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Amazon launches AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Posted by JeffBarr on Wednesday 19th of January 2011 | 0 Comment(s)

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We're excited to introduce the beta of AWS Elastic Beanstalk, an even easier way for developers to quickly deploy and manage applications in the AWS cloud. You simply upload your application to Elastic Beanstalk, and Elastic Beanstalk automatically handles the deployment details of capacity provisioning, load balancing, auto-scaling, and application health monitoring.

Elastic Beanstalk leverages AWS services such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon Simple Notification Service, Elastic Load Balancing, and Auto-Scaling to deliver the same highly reliable, scalable, and cost-effective infrastructure that hundreds of thousands of businesses depend on today. However, you don't need familiarity with AWS services to begin running your applications on the AWS technology infrastructure platform. Rather, you simply upload your application to Elastic Beanstalk using the AWS Management Console, the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse, or the Elastic Beanstalk command line tools or API-- and behind the scenes, Elastic Beanstalk handles the provisioning and deployment of the infrastructure needed to run the application. Once the application is deployed, Elastic Beanstalk will automatically monitor application health and Amazon EC2 instance performance. Elastic Beanstalk is easy to begin and impossible to outgrow.

Most existing application containers or platform-as-a-service solutions, while reducing the amount of programming required, significantly diminish your flexibility and control. You are forced to live with all the decisions pre-determined by the vendor - with little to no opportunity to take back control over various parts of your application's infrastructure. However, with Elastic Beanstalk, if you decide you want to take over some (or all) of the elements of your infrastructure, you can do so seamlessly by using Elastic Beanstalk's management capabilities. For example, you can enable login access into the application servers, browse log files, monitor application health, adjust auto-scaling rules, and setup email notifications through the Elastic Beanstalk console. You also have the flexibility to select the appropriate Amazon EC2 instance type and choose from several available database options (such as Amazon RDS, Amazon SimpleDB, Microsoft SQL Server, or Oracle).

Today's release of Elastic Beanstalk is built for Java developers using the familiar Apache Tomcat software stack, which ensures easy portability if you ever want to move your applications. Elastic Beanstalk is designed so that it can be extended to support multiple development stacks and programming languages in the future. AWS is actively working with solution providers on the APIs and capabilities needed to create additional Elastic Beanstalk offerings.

There is no additional charge for Elastic Beanstalk - you pay only for the AWS resources needed to run your applications. To learn more about Elastic Beanstalk, visit the Elastic Beanstalk detail page or the Getting Started Guide, or attend the upcoming webinar (10am PST on January 24).

Want to explore opportunities for your technology in Silicon Valley?

Posted by Zoe Lock on Wednesday 19th of January 2011 | 0 Comment(s)

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You have 2 days left to apply to join Web Mission 2011...

Web Mission 2011 will identify some of the best, fast-growing "Web Economy" technology companies in the UK and bring them to San Francisco in the spring, to explore opportunities for growth with key investors, potential partners and customers, media and other stakeholders in Silicon Valley.

The "Web Economy" refers to the individuals, enterprises, investors, clusters, sectors and value webs contributing to innovation in mobile, social, semantic and real-time web technologies; Cloud2; social gaming; and 3-D/RealVR environments.

Companies are chosen through a competition which assesses their ability to do meaningful business in the US; from setting up office, to finding funding, to extending their network and developing sustainable transatlantic relationships. The companies will also be assessed on their business viability and the strength of the management team. The final selection will be balanced to form a mix of companies that show the breadth of what the UK has to offer in this space. In a very few cases, some criteria may be relaxed for younger companies presenting particularly innovative ideas.

The top 20 judged UK Web technology companies will travel to San Francisco between March 5th – 11th 2011, following on from the Game Developers Conference and leading on to SXSW.

WebMission11 is run by Polecat in collaboration with Oli Barrett from the Co-sponsorship Agency, Scott Cain from the Long Run Venture, the Technology Strategy Board, UK Trade & Investment, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe and TechCrunch.

For more information on WebMisison11, please contact mission@meaningmine.com or apply here.

Manchester based Playdemic has been acquired by RockYou

Posted by superuser on Friday 14th of January 2011 | 0 Comment(s)

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According to TechCrunch Europe, RockYou has acquired Manchester based social gaming startup, Playdemic. Below is an extract of the Techcrunch blog article.

