Movie backed by Irish tech investors is nominated for an Oscar

Are you an early-stage, technology investor? Is there a certain lack of glamour and red carpets in your life? Then follow in the footsteps of early-stage tech investors Lough Shore Investments who partly funded a short film called “The Shore”, which has just been nominated for an Oscar.

“The Shore” is directed by screenwriter and director Terry George who was previously Oscar-nominated for his screenplays for “In the Name of the Father” and “Hotel Rwanda“.… Continue Reading

Peecho’s “License to Print” nets it $750,000 in funding

For a writer, nothing beats the romance of seeing your work in high-quality print. No screen can compete with the silky feel of the paper, an excess of glossy photographs and that special smell of a new page.

Peecho, which just raised $750,000, lets visitors to a website or application transform pixels into print by clicking on its embedded print button. The print button connects to a cloud of print facilities all over to world … Continue Reading

Ashton Kutcher invests in another Berlin startup, “Etsy for experiences” Gidsy

Gidsy, a new company from Germany, could be a way for you to make a few bucks from your more unusual talents.

Gidsy is a “marketplace for authentic experiences,” and it just landed a $1.2 million investment from a combination of Sunstone Capital, Index Ventures, Werner Vogels (CTO of Amazon), and the actor Ashton Kutcher.

Are you a dumpling expert, urban survivalist or DIY manufacturer? If so,  Gidsy may be for you.

Gidsy’s founders were … Continue Reading

Netflix launches in the UK — LoveFilm undercuts it

Netflix announced yesterday that its streaming service is now available in the UK.

TV programs and movies, including local favorites such as The Only Way is Essex, can be streamed via Netflix to smart TVs, game consoles, computers, tablets and mobile device for £5.99 ($9.23) per month. A month’s free trial is available.

Netflix’s main rival in the UK market is Amazon’s well-established LoveFilm, which reacted quickly to the announcement by undercutting Netflix with a … Continue Reading

Worst press release titles of 2011

Nobody sets out to write a bad press release or pitch email, or at least we hope not, and yet we still receive quite a few at VentureBeat. Actually, I would be quite sad if we stopped getting them entirely. They brighten my day.

However, in the interest of public service, here are some of the worst press release and pitch email titles of 2011 and our notes on how to avoid making next year’s … Continue Reading

Ge.tt gets $455,000 to transfer your files faster

Ge.tt is a browser-based, file transfer service that today announced an investment of €350,000 ($455,000) from Atomico, the venture capital firm of Skype founder Niklas Zennström. The Copenhagen-based startup will use the cash to hire new staff.

“The space is very fragmented and there are a lot of competitors,” says CEO Tobias Baunbæk. ”They all have different qualities: Dropbox for file collaboration, Box.net for content collaboration and YouSendIt to send files over email.”

Let’s remind … Continue Reading

Want to spend 3 months in Amsterdam? Sign up here

Think Amsterdam, and “startup hub” isn’t the first thing that springs to mind, but that may be about to change. Not one, but two startup accelerators just opened for business in the Dutch capital.

Throw in the burgeoning Appsterdam movement, the world-class local creative industry and the unique Amsterdam “vibe,” and you get an intriguing mix for startup founders.

Startup Bootcamp Amsterdam is a Techstars affiliate. The first Startup Bootcamp launched in Copenhagen two years … Continue Reading

Prezi lands $14 million to save us from death by Powerpoint

Zooming presentation tool Prezi just landed an investment of $14 million from Accel Partners and previous Danish investors Sunstone Capital. Prezi is one of those rare startups which actually has revenue. The company has been cash flow positive since 2010.

Known primarily for its online presentation software, Prezi also offers Prezi Desktop for offline editing, PreziMeeting for real-time collaboration, and the Prezi Viewer iPad app.

Prezi will use the new funding to accelerate growth (The … Continue Reading

Dude, you’re not a lady! Luluvise launches, but only for women

Luluvise, which launches today, aims for “girl time all the time” by recreating online the experience of private chats with your girlfriends. The all-female service has, however, attracted a lot of interest from a surprising source: men.

“We had a lot of guys submitting their emails to get access to the beta, and we must have sent out over 500 emails telling them Luluvise is for ladies only,” says founder Alexandra Chong. The company was … Continue Reading

Kaggle launches competition to help Microsoft Kinect learn new gestures

What if it was as easy to add a new gesture to Microsoft Kinect as it is to create a keyboard shortcut?

Big data startup Kaggle just launched a machine learning competition to develop an algorithm that Kinect can use to learn to recognize a new gesture from a single example. There are cash prizes of $10,000 for the top algorithms, and Microsoft may pay up to $200,000 to license them.

