Europe
The latest innovative tech coming out of Europe
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This Week On The TC Europe Podcast: Dailymotion Is Growing, SwiftKey Gets Better, Cambridge Gets Into VC
This week, we talk about SwiftKey releasing a lot of new keyboard layouts and features, Dailymotion expanding to Japan and acquiring a startup in Europe, and Cambridge getting into VC. This is the TechCrunch Europe Podcast, wherein we European writers discuss tech news, as well as what’s happening in our startup scene. As always, those topics were a great opportunity to talk more about our… Read More
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Mindie Is An Immersive Music And Video Jukebox App Done Right
Meet Mindie, a beautifully designed video-sharing app for the iPhone. But calling it a video app is just one part of the story. It’s not yet another Vine, Instagram or even MixBit competitor. Mindie is all about music discovery. You pick a track, record a few seconds of video like you would do in Vine, and share the combination of the two on Twitter, Facebook and Mindie. “Music is a… Read More
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Fun Video Makes Startup Life Look As Easy As Watching MTV — If Only
We were randomly emailed by one Michal Sadowski, an entrepreneur from Poland. The video he sent us is a sort of MTV-esque homage to the swirl of experiences that might happen to a startup founder were they to compress their experience into a fast-paced music video, shot in the first person. It's pretty creative, we'll give him that. Read More
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Le Laboratoire’s Ophone Is A Smartphone For The Nose That Knows
Can you smell a symphony? If Le Laboratoire has its way, you soon will. The contemporary art and design sensor founded by academic and scientists David Edwards in 2007 was at Wired's 2013 event in London this week, showing their latest creation: an olfactory experience unlike any other, delivered digitally like an email or instant message. Read More
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Waterhouse Jumps Wellington’s Ship To Boost Balderton’s Early Stage Activity
Following recent changes at DFJ Esprit, Forward Ventures, and Index Ventures, today sees another change in European VC personnel. Long-time partner Daniel Waterhouse has left Wellington Partners to join Balderton Capital as a General Partner, where he'll be based in London focussing on early stage investments in the software and internet sectors. Read More
Europe Writers
TCTV
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SwiftKey 4.3 Unifies Tablet & Phone Apps, Adds More Keyboard Layouts
Word-prediction Android keyboard maker SwiftKey, which closed a $17.5M Series B led by Index Ventures last month and whose keyboard software runs on millions of mobile devices, has launched a new version, SwiftKey 4.3, that let's users customise the size and position of the on-screen keyboard -- with the idea being to ensure a more comfortable typing position, regardless of device size and typing… Read More
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Playlists.net Revamps iOS App To Focus On Music Discovery & Foursquare-Powered Location Playlist Sharing
Spotify community and playlist sharing site Playlists.net (formerly ShareMyPlaylists) is continuing its drive to put music discovery at the heart of its proposition. Following a redesigned Spotify app, today the UK startup unveiled an entirely revamped version of its iOS offering in a bid to make it the go-to app for discovering Spotify-powered playlists on Apple's mobile devices. Read More
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Mobile Games Marketing Platform AppLift Raises Further $7M, Poaches Two Rocket Internet MDs
The HitFox-incubated mobile games marketing platform AppLift has raised a further $7 million in funding from previous backer Prime Ventures. It's also announcing it's poached two seasoned Rocket Internet MDs to fill the positions of MD/COO, and MD Asia. Read More
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Post-Snowden, U.K. Parliamentary Committee To Probe Individual Privacy Vs. National Security
A U.K. parliamentary committee has widened the scope of a planned inquiry into the legislative framework governing national intelligence agencies’ access to private information, triggered by the PRISM revelations in the U.S. It will now consider more broadly the impact of mass surveillance on individuals' right to privacy. Read More
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Telefonica Takes A Strategic Stake In Rhapsody, Will Bring Napster Into Latin America, Deeper Into Europe
In the allegro-paced race between music streaming providers to see who will be the first to achieve profitable scale, today Rhapsody got a significant leg up, courtesy of Telefonica. The Spanish-based mobile carrier, which has some 316 million customers globally, is making a strategic investment in Rhapsody, which will include a deal to bundle and resell Rhapsody's Napster music service and… Read More