Based in Manchester, England, RockYou says Playdemic will operate independently as a subsidiary studio and develop Facebook games for a mainstream audience. Paul Gouge, Playdemic CEO and founder, will lead the studio as VP and General Manager. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Playdemic’s management team is said to have held senior positions at publishers like Ubisoft, THQ and Eidos. Ian Livingstone, co-founder of Games Workshop and life president of Eidos, was a chief investor in Playdemic. The startup’s been around for roughly a year. RockYou says it will try and grow the user base for Gourmet Ranch, Playdemic’s first title that is currently playable on Facebook with half a million monthly active users. In the game, players can grow organic crops, raise animals and prepare and serve meals to their friends.

How to pitch to a VC by Mark Suster

Posted by superuser on Tuesday 11th of January 2011 | 0 Comment(s)

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There are a number of Venture Capitalists who is spending significant amount of time trying to demystify raising venture capital. Let me introduce Mark Suster.



Mark Suster, GRP Partners



Mark joined GRP Partners in 2007 after having worked with GRP for nearly 8 years as a two-time entrepreneur. Most recently Mark was Vice President, Product Management at Salesforce.com (NASDAQ: CRM) following its acquisition of Koral, where Mark was Founder and CEO. Prior to Koral, Mark was Founder and CEO of BuildOnline, the largest independent global content collaboration company focused on the engineering and construction sectors, which was acquired by SWORD Group (PARIS: SWP). Earlier in his career, Mark spent nearly ten years working for Accenture in Europe, Japan and the U.S. Mark received a BA in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He grew up in the U.S. and is also a citizen of the UK.


Here is a video on Mark speaking about how to pitch to a VC.


US Seed Stage Tech Accelerators

Posted by superuser on Monday 10th of January 2011 | 0 Comment(s)

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Here is a Google Map showing the locations of Seed Tech Accelerators in the USA. Shouldn't we have similar for Europe?

What The Colors Mean:

+ Yellow = Private: Dominant driver behind the incubator and its funding is a private group with private funds.
+ Red = VC/Angel Group: Dominant driver behind the group and its funding is an established VC or organized angel network.
+ Purple = University: Dominant driver behind the incubator and its funding is a university with its own resources.
+ Green = Corporate: Dominant driver behind the incubator and its funding is a corporation with its own funds.
+ Teal = Government: Dominant driver behind the incubator and its funding is state, city, or county government with taxpayer funding.
+ Blue = Hybrid Approach: The incubator and its funding is a combination of stakeholder groups with pooled resources.


View U.S. Seed Stage Tech Accelerators in a larger map

Further resources:

1. Complete List of Incubators and Accelerators (like Y Combinator) by Jason Calacanis.
2. Incubators/Accelerators by Deadline by Jason Calacanis.
3. Help for Startups! – A semi-complete list of startup accelerator programs

Keith Curran's new company, Name Your Number, closes £1.35 million funding round

Posted by superuser on Friday 7th of January 2011 | 0 Comment(s)

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I met the founders of Name Your Number at a recent Envestors event in Manchester and was impressed by their simple proposition and the talented team they put together to take the proposition forward.

Of course, the title of this post is slightly misleading as John Vernon and Neil Cooper founded Name Your Number. Keith and I met for a quick drink before Christmas, and its good to see how Keith plans to use his skillset in helping the north west tech entrepreneurs, especially those in the mobile space realise their visions.

Here is the original story from The Insider Media, unedited...

Private equity firm Energize Capital has led a £1.35m equity fundraising syndicate to invest in Manchester-based telecoms software company Name Your Number. Energize led the syndicate alongside the North West Business Investment Scheme (NWBIS) and other private investors. Name Your Number works alongside mobile telephone network operators and offers personal telephone numbers to customers. The company has already established itself in Qatar and is looking to roll out across the globe. It is currently in “advanced negotiations” with networks in Latin and South America and Asia. John Vernon, managing director of Name Your Number, said that the investment package would allow the business “to expand into new markets and increase the scope of existing partnerships with global telecom players”. The Name Your Number deal was Energize Capital’s third investment. Angela Warner and Paul Gower led negotiations for NWBIS, Andrew Page of Page and Co Solicitors acted for Energize, Barney Leaf of Laytons acted for NWBIS and Daniel Varney and Philippa Howard of Pannone acted for Name Your Number.

What are your greatest challenges in 2011?

Posted by ManojRanaweera on Thursday 6th of January 2011 | 1 Comment(s)

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In my view, tech entrepreneurship is about finding opportunities and creating tech businesses to generate shareholder returns better than the incumbent solutions whilst defending your market share against new entrants. Whilst everyone expects 2011 to be a better year than the previous two, nonetheless, there are significant business challenges ahead, first of which being survival.

1. What are the key challenges you expect to face this year?
2. What can techcelerate and its growing community of 1900 do to help you?

As a starter, my own challenges for edocr.com are:

1. Attracting talent
2. Capital for growth

2011 for me is, nothing but "make it happen" year. Do share your thoughts.

