Following news last moth that George Coelho, co-founder of venture capital technology investor Balderton Capital, had joined renewables investment firm Good Energies as managing director and head of venture capital, Balderton is refreshing its team. Now Bernard Liautaud, the founder of Business Objects, will join the firm as a General Partner. In January 2008, Business Objects was acquired by SAP AG for $6.7 billion, making it the third largest ever software acquisition at the time.

Based in London, Balderton manages approximately $1.5 billion in committed venture capital. Notable investments include Bebo, (the social networking site, which was recently sold to AOL for $850m), Betfair (the online betting exchange), Codemasters (the video games publisher), MySQL (the open-source database business, recently sold to Sun for $1 billion) and Setanta Sports (the leading European sports broadcaster).

Spanish property search start-up, Migoa has raised over €1 million in its first round for
nuroa, its property search engine for Germany and Spain. Spanish venture capital firm Highgrowth Partners was the investor. It’s a big round for Spain. According to the FECYT (the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology), 71% of the VC investments made in Spain during the first half of 2007 related to the technology sector, and 67% of the investments were for sums of less than €500.000.

Nuroa was launched in October 2007 and says it is currently aggregating more property ads in Spain and Germany than competing real estate portals. Nuroa does not charge real estate agents to list their ads. Prior to the current round, migoa had raised in excess of €1 million from various business angels and government sources, including Dennis Bemmann, founder and CTO of StudiVZ, the German social network which was bought in early 2007 by German publishing group, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, for a rumoured €80 million. Spanish serial Internet entrepreneur, Albert Armengol, also invested in migoa in March 2007, after selling his business social networking site, eConozco, to Xing for an undisclosed amount.

TechCrunch held a Berlin Meetup yesterday. And boy, was it a blast. Nearly 30 sponsors, 300 people, fantastic venue, great after-party. Oh, and I did actually do some work too, gathering stories from the German startup scene (watch this space) and taking a few videos which I’ll upload shortly.

In the meantime, check out the pictures I took, and a little video interview with me, shot by Toksta, a startup with an a IM solution for communities.

My thanks for co-organising the event go to twidox and our venue hosts Imedo.

TechCrunch and the BBC are holding an event to rationally debate and discuss the issues around the BBC’s assets and technology, prompted by the debates here and here . We are encouraging startups and developers to attend and engage with these issues. Please get a ticket here (the event is free).

Could or should the BBC develop an applications platform which third party developers and companies could leverage?

What are the policy issues and implications surrounding this?

What data does the BBC currently expose for third party companies to leverage?

Could it do more to open up its data and assets?

Or are these issues impossible to address given the nature of the BBC’s Charter?

In which case: should/could the BBC Charter be changed to address the new wave of development online?

Date: 25th June

Time: From 7.00pm

Location: Broadcasting House, London

(Refreshments will be served).

Participants:

Tony Ageh, BBC New Media controller of internet

James Cridland, Head of Future Media & Technology for BBC Audio & Music Interactive

Jem Stone, Portfolio Executive, BBC new media

Azeem Azahar, startups angel investor, ex-BBC, proposer of the BBC Public License

Mike Butcher, Editor, TechCrunch UK

Chair: Steve Bowbrick, entrepreneur, Blogger on BBC policy

TechCrunch UK will be holding a startup pitch competition on July 10th in Soho, London, entitled “TechCrunch Pitch!”

The idea came about for this after I went to a number of demo and pitch events in the last few months and realised that too many startups were not actually getting to the point when they tried to get their idea across to the audience, and potential investors.

So I’ve decided to put on an event which strips the whole thing back to basics and just asks startups to answer the following fundamental questions in just 10 slides:

1. Problem: what is the market pain, size and how are you measuring it?
2. Your solution: You have the opportunity to be “the Google/eBay/Skype/iPhone etc of what”?
3. Business model ( and potential for revenues)
4. Underlying magic: Technology / What you are trying to build: how much and for how long?
5. Marketing and sales: How will you get distribution?
6. Market: Drivers & dynamics / Your positioning and sustainable advantages
7. Competition
8. Team
9. Milestones so far and projections
10. Funding requirement & potential exit routes

The tricky bit is that I will only give them 30 seconds per slide, or in other words 5 minutes to pitch their startup. I will also quiz them live while they do it, if they deviate or start to ramble. Not hard then.

