Link: sevenload.com

Plazes has raised €2.7 mio early this year and is growing very fast. A cool thing about Plazes is that they want to digitize walk-in customers in offline settings and create what Felix calls the "PageRank of the real world". E.g. you can see how many people went to a certain restaurant or checked-in in a certain hotel. This opens cool opportunities for behaviorial targeting or related stuff.

More links:
Techcrunch coverage
Alarm Clock coverage
Peter Schüpbach’s coverage (he’s an investor)

Link: sevenload.com

I had lunch with Sugih and learned several things:
- Zattoo launched in Switzerland because of the cheap licencing costs and the good coverage of the major Swiss TV-stations
- Zattoo has over 250’000 users only in Switzerland
- Zattoo started as a students-project of one of Jamin’s students
- Development is based in the US; business/marketing is based in Zurich
- The synchronization issues should be fixed soon (the cause of the problem was that Zattoo stopped using QuickTime for synchronization due to realiability issues)
- Zattoo will generate revenue with advertising that is displayed when a new channel is buffering (that takes about 5 seconds)

More Links:
Alarm Clock Euro June 2006
Alarm Clock Euro March 2007

(via Loïc Le Meur)

More to come… (I’ve shot some, too)

(What a wonderful morning –> Remo is really happy :-)

(This beach is AWESOME, and its RIGHT in the city!)

Good thing I have another 6 hours so spend at the beach before I leave to cold Switzerland.

His tips included:
#1: Only work with people you like and trust. NEVER do a deal with people you don’t like or don’t trust.
#2: When you doing a VC-round, be prepared to give up 20-40% of the company. Given that, maximize the money you get. It’s always better to get $10 mio for 30% of your company than $1 mio.
#3: Hire a good lawyer for the paper work. Make sure the lawyer has done this before.
#4: There are at least 10 parameters to consider. The amount of money is only one parameter. Make sure you also think about all the other parameters. Be prepared for a complex negotiation.
#5: Angel/friends/fools money is a lot easier to raise than VC-money. If you need money quickly, do an angel round.
#6: Do your due diligence on your investors. Call the CEOs of their portfolio companies, call other references, find out how they work.

Very interesting company with a very cool name. I like the bubblegum thing :-).

My notes:
- Silvio Scaglia invested $13 Mio of his own money
- The burn rate is 30-40 Mio EUR per year
- Silvio Scaglia wants to generate 100 Mio EUR in revenues within maybe 3 years
- Silvio Scaglia says he is NOT competing with Joost right now: "You first have to build the pie before you can cut it. Right now we are building the pie. We build a whole new industry. So we’re rather working together with Joost than competing right now."
- Babelgum guarantees a CPM of 5 EUR for content owners.
- Babelgum has 40 employees now
- Babelgum will focus on professional content (no user generated content)

The service is in closed beta now.

Links:
Babelgum blog
Babelgum-Posting of Peter Schüpbach

Blyk is a pan-European free mobile operator for young people, funded by advertising. We’re launching first in the UK market in mid-2007, with other markets to follow.

Blyk wants to be profitable within 24 months. More information in the Blyk Blog.

But I’m definitely not the only blogger here:
Paul is a (live-)blogging VC
ink Communications is blogging
Lars Trieloff
Peter Schüpbach announced to live-blog, too

According to the current issue of the Red Herring, there are 7 Swiss companies among the Red Herring 100:
Asset4
High Power Lithium
Intelligent Medical Implants
Innovative Silicon
Plazes
SpinX Technologies
Zattoo

Contratulations to you guys!

(on the left: Qype & Plazes, on the right: Where are you now? [pretty cool company I have never heard of])

I’ll keep you posted…