Quizible iPhone Application Launched for Christmas

Posted by budda on Thursday 6th of January 2011 | 0 Comment(s)

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DARESBURY, Cheshire (December, 2010) - Quizible, the popular picture based quiz site has gone mobile with the launch of an app for iPhone and iPod touch users.

Remember those Excel spreadsheet quizzes that used to do the rounds as office email attachments before there was such thing as a social network? Quizible brought those instant answer picture quizzes online in December 2008 in which time over 600 quizzes have been created and played by over 5 million people.

The iPhone app interface has been designed using a hangman style text input removing the problem of incorrect spelling and typing mistakes on smaller touchscreens. No more wondering how to spell a tricky name!

Great new features including the ability to download quizzes and play them in offline mode, perfect for the frequent traveller and iPod Touch users.

Challenge your friends and see if you can beat their score on the quiz and global leaderboards - share your achievements on Facebook.

To mark the launch of the new Quizible application prizes are being awarded for the top 3 users on the global leaderboard at the end of January 2011. The Leaderboard can be found via the main menu screen.

Quizible was built by Ixis (www.ixis.co.uk) using the open source framework Drupal (drupal.org). Ixis provide web development, support and managed hosting for Drupal projects of all sizes.

The Quizible app is available for £1.79 GBP / $2.99 USD from the Apple App Store for iPhone or iPod touch at http://quizible.com/iphone

The £185m North West Fund goes live!

Posted by superuser on Monday 20th of December 2010 | 0 Comment(s)

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The £185m North West Fund  goes live

• The North West Fund is open and ready to receive applications
• The £185m North West Fund is the largest public fund of its kind in the UK
• Over £200m of private sector leverage will facilitate funding of around £400m
• 14,000 jobs to be created/safeguarded and over £700m GVA expected

North West Business Finance Ltd (NWBF) with support from the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Investment Bank is today (20th December 2010) ready to make investments from The North West Fund.

The North West Fund is a new £185m evergreen fund for Northwest businesses (previously known as the Venture Capital and Loan Fund or VCLF) and is one of the largest public sector funds of its kind in Europe and the largest in the UK. Between 2010 and 2015 the Fund is expected to create/safeguard almost 14,000 jobs and improve the economic performance of England’s Northwest with an estimated GVA increase of £700m.

The North West Fund is the umbrella name for the 6 funds that are now available to Northwest businesses in the form of debt, equity and quasi-equity. These funds are managed by 6 fund managers under contract with NWBF. NWBF oversees the delivery of the Fund, under the European Investment Bank’s Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises (JEREMIE) Initiative, in England’s Northwest.

Initially, £170m of The North West Fund will be allocated to the 6 Fund Managers, The Fund Managers then have a mandate to invest their allocation into the specific product or sector they manage, before 31st December 2015. The £15m remaining will be available for further allocation and investment through to the end of 2015. Such further allocations will be made as investment needs become more apparent.

The 6 funds and fund managers are

:

+ Development Capital (£45m) YFM Private Equity
+ Business Loan (£35m) FW Capital Ltd
+ Venture Capital (£30m) Enterprise Ventures Ltd
+ Biomedical (£25m) Spark Impact Ltd
+ Energy & Environmental (£20m) CT Investment Partners LLP
+ Digital & Creative (£15m) AXM Venture Capital Ltd

Total £170m

The North West Fund is made up of a £92.4m ERDF grant, making it the biggest ERDF project of the 2007-13 programme, and a £92.4m loan from the EIB. In addition to this funding, the 6 Fund Managers appointed, have been targeted with securing over £200m of co-investment capital from a wide range of sources including; finance angels, banks, pension funds, venture capital, private equity investors, and other private funds. It is expected that this initiative will generate total funding in excess of £400m.

In total, the fund managers will operate 13 offices across the Northwest and, at peak, are expected to employ 48 (FTE) professional staff based in the region focused on deploying and managing The North West Fund.

Andy Leach, Chief Executive Officer of NWBF said:

“I am delighted that I can, at last, confirm that The North West Fund is open for business. Whilst it has taken longer than expected to establish, I believe that The North West Fund is now in a position to provide investment capital to a range of businesses across the region at a critical time. This funding will allow these businesses to deliver their own growth plans in, what continue to be, challenging economic times when the availability of alternative funding remains tight.

Having worked closely with our six Fund Managers over recent months, I am confident that they have the requisite expertise and understanding of the region and their targeted sectors, to ensure that The North West Fund delivers an enduring legacy.”

