Fizzback bags $5m from Advent Venture Partners
Advent Venture Partners has announced that it has invested $5m (£2.5m) in online customer feedback provider Fizzback Group.
Formerly known as 'Instant Market Intelligence', Fizzback works with a number of companies, National Express included, to help them capture and analyse feedback from their customers.
Interview: Saul Klein, venture partner at Index Ventures
Serial web investor Saul Klein was recently appointed as a venture partner by London-based VC firm Index Ventures. Saul is planning to help Index spend its new technology fund and he will also work with its existing portfolio.
He spoke to us about why European start-ups need better access to experienced entrepreneurs, why he thinks social shopping is over-hyped, and what's driving the renewed interest in internet companies from investors.
Podcast suite Odeo goes up for sale
Web-based podcasting application Odeo has been put up for sale, just months after founder Evan Williams led a management buy-out of the project from investors.
Williams wrote: "We've put too much into Odeo to want to see it fade away. And it still has tons of potential. But we're not improving it fast enough."
Saul Klein joins Index Ventures
Former Skype VP of marketing and Video Island founder Saul Klein has joined Index Ventures to help the VC firm’s hunt for new web investments.
The London-based company has just announced the closure of a EU350m fund – its fourth - to focus on European firms in IT, life sciences and clean tech.
Klein, who will be based in Index’s London office, will help spend the new cashpile as well as working on Index’s existing portfolio, which includes the likes of Betfair, Netvibes and Last.fm.
Vinny Lingham's incuBeta bags funding, eyes USA
Congratulations to Vinny Lingham and the team at incuBeta, the Cape Town-based internet marketing group, which has secured a £1.75m investment from HBD Venture Capital.
Location networking startup Plazes raises £1.8m
Plazes, a social networking site based in Berlin, has announced that it has raised £1.8m in a first round of founding led by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures.
Plazes is a social network site with the added dimension of location tracking. Plazes automatically detects your location and connects you with people or places nearby.
Funding round puts poll marketing centre-stage
Web polling firm Vizu has received a $2.9m investment that aims to do for market researchers what AdSense does for advertising.
The investment, led by $1.5m from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, will go toward the just-launched Vizu Answers.The service allows marketers to create multiple-choice polls that appear on partner sites around the world.
More on Shiny Media's recent funding
Earlier in the week we wrote about how UK blog network Shiny Media has sold half of its business to a new London-based VC fund, in exchange for $4.5m.
I talked to Shiny Media CEO Ashley Norris to find out more about the company’s progress and plans for the future.
UK blog network bags $4.5m from new VC fund
Congratulations to Ashley Norris and Chris Price over at Shiny Media, who have sealed an investment of $4.5m from Dan Wagner’s newly-launched venture capital fund.
Wagner’s first move at Bright Station Ventures was to take 50% of the 22-strong UK-based blog network, which claims 3m readers each month. It is good news for Shiny and also a healthy development for the European blog sector.
LinkedIn targets Europe after new funding round
Business social network LinkedIn has raised $12.8m (£6.5m) in a third round of funding, led by Bessemer and the European Founders Fund.
The move brings the total invested in LinkedIn to more than $26m (£13.2m), and valued the company at $250m (£127m).
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