Let’s say you want … Continue Reading

Tobii keeps an eye on distracted drivers

The most dangerous part of any motor vehicle is the driver. Swedish eye-tracking pioneer Tobii just announced a platform to detect drowsiness and distraction in drivers.

There are 41,000 road traffic fatalities a year in the U.S. according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. An estimated 25 percent of all fatal accidents are caused by driver fatigue and, if you add in distracted drivers, that figure is probably even higher.

“The eyes tell it … Continue Reading

Quid makes million-dollar maps of technology’s past, present… and future

Iraqi insurgency groups and Silicon Valley startups may not appear to have a lot in common, but according to Quid‘s Chief Technical Officer Sean Gourley, the mathematics underlying innovation and conflict are not that different.

“The dynamics of an insurgency are actually quite similar to startups disrupting an established market,” says Gourley.

Data analysis is becoming ever more important within tech companies but Quid allows corporate strategists to manipulate a data-driven “map” of an entire … Continue Reading

Do you need a data scientist?

Some of the world’s biggest tech companies from Google to Facebook are data-driven, but few startup founders have any idea what a data scientist does, never mind whether they should hire one. Here is VentureBeat’s guide to data science for startups.

What does a data scientist do?

DJ Patil led LinkedIn’s data science team and is now the Data Scientist in residence at Greylock Partners. His free ebook “Building Data Science Teams” provides an excellent … Continue Reading

BalconyTV turns apartment balconies into music venues

Irish band The Script have opened for U2 and appeared on CNN, but they made their TV debut on Stephen O’ Regan’s balcony in Dublin.

O’ Regan runs BalconyTV, a home-made TV show in which new bands perform on apartment balconies from Mexico to New Zealand. The company just pitched at Startup Bootcamp’s investor day in Copenhagen.

“One day in my apartment in Dublin about 5 years ago we had the silly idea to start … Continue Reading

TrialBee could save lives by bringing drugs to market faster

Big pharma still uses manual methods to recruit participants for drug trials, and that costs the industry money. Lots of money. The pharma industry loses $4.2 billion per year due to drug trial delays and $250K in lost sales per day that a new drug’s market launch is postponed. More importantly, delays in the approval of new treatments can also cost lives.

This is the problem that pre-launch startup TrialBee, one of the highlights of … Continue Reading

How charity:water became tech’s favorite non-profit

“I had a model girlfriend and a BMW. I wore a Rolex. But I was really miserable,” says Scott Harrison, founder of charity:water, on the period leading up to its genesis.

charity:water has already brought clean drinking water to 2 million people around the world and is supported by some of technology’s biggest names including Sean Parker (Napster), Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Marissa Mayer (Google), Dennis Crowley (Foursquare) and Michael Birch (founder of social network Bebo). … Continue Reading

Skimlinks skims $4.5 million to help bloggers earn cash (exclusive)

Skimlinks automatically converts product references in blog posts into affiliate sales links. The London startup just closed a funding round of $4.5 led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, the investment arm of media giant Bertelsmann AG.

For example, Skimlinks converts every mention of “Modern Warfare 3” in a review of that game into a link to a site like Amazon where the game can be bought. The blog earns a cut of every sale driven … Continue Reading

Gidsy’s “marketplace for experiences” takes Manhattan

Are you a dumpling expert, urban survivalist or DIY manufacturer? If so, Gidsy’s “marketplace for authentic experiences” might be a great way for you to make a few bucks off your unusual talents.

Gidsy makes it easy for you to offer a tour or other experience in New York, where the service launches today. You could call it the Etsy of experiences.

Gidsy started in Berlin, where the founders were running a design studio. “We … Continue Reading

Luluvise lands $1 million for “girl time, all the time” (Exclusive)

Pre-launch startup Luluvise aims to recreate online the experience of private chats with your girlfriends. The company just landed $1 million in funding from Passion Capital, ProFouders Capital and various angel investors.

Two years ago, founder Alexandra Chong had a great Valentine’s Day story to share with her girlfriends but didn’t feel comfortable about posting it on Facebook. Three telephone calls, seven text messages and two Skype calls later, she wondered, “Why can’t I tell … Continue Reading

Redeem&Get pulls in $200K to manage daily deals

Suffering from Daily Deal fatigue? Dublin startup Redeem&Get aims to make the process of redeeming a deal smoother for customers and more profitable for merchants. The company just won the Spark of Genius competition at the Dublin Web Summit, with prizes that included 40,000 EUR ($56,000) in cash and a 100,000 EUR ($141,000) termsheet from ACT Venture Capital.

Once merchants place a daily deal via a company like Groupon or Living Social they are often … Continue Reading