Over the past 2 years the NWDA has led the development and creation of The North West Fund from drawing-board to launch and will continue to support it until the closure of the Agency in March 2012.

Robert Hough, Chairman of the NWDA, said:

“The combination of the Agency’s expertise and knowledge has delivered a significant evergreen fund which will help hundreds of businesses to grow and is one of the major legacy projects the Agency is leaving for the region.

The NWDA has worked extremely hard on this complex project over many months with various bodies in the UK and Europe to secure this vital fund for the Northwest. The North West Fund is an important initiative that will leverage hundreds of millions of pounds of private sector investment and, as an evergreen fund, will benefit businesses in our region for many years to come.”

Simon Brooks, European Investment Bank Vice President responsible for the United Kingdom, said:

“The European Investment Bank is pleased to support this flagship SME finance initiative to benefit companies across the North West. Supporting small and medium sized companies is a key priority for the EIB and the Jeremie initiative is one of the pillars for this role in the UK.”

Liz Meek, Chair of the ERDF Programme Monitoring Committee, said:

“It’s really important that business has access to this kind of support and I’m delighted that The Fund is now up and running. Along with initiatives like the Regional Growth Fund, The North West Fund will give the private sector, and especially small and growing businesses, the help it needs at a time when help is needed most.”

Business Minister, Mark Prisk said:

“It’s great news that The North West Fund is now open for business and ready to start investing. Along with the Government’s £1.4bn Regional Growth Fund and other economic development initiatives, this fund will play an important role in boosting the prosperity of local businesses; creating new private sector jobs and driving economic growth in communities across the North West.”

The North West Fund is now live and applications can be made on-line at www.thenorthwestfund.co.uk . An event to mark the official launch of The North West Fund will take place in the New Year.

NWBF would like to thank legal advisors Mace & Jones, who acted for them in the establishment of The North West Fund.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

The North West Fund - Each of the 6 funds have been designed specifically to support businesses in the Northwest:

Development Capital:

Expansion Capital for SMEs to provide flexible equity and loan packages to support weaknesses in the market and to invest alongside other sources of private capital in the Northwest market. Typical expansion capital structures can include equity, quasi-equity (mezzanine) capital and loan support. This fund will have a broad sector range, outside those targeted by the specific priority sector funds, but with an emphasis and focus on the regional economic priority sectors, including technology.

Business Loan:

Loans between £50,000 to £250,000 will be available to SMEs for growth businesses with actual or potential revenue streams, but whose investment and funding needs are not fully met by the banking sector, including the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme. In general the loan terms will require security, including potentially, at the Fund Manager’s discretion, a degree of personal security from the owners of the SME.

Venture Capital:

Early Stage Finance for SMEs across the broad range of new businesses covering proof of concept, pre-start, start-up, seed capital, gap venture finance and venture capital funding, including follow-on investments. This fund will have a broad sector range, outside those targeted by the specific priority sector funds, but with an emphasis and focus on the regional economic priority sectors, including technology.

Priority Sector Funds - Biomedical; Energy & Environmental; Digital & Creative:

Priority sectors, which often require specialist investment manager skills, are extremely important to the delivery of the Northwest Regional Economic Strategy and growth in the region’s economy. These three priority sectors have been selected for focused investment, given the skills and expertise that already exist in the region and the growth that they are expected to exhibit over the next few years. As well as supporting existing businesses and individuals in these sectors within the region, it is expected that the availability of funding in the Northwest for these sectors will stimulate many inward investment opportunities for The North West Fund. These Priority Sector Funds will provide both venture capital and development capital investment.

The North West Fund – structure:

NWBF – The new private, not for profit, company, established to oversee the delivery of The North West Fund, under the Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises Initiative (JEREMIE) in the Northwest.

NWBF Chairman - Lord Daresbury is the Chairman of NWBF Ltd. Peter Daresbury is Chairman of several companies including, Aim listed Nasstar PLC, Stellar Diamonds PLC, Mallett PLC and Aintree Racecourse.

NWBF Board - The board for NWBF is made up of senior and experienced figures from across the professional services sector across the region and includes:

• Peter Daresbury, Chairman
• John McGuire, Former MD of the Corporate Banking Division, for Royal Bank of
Scotland Group
• Michael Prince, Former Corporate Partner for DLA Piper
• Clive Brook, Former Corporate Finance Partner at PKF
• David Read, Head of Business Finance, NWDA

NWBF Investment Advisory Panel - NWBF has an experienced independent Investment Advisory Panel, whose role is to provide advice from time to time, to the NWBF Board, and includes:

• John McGuire (chairman)
• John Nicholson
• Clive Brook
• David Read
• Andy Leach
• Brenda Smith
• Anthea Harrison
• Hazel Moore
• Andrew Graham

NWBF Chief Executive Officer - Andy Leach, has 24 years experience in the Private Equity market, latterly as Portfolio Director with LDC in the Northwest, the leading UK regional mid-market private equity house and part of the Lloyds Banking Group.