Pitches must be done on Powerpoint or Keynote and brought to the event preferably on a thumb drive for speed (or your laptop as a last resort). You can illustrate your slide how you want, so long as you answer the question. There should be no need to access the Web during the pitch. Tip: Focus on the areas where you are strong and talk less about the areas where you are weak, so if you haven’t launched yet, then “milestones” will be less relevant.

We are looking for 6-8 startups to pitch. How? They have to email me and tell me why they should be selected. I will also be looking at the wider market and inviting startups. There is no fee for startups to pitch. They will be selected on merit only by TechCrunch editorial. Deadline to sumbit is June 20.

At the end of the startup presentations, the audience will be asked to vote on which startup should win the competition. The winning startup will be named as such in the event coverage on TechCrunch and will win an iPhone 3G.

Sponsorship:

TechCrunch Pitch! will offer opportunities for sponsorship at the event. At the moment we have three sponsor slots: Gold, Silver and Bronze (this may change depending on demand). Sponsor companies will get the chance to say “hello” at the opening of the event, but although they won’t be entered into the competition they will get a healthy sponsor slot on TechCrunch UK and TechCrunch.com.

We also have two non-pitching sponsor slots:
- Drinks Sponsor
- Giveaway sponsors e.g. iPhone / plane tickets etc.

We’re charging £10 for a ticket just to help cover costs and incentivise people to show up(increasingly an issue in competitive landscape for events).

Tags
Flickr Tag: Please Tag photos “TCPitchSummer08″

How do you get a ticket?

We are phase releasing tickets with ticketing partner Amiando. The first tranche is here.

I’m short of time today - covering the Being Digital conference - but my story of last night has been confirmed by O2’s release, pasted below:

O2 to Launch iPhone 3G in the UK on July 11 O2 today announced that the innovative iPhone 3G will be available in the UK on July 11 for free on selected O2 consumer and business tariffs and that it will also be available for Pay & Go customers. Existing iPhone customers will be able to upgrade to the new iPhone 3G, taking advantage of the same great offers as new customers. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast* as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.”The iPhone is already a phenomenal success in the UK and now we’re making this revolutionary product more affordable for even more customers,” said Ronan Dunne, CEO of O2 in the UK. “iPhone quickly became our fastest selling device ever and with this new pricing, iPhone 3G is an unbeatable proposition.”iPhone 3G will be available in the UK through O2, Carphone Warehouse and Apple sales channels with the early upgrade offer for existing customers only available through www.o2.co.uk/iPhone where anyone can also register their interest in iPhone 3G for regular news and updates. The 8GB model will cost just £99 on a new £30 per month tariff and the existing £35 per month tariff. Consumers choosing either the £45 or £75 per month tariffs will get the 8GB iPhone 3G for free. The 16GB iPhone 3G will cost £159 on the £30 and £35 tariffs, £59 on the £45 tariff and it will be free on the £75 tariff. All customers will continue to receive unlimited data browsing over O2’s HSDPA network and unlimited access to 9,500 Wi-Fi hotspots through both The Cloud and now BT Openzone**. Both the 8GB and 16GB iPhone 3G will also be available for O2 Pay & Go customers with pricing to be confirmed in the coming weeks. Fit for Business iPhone 3G will also be available on current O2 business tariffs as a monthly bolt on, with the device available for free on the majority of business tariffs on a 24 or 36 month contract. iPhone 3G business customers can also receive many of the same benefits as existing O2 business customers including unlimited calls between O2 customers, unlimited calls to ten landlines, shareable minutes and texts between users plus multi-user billing and activation and free, 24×7 access to business customer care specialists.

02, exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the UK and Ireland, will be launching the iPhone 3G from their Web site tomorrow, as implied by a notice posted tonight right after Steve Jobs stepped down from his speech at WWDC. My sources say O2 will be using their site to control the initial sale of iPhones as they get them from Apple, though whether that’s because of production/supply delays or because they expect large demand is not that clear. Probably the former.

