29th Jul2011
Imitating Silicon Valley is ‘pointless’ says former Dragon
Original post by James Hurley via The Telegraph
Doug Richard, who is launching a training and mentoring scheme for London’s creative sector start-ups, says Silicon Roundabout “misses the point” – and that lending can be boosted for “small businesses until you’re blue in the face” without creating jobs.
Doug Richard: "We’re more likely to prosper from our existing assets and successes than if we try to imitate others."
Mr Richard, the technology entrepreneur and former Dragons’ Den panellist, has said the focus on fostering web start-ups in London “misses the point” and it would be more effective to encourage new businesses in sectors where the UK has “existing successes”.
29th Jul2011
UK “tech city” doubles number of start-ups
Original post by Nicole Kobie via PC Pro
“That means something like 1,000-1,500 new jobs”
The UK’s plans to build a Silicon Valley in East London have already helped double the number of start-ups, according officials behind the plans.
Eric Van Der Kleij, CEO of the Tech City Investment Organisation, told the Wall Street Journal that the number of start-ups had “at least doubled” since the Government announced the plans last year.
He claimed that last year, the area – stretching from Old Street’s so-called Silicon Roundabout further east to Stratford – had 170 tech companies at work.
“I can tell you that it has more than doubled in less than eight months,” he told the paper. “Every one of those companies is perhaps two or three people, working in low-cost shared workspaces, making a product, selling a service. That means something like 1,000-1,500 new jobs.”
Van Der Kleij said official numbers about the success of the programme would be announced soon.
At the time of its launch, Prime Minister David Cameron said: “Our ambition is to bring together the creativity and energy of Shoreditch and the incredible possibilities of the Olympic Park to help make East London one of the world’s great technology centres.”
29th Jul2011
At least we got the small deal of the Year – Twitter buying TweetDeck
Original post by Hunter Ruthven via M & A Deals
With a strong showing at the end of 2010, the past year has seen a resurgence in M&A activity as dealmakers completed a series of exciting and innovative transactions.
Small Deal of the Year Winner: TweetDeck’s sale to Twitter
After four years of hard work weathering the storm of the recession, DFJ Esprit is now seeing some reward for its labours.
Following its foundation in 2006, the European fund has been busily acquiring in the technology, media, telecoms, medtech and cleantech sectors to build a strong portfolio to take to the exit market.
Simon Cook, chief executive officer of the venture capital fund, explains, ‘We have been able to demonstrate our ability to add value and get companies sold. We’ve generated significant capital returns to our investors, who have continued to back us.’
In a standout year for Cook, DFJ accounted for 54 per cent of total European venture capital M&A exits (excluding IPOs and biotech), with headline deals such as the sale of LoveFilm to entertainment retail giant Amazon seeing Cook scoop the M&A Dealmaker of the Year award at the annual M&A Awards.
Cook featured prominently in the development of LoveFilm, a movie subscription business, sitting on the company’s board and labelling the sale, which achieved an enterprise value of $367 million, his standout achievement of the year.
‘I was on the board of LoveFilm for many years and saw it grow from 10,000 to 1.5 million subscriptions,’ Cook explains.
Putting a successful 12 months behind him, Cook says that with a recently raised $150 million fund primed for action, DFJ Esprit can once again return to the acquisition trail with what he describes as a ‘number of exciting technology opportunities in the market’.
12 MONTHS OF ACHIEVEMENT
With the very best of the UK M&A world assembled at the Millennium Mayfair hotel in London’s Grosvenor Square, the awards afforded the opportunity to take stock of what was another difficult but prosperous year for many.
Before the takeover of accountancy software business Access, chief executive officer Chris Bayne had never been involved in an MBO or private equity transaction.
29th Jul2011
Silicon Roundabout tech hub drives demand for IT jobs up 18 percent
Original post by Dan Worth via V3.co.uk
Demand for IT workers in London has risen 18 per cent year on year as the government’s efforts to create a rival to Silicon Valley in the UK gain momentum, according to the latest figures from recruitment firm CWJobs.
Around 37,000 jobs in London were advertised in the second quarter of 2011, representing 33 per cent of all IT jobs in the UK. Some 29,000 were for permanent roles and 8,000 for contract positions.
A total of 80,000 permanent and 17,000 temporary jobs were advertised across the UK during the period, the south west being the most popular region behind London.
SQL-related skills were the most sought after, accounting for 23,000 UK job postings, followed by C and C# programming work.
Richard Nott, web site director at CWJobs, said that the figures for jobs in London are very encouraging and underline the quality of IT staff in the UK.