European structure, JEREMIE:

The JEREMIE initiative offers EU Member States, through their national or regional Managing Authorities, the opportunity to use part of their European Union (EU) Structural Funds to finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by means of equity, loans or guarantees, through a revolving umbrella fund. The initiative was developed by the European Commission (EC) and the European Investment Fund (EIF), which is part of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group.

JEREMIE provides for a range of debt and equity financial tools to obtain the most appropriate allocation of funds according to national, regional or local requirements.

The North West Fund is funded by a European Regional Development Fund grant under the 2007-13 programme and is matched equally by private sector loan funding. The North West (JEREMIE) Fund will run for an initial investment period up to the end of December 2015.

ERDF in the Northwest:

The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is making a real difference to people and businesses in the Northwest. With €755 million to invest between 2007 and 2013, ERDF is enhancing the competitiveness of the region’s economy by supporting growth in enterprise and employment.

ERDF in the Northwest is managed by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA).

For further information please visit www.erdfnw.co.uk

The European Investment Bank:

The European Investment Bank is the European Union’s long-term financing institution and, provides long-term finance for capital projects promoting European economic objectives. The EIB made its first loan in the UK in 1973 and since then has lent around €75bn for investment in the UK economy. In the years from 2004 to 2009, the European Investment Bank financed investment in the UK totalled some € 23.5bn - GBP 17.5 billion.

The Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA):

The NWDA works to deliver economic success in England’s Northwest by building the competitiveness of its businesses, people and places. Utilising our technical expertise and strategic influence, we help the region’s 250,000+ businesses to develop and grow, as well as supporting international trade and encouraging inward investment.

For further information please contact Neil Roscoe, Senior Press Officer on 01925 400232 or mobile 07980 713282 or neil.roscoe@nwda.co.uk

Review of Dragons Lair Christmas Special 2010

Posted by superuser on Sunday 19th of December 2010 | 0 Comment(s)

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Introduction

What started as an experiment in 2008, Dragons Lair has turned into a popular format of our annual calendar of events. We ended 2010 with another cracking event, which featured four early stage technology companies pitching for investment. The second half of the event focused on investment readiness, as the much awaited £185 million of North West Funds were signed on the same day, after a delay of about 18 months.

Against each pitch, I have combined the feedback I received from Dragons and my own views. Please note that it is easy to criticise a tech startup for lack of progress or how much funding it has burnt. In most cases, a startup entrepreneur does what s/he can to survive and grow his/her business, and may not follow a logical path, as most would expect. I am a prime example of this with my own tech company, edocr.com.

Pitch 1 - Viztone


Colin presented Viztone, which has already attracted a number of rounds of investment over several years. One of the key problems with Viztone is that most people are irritated by a recorded audio, never mind video. Dragons were concerned about the limited market size to certain demographics, such as students and teenagers, who would gladly watch for exchange of credits, etc.

Pitch 2 - Malinko

Andrew presented Malinko, which is addressing a pain that many could understand. It already had customers and clear strategy in terms of the initial markets. Whilst Andrew was less prepared than anyone else on the night with his presentation, it attracted the best attention.

Pitch 3 - TheWeddingVine.com

Mark presented TheWeddingVine, which is run by a husband and wife team, looking for an investment of £150,000. Lack of a web store was a major issue for investors, which the company is trying to address.

Pitch 4 - Canddi

Battery of my Flip Video camera (courtesy of Salesforce.com) ran out, resulting in no footage of Tim's presentation of Canddi. What's notable is that Canddi attracted funding of £20,000 when Tim last pitched 12 months ago, from Difference Engine led by Jon Bradford. Tim gave an update on what Canddi has achieved over the 12 months. They are focusing initially on the automotive sector, due to key contact they have.

Summary

It was felt by the Dragons, that none of the pitches were professional enough and addressed the points they were interested in. We plan to run a workshop in the new year to address these points. Pitch training was seen as mandatory.

Second Half

Andy Jones shared his experience of raising funding for his company, Ibexis. They have pitched to about 15 investors before receiving a term sheet. According to Andy, research into which investors should be targeted is vital to success. Robert Wakeling from Wadaro spoke of his experience of raising funding after 50 pitches and living with investors. Stuart Scott-Goldstone is working on closing the first two investments for Richard Young under the NW Equity funds, and spoke of legal aspects of taking investment.