I just got it confirmed from an O2 source (hat tip to Will Harris at ChannelFlip - you know why), that the UK 3G iPhone will be free on an 18 month contract to new O2 customers, but £100 for existing customers. Although announced today by Steve Jobs at the WWDC (see TechCrunch’s live coverage), the iPhone will ship to customers in the UK on July 11.

The news is pretty astounding. From going from a device which costs over £300 to virtually free at POS will supercharge iPhone sales in the UK and make it a real contender for mobile web startups as a platform. It will also suck out early adopters from other networks.

The news means O2 must be very confident of its 3G network. Its Edge network previously creaked under the strain of its 100k+ 2G iPhone users. iPhone customers use up to 50 times more data because of the power of the device and its data applications.

UPDATE: I now just heard that new iPhone customers will have to register on the O2 web site and iPhones will be sent out as O2 get them from Apple. They must expecting huge demand for this to be the case.

I’m really looking forward to the TechCrunch / CrunchGear Meetup in Berlin this Wednesday, June 11. Organised with the excellent assistance of our local partner twidox, the event has been made possible by our fantastic sponsors, listed below.

A full 250 people are coming, and the event (announced back in May) is now completely full. Imedo.de has kindly offered to throw the networking event at their offices. So if you haven’t got a ticket now I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until we do another Berlin meetup, which may well be before the end of the year, judging by the enormously enthusiastic reaction to this one.

To keep up with the event live, There’ be a ‘live community’ on http://blog.twidox.com via Six Groups. If you upload your pictures and/ or videos to Sevenload or Flickr, please tag them with “tcberlin” and use the hashtag “#tcb” when twittering. To join the live stream and for your tweets to also show up, please go to http://blog.twidox.com and register for the community. When registering, state your twitter account and then your tweets will appear in the “live stream”.

We hope everyone has a great night. Peter Ha from CrunchGear and I (Mike Butcher) look forward to meeting all the startups and we’ll be doing some live coverage of our own…

aka-aki - takes the social network to the streets: it shows you on your cell phone the profile information of the people close by. aka-aki automatically writes a personal diary that makes it possible to get in touch later on. once you got to know each other aka-aki lets you take your friends with you in your pocket and stay in touch on the go. aka-aki is clicking people - in the real life!”

Allyve - all you have, all live. Allyve is your remote control with preview for the internet: all you have, all live, alive!

Deine Tierwelt - With 4 Mio visits per month Deine-Tierwelt.de is Germanys leading pet community. The platform offers new concepts of “user engaged advertising”. We invented the new ad format “StageAd”: an innovative use of video for online communication.

Gimahhot – Gimahhot is the world’s first B2C Ecommerce platform on which brand products are traded like on the stock exchange. Similar to Amazon’s Marketplace, users can buy immediately at the current offer price or place bids that all merchants can react on

Hiogi - hiogi.com is the easiest mobile search powered by the wisdom of the crowds! It is based upon the world’s first knowledge community that sends adhoc answers directly to your mobile phone. Ask anything - everywhere for free via Twitter SMS, WAP or email.

Hobnox - Hobnox is an online entertainment platform which unites broadcast quality media with social networking and cutting edge technology. Come to Hobnox to watch, connect, collaborate and create

Imedo – imedo is a German health community that enables patients to take control over their health by sharing advice on such matters as diseases or treatment options and finding people with similar health challenges

Jimdo - is the easiest to use online-website creator. You can integrate any kind of content, adjust or implement your own design, write a blog within the site, set different privacy levels - and thus create a completely independent site about yourself. Social features will help you to keep in touch with your friends!

Kyte – The future of digital content distribution, user engagement & monetization. Kyte makes it easy to create authentic digital content, instantly distribute it across the web, social networks and mobile phones, and engage with an audience through real-time multimedia communications

locr - Locate your photos, discover the world and share with friends. locr offers geo-enhanced photo sharing for mobile phone users and hobby photographers.

