I picked up the May copy of Wired’s UK edition this week. I’ve always preferred the US version since I’m not in the US- it keeps me up to speed on what’s happening there- but it hit me how powerful the UK version is for the European start-up scene.

Enter the Wired 100 People.

Everyone knows the legends in the Valley, and everyone goes on and on about the Valley (it *is* a special place afterall). I’ve been here for 10 years and Europe has always had problems gaining start-up momentum – there’s no epicenter, there’s no critical mass- and there are no Heros.

Wired is creating local Heros, and I applaud them for it. Singling out successful entrepreneurs, investors, inventors- and holding them up – is something Europe desperately needs. It’s not going to instantly make a scene- but the Wired 100 + the Silicon Alley map they produced last year + …. starts to create a sense of community. And that’s just what Europe needs.

(Also, special congratulations to you Reshma for coming in at number 12. Reshma Sohoni is CEO of  Seedcamp- another group that’s doing a great job building a strong European start-up scene. If you’re just starting out, and you don’t know about Seedcamp- you need to get to one of their mini seedcamps as soon as you can.)

I’d missed this post over at Blognation while I was away on vacation earlier this month.

The post highlights the high levels of cool things happening in Brighton and Sussex comparing the area to San Francisco. A quick review of Wiredsussex (one of the cooler recruitment sites around. Picture to the left from their site) will give you an idea of start-up activity.

Universities are also highlighted, but it doesn’t mention that the Sussex University has some of the best natural language processing experts around. We invested into Magpie– a Brighton based company search company- about 14 months ago and I’ve seen the number of startups in the region really ramp up.

Glad to see the area getting some coverage alongside Oxford and Cambridge. (Bristol is another hot spot to watch).

Continue reading “San Fran Brightoncisco” →

It appears that Google is going head to head with seed investors (like Y combinator) with its Google Gadget Ventures:

Google Gadget Ventures is a new Google pilot program dedicated to helping developers create richer, more useful Google Gadgets. Inspired by the success of iGoogle, which has been driven by the creation by 3rd-party developers of a broad range of gadgets, Gadget Ventures provides two types of funding:

1. Grants of $5,000 to those who’ve built gadgets we’d like to see developed further. You’re eligible to apply for a grant if you’ve developed a gadget that’s in our Google gadgets directory and gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. To apply, you must submit a one-page proposal detailing how you’d use the grant to improve your gadget.

2. Seed investments of $100,000 to developers who’d like to build a business around the Google gadgets platform. Only Google Gadget Venture grant recipients are eligible for this type of funding. Submitting a business plan detailing how you plan to build a viable business around the gadgets platform is a required part of the seed investment application process.

If it’s google gadgets now, are google apps next?

On a related note, does Google’s recent ubiquisys investment + FON = ?

Continue reading “Google Gadget Ventures?” →

This was one of the questions put to me at tonight’s London Business School entrepreneurship gala. My answer was “Did you see the $100 million valuation of the family tree site, Geni?”

I literally fell off my chair when I saw the announcement that Geni raised $10 million at a $100 million post only 7 weeks after raising their $1.5 million seed round. Supposedly they have 100,000 registered users with 2 million “nodes”.

Maybe being an only child limits my excitement about a family networking site…

Continue reading “Is there a growing Web 2.0 bubble?” →