“It’s promising to see that the government’s investment in the IT sector is being reflected in the recruitment market. The quality of IT candidates in the UK is extremely high and often underestimated,” he added.
29th Jul2011
Monsters, roundabouts and dotcom bubbles
Original post by Nick Giles via Business Zone
Fears of a second internet bubble have gathered momentum in recent weeks.
Fuelled by rumours of Facebook’s impending IPO, Microsoft’s $8bn bet on Skype, the eye-watering spike in the LinkedIn share price and the sense that investors are desperate for a piece of the action, wherever that action may be – many are asking whether we’re hurtling towards another meltdown and blissfully ignoring the lessons of a decade ago.
The main statement in defence of the latest frenzy is that the majority of these businesses have a revenue model unlike many of the dotcom failures of the ‘90s.
While their valuations are sky high, they have developed a means to generate cash. The most notable is Groupon which is on track to become the fastest company ever to get to $1bn in annual sales – others are harnessing huge audiences to scale their businesses.
29th Jul2011
Startup seeks funding to make ticketing a subscription service
Original post by Guy Clapperton via TechCrunch Europe
Ticket Tailor is a hosted platform for promoters and venues to sell tickets direct to their customers without paying booking fees.
Startup business Ticket Tailor has launched in the UK from its Shoreditch HQ, waving two fingers at the more established event ticket intermediaries who they claim are overpriced and run an out-dated business model. The company is currently seeking funding.
What’s the beef?
28th Jul2011
Huddle wins Whitehall documents contract
Original post by Jonathan Moules via Financial Times
Huddle, a UK technology start-up, has formed a partnership with Whitehall’s senior security chiefs to make British civil servants among the first in the world to use cloud computing for work on classified government documents.
The deal with FCO Services, which built and manages the UK government’s secure private network, will enable civil servants across Whitehall to share policy documents and make changes online. Previously, such activity would have had to be done either by face-to-face meetings or by a back and forth e-mail exchange.
The adoption of cloud computing for the most senior levels of government decision-making puts the UK ahead of the US in its use of the technology and will help Huddle to sell its software service to other governments.
Cloud-based software has become popular in large IT departments because it is much cheaper to deploy than the traditional method of loading software on to individual computers.
27th Jul2011
Excelian Joins Quadruple Olympian Matthew Pinsent to Promote Business Benefits of Team 2012
Original post by Sue Primmer via bobsguide
Senior communications professional, experienced in both private and public sectors with a specialist track record in advising national figures in the media spotlight.
With just over a year to go to London 2012, Excelian’s Sue Primmer has joined quadruple Olympic gold medallist rower Sir Matthew Pinsent to be interviewed on the business benefits of ‘Our Team 2012.’
Chaired by Sir Matthew, Our Team 2012 is aimed at businesses with an annual turnover of up to c £100 million. The organisation connects companies directly with the athletes competing to be part of ‘Team GB’and raises sponsorship for the range of back up support they require.
“It’s a great mechanism to make sure that all sizes of business can have a personal link with the Games” says Sue. “For a relatively small sponsorship (£7.5K in each of 2 years) we can access a small number of tickets, sporting events, employee engagement activities and most humbling of all, actually get to meet the athletes themselves.”
27th Jul2011
Silicon Valley Isn’t Broken
Original post by Chris Beach via TNW
Last week on The Next Web, we saw Silicon Valleydepicted by Hermione Way as a trap for America’s brightest young minds, locked in pursuit of profit and exit strategy. Startup incubators manufacturing the software equivalents of Biebers and Gagas, lacking any social conscience.
There are several problems with this portrayal.
To an outsider, the incubator process is artificial compared to flashbacks of Wozniak in a garage, building computers with his bare hands in the 70s. Production-line farming of startup “batches” diminishes that glamour somewhat, but let’s put things in perspective. When Disney manufactured Hannah Montana we saw a human child become a product. That could be called distasteful. When Y Combinator “manufactures” a startup, investors take on risk, founders are empowered, and a product is created. That product is not a Hollywood artifice, it’s a business. No-one becomes a product. They become owners.
Owners of trivia? Is the Valley losing innovation in the pursuit of wealth? According to Hermione, only two of two hundred startups she’d seen this year were game changers: just 1%. But hold on, that’s two game changers. How many game changers do we reasonably expect every year? How many have we seen in the last thirty years? Far from choosing obvious money spinners, Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham argues : “Our structure (investing a small amount in a lot of startups) makes it in our interest to take the biggest risks.” Companies like Dropbox and Airbnb certainly weren’t the safe bets they appear now with the benefit of hindsight.
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