MediaVentures – an entrepreneur-driven venture capitalist with a successful track record in developing strong brands out of fresh ideas.

Microsoft - Connect, share and make your conversations count with Windows Live Messenger.
· Connect with your friends and family via text, voice and video.
· Send text to mobile phones or handhelds,
· Control how and when your friends and family see you online.

MIKESTAR.com – sing karaoke online. Challenge your friends and other users all over Europe. Listen to thousands of user performed music videos and win prices.

Mister Wong - Mister Wong is Europe´s leading social bookmarking service with more than 4 million unique visitors a month and did just aqcuired lifestream.fm, a media and services aggregator. Lifestream.fm is also a sponsor.

mokono - mokono specializes in blog advertising solutions. The knowledge to do so effectively derives from operating one of Europe’s largest blog community networks including such properties as blog.fr, blog.co.uk and blog.de which carry several hundred thousand blogs

Plazes - Plazes is your social web to-go. Share your location, stay connected with friends, let them know where you’re at and make future plans, see who’s crossing your path and what’s happening nearby.

Projektwerk - A German marketplace for projects and promoting own business – quick and easy. Best for all small Businesses and Freelancers that focus on project work. www.projektwerk.de . www.projektwerk.de/blog

Qype - The largest user-generated local review site in Europe

Refined Labs - Refined Labs is developing an Online Marketing Toolbox that will help advertisers to increase their ROI on Online Advertising. Refined Ads, their recently launched Search Engine Marketing Management Software, enables agencies, big direct customers as well as affiliates to get better results out of their SEM campaigns.

Sevenload - sevenload is your social media platform for photos, videos and interactive shows. Our community offers all sevenloaders a ton of excitement and enormous creative potential – so get on sevenload today!

Sixgroups - With the new six groups livecommunities, webmasters can turn their websites into communities within minutes. They provide a new way of real time communication called the “livestream” which aggregates community activities, topic-related social media and chat messages.

Talicious – a web based community for talented people, no matter whether it is photography, art, music, singing or sports.

Toksta - toksta* provides a text, voice and video instant messenger for social communities and forums. The widget can be implemented by the communities via a copy & paste script and is 100% free (incl. hosting, revenue share, design customization and logo branding).

twidox - twidox is a free, user generated library of ‘quality’ documents that allows individuals and organizations to easily publish, distribute, share, and discover them.

Weblin - The social software Weblin not only makes people visible on websites but also makes communication possible across all websites. It brings people with the same interests together and turns the entire web into a virtual world.

Xing – The business network connecting millions of professionals worldwide

Zanox – Participate in the zanox Web Services Contest 2008: One Million Euros Venture Capital from the zanox Campus Sponsors. Enterprises, startups or developers can prove that they have developed an monetizing business model based on the zanox web services. The best 20 candidates will be asked on September 30, 2008, to turn in their business plans until October 5, 2008.

After being exhorted to do so by a number of people, I’ve decided to start doing a regular podcast about the tech, startup and social media scene here in the UK and the rest of Europe. How regular it is we’ll have to see, but I’m hoping to make it weekly, starting next week. Admittedly I’m taking a little leaf here out of the Gillmor Gang’s playbook, but I think what we’ll do here, broadcasting usually out of London, will be a little different. The idea is to kick off with some regular guests. Among the first will be Steve Bowbrick, long-time UK entrepreneur and startup mentor, and Paul Carr, tech satirist and author. I’ll also bring in entrepreneurs, VCs and a few geeks.

I also want to bring in other voices from the startup scene from the UK, Ireland and the rest of Europe, so feel free to get in touch if you would like to guest on the show. I will also try to add interviews I do live from the events and meetings I attend, roving-reporter style. The whole thing will be classed as an ‘early Alpha’ experiment for a while until we settle on a format that works. Assuming we do!

I am going to try and put the thing together myself, but if there are any keen podcasting type people out there who can lend their technical expertise (I’m really a words guy, not a sound guy), then get in touch and I’ll put that into the mix.

Meanwhile, here’s another Bunch. The Wild Bunch. A sort of visual representation of our house style.