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Arrington, McClure, Damelin, DeRycker, Hommels, Rimer — Our Disrupt Europe Battlefield Finals Judges
A central aspect of any Disrupt event is the Battlefield startup competition, and at TechCrunch Disrupt Europe there will be no exception to this. This is where new companies reveal themselves to the world on the day, usually completely out of stealth mode, launching there and then. Former competitors to have launched on the Battlefield stage include Yammer, Mint.com and Dropbox, to name just a… Read More
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Dailymotion Announces An Upcoming European Acquisition And A New Office In Japan
While the French government scuppered Yahoo’s acquisition of Dailymotion, the video platform is still planning its next expansion moves. According to news agency AFP, the French company will open a small Japanese office in the coming days to target this Asian market. It is also in talks to acquire a European video startup to fuel its growth. Fully owned by Orange, the French telecom company… Read More
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Social Shopping App Depop Bags $1M Seed From Fashion-Focused Investors Red Circle & Luca Marzotto
Another day, another social mobile shopping app on the march. U.K.-based Depop, which was founded in 2011 but launched officially in April this year, has just closed a $1 million seed round, from several fashion industry-focused investors: the round was led by Red Circle Investments, and joined by Luca Marzotto. Read More
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Bunkr Unveils New Major Version Of Its PowerPoint Killer
French startup Bunkr just released a new major version of its presentation web app in partnership with Etamin Studio. It still is a fully responsive HTML5 web app that works seamlessly on your computer, phone or tablet. Yet, it was redesigned from the ground up and the new user experience should make the app more appealing to new users. As a reminder, Bunkr is the PowerPoint killer we’ve all… Read More
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IoT Startup Greenbox Aims To Become Nest For The Garden
Taking cues from the IoT playbook is Israeli startup Greenbox with its "cloud-connected smart irrigation system". Pegged for a December launch but already available for preorder, the company is pitching itself as 'Nest for the garden'. Read More
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Social Shopping Startup Shopcade Bags $4M To Fuel Mobile Growth & A Big Data Play
Social shopping and deals-focused startup Shopcade, which launched out of the U.K. in November 2011, has raised £2.5 million (circa $4 million) to accelerate its growth on mobile. Investors in the funding round include Pascal Cagni, formerly head of Apple's European business from 2000 to 2012, and Michel Combes, CEO of telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent and ex-CEO of Vodafone Europe. Read More
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gamesGRABR Launches Equity Funding Campaign To Be ‘Pinterest For Games’
You've seen "Pinterest for X" style startups before I'm sure. Well, gamesGRABR is a new style "social network for gaming" which is aiming to become a sort of 'Pinterest you games'. But before you turn away, take a look, as this is more than just an interface, it allows the user to curate games collections, discover, engage, play and share them with other users, on any gaming platform. Today it's … Read More
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Supercell Dominates The Realm: Game Maker Sells A 51%, $1.53B Stake To SoftBank and GungHo Online
Another big move for Softbank into the gaming world, and a massive investment for Finnish gaming juggernaut Supercell: the company is selling a 51% stake for $1.53 billion to Japan's SoftBank and games developer GungHo OnLine Entertainment. This strategic investment, which makes Supercell a subsidiary of Softbank, will be used to fuel Supercell's global expansion. It effectively represents a… Read More
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Yandex Buys KinoPoisk, ‘Russia’s IMDb’, To Move Into Film Search And Recommendation
Yandex, the search company often referred to as the Google of Russia, is today announcing its latest acquisition: KinoPoisk, an online film database known as "the IMDb of Russia" (after the Amazon-owned company that KinoPoisk recreated in Russia) with some 18.6 million visitors per month. Read More
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Apple Ups Its Fashion Cred, Names Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts As SVP Of Retail And Online Stores
If you had any second thoughts about how Apple sees itself as a high-end fashion brand in the consumer electronics world, doubt no more: today the company announced that it is appointing Angela Ahrendts, currently the CEO of Burberry, as its SVP of retail and online stores. This is a new position at the company that will report directly to Tim Cook, and it takes effect in the Spring of 2014. At… Read More
