debt. The current owner, eBay, retained 35 percent of […] Read more »
Apple Has Some Important Lessons to Learn
We love Apple. We love its style. We love its vision. We love its marketing and PR. A generation of the world’s best designers cut their teeth on Apple computers, much as they might dislike admitting their sense of taste was shaped by a consumer electronics […] Read more »
Former Joost CEO Gets New Gig as VC
Former Joost CEO Mike Volpi already has a new gig lined up. He’ll be a venture partner at Index Ventures, which was part of the group that pumped $45 million into the little web TV startup that could (but didn’t). Joost announced last week that it […] Read more »
What Went Wrong With Joost?
Joost, a much-vaunted online video startup, has announced that it will offer a white-label video hosting platform, thus entering a crowded market littered with the carcasses of other failed video hosts. As someone who has followed Joost from its very inception, I’m amazed at how badly it’s stumbled. It shouldn’t have. Read more »
Smart Home Energy Funding: AlertMe Raises $13M
It’s the week of investors realizing the potential of energy management tools. On Tuesday, Tendril announced a $30 million round of funding, and on Wednesday, Cambridge, UK-based AlertMe said it has raised £8 million ($13.04 million) in a Series B round from Good Energies, Index Ventures, […] Read more »
Fight Breaks Out Among Spot Runner Investors
Pump-and-dump is not a phrase normally associated with startups. But that is exactly what WPP is accusing its fellow investors in Los Angeles-based interactive advertising agency Spot Runner of doing. The global advertising giant, which owns a 3 percent stake in Spot Runner, is suing Battery […] Read more »
