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Great interview with Amen’s Felix Petersen the day before they officially launched Amen at TechCrunch Disrupt. Also read Mike Butcher’s TC post...
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Business Angel, Super Angel, micro-VC, VC - how does one keep these investment players apart?
Once upon a time the startup investment landscape was...
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Photography by Tyler Shields…
Interview with App’Olympics Berlin Organizer Mathias Fiedler (CTO, Artflakes)
This weekend is blessed with two great hackathons. Apart from the PhotoHackDay, that TechBerlin reported on earlier, there is the BeMyApp Mobile App Olympics, a 48-hour hackathon and startup bootcamp that unites idea generators, designers and developers in their quest to create some kick ass products. The event will be taking place simutanously in seven cities around the world: San Francisco, New York, Dallas, London, Paris, Zurich and yes, good ol’ BERLIN!
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to be part of such an extraordinary experience and come join other startup ethusiasts for a three day fun ride at Ahoy! Berlin.
The event will start on Friday at 7pm with people pitching their app ideas to fellow designers and developers. After teams have formed around the best ideas, there will be two days of straight hacking with all the clichés of little sleep and lots of Club Mate that go with it. On Sunday a prominent jury will vote for the best app idea and the winning teams await great prizes such as a trip to the Silicon Valley with accommodation covered. The event will finish in Ahoy! Berlin fashion with a wild party and our favorite DJ Daddy Hemingway spinning the tunes!
There are still some spots left for developers as well as party tickets (includes the prize ceremony) for people who do not wish to go through the 48-hour craziness, but want to soak in the unique experience nevertheless. Check out the interview above for more information on what to expect.
Get your ticket now: http://de.bemyapp.com/inscription.php
Thanks to Mathias Fiedler and David Link for making this great event happen!
Paging Mister Mayor
Berlin startups have recently started discussing the need to have an open exchange with Berlin government officials. High on a wish list that is still being formulated by various startup representatives are periodic roundtable discussions with representatives of both the startup and government worlds as well as faster Visa approval for non EU-residents.
When Christian Reber (Founder and CEO of 6Wunderkinder) wrote an email to the Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit, he received a brief letter of refusal stating that “the busy schedule of the Mayor would not allow a meeting.”
Although the decline may be due to the lack of government protocol on behalf of Reber (no formal addressing, call for a “near-term meeting” and generally short mail with little explanation of the context), it does not speak for the Mayor’s office to not engage in further communication, but rather send a final refusal instead.
Now the Mayor’s office is facing a social media backlash as Reber decided to make all email communication public (1. Email by Reber, 1. Response by Mayor’s Office). As expected people are retweeting the Mayor’s email rebuff and blogs are picking up the story. Let’s see whether this will end up hitting classical print media, too.
Reber has since written an open response to the Mayors office (2. Email by Reber), arguing that the fact that startups have created more than 10.000 jobs in Berlin and received millions of investment, should well justify a meeting between government officials and the startup community. Now that i could generally not agree more with!
Interview with Photo Hack Day Berlin Organizer Florian Meissner (Co-Founder of EyeEm)
Hackathons are becoming increasingly popular in Berlin. This weekend alone, there will be two great events for developers to collaborate and create new products in hours.
At the Photo Hack Day Berlin the most innovative developers and designers come together in an old swimming pool to hack the future of photography. Prices include a trip to London to show off your hack at an international agency. TechBerlin is happy to be a media partner and cover the event.
Check out the short interview with organizer Florian Meissner (also Co-Founder of photo discovery app EyeEm) above to find out more. EyeEm has just released its API so your possibilities are unbound. To register, enter your details here: http://photohackdayberlin.eventbrite.com/
TWIST Berlin: The Complete Recap
(Note: You can find the complete video recording of the TWiST Berlin show below)
What an awesome TWIST Berlin show at Ahoy! Berlin on Friday! It had all the right ingredients to become a Berlin classic! Interesting pitches by passionate entrepreneurs? Check! An audience that supported the Berlin startups like a force? Check! A rant by Jason Calacanis against the Samwer brothers and German copy cats that will become legendary? Check!
The TWiST hosts Jason Calacanis and Tyler Crowley were more than impressed with the quality of the Berlin startup scene and it is fair to say that Berlin really kicked ass that night!
What went on in a nutshell
TWIST Berlin was the Berlin edition of the famous US live web show “This Week in Startups”, where hosts Jason and Tyler discuss the world of startups. During the show there was a live video stream to the US from the Ahoy! cinema and loft space with a selection of Berlin startups pitching Jason and Tyler across the Atlantic and receiving brutally honest feedback in real time.
The Pitch Clinic
On Thursday night the pitch clinic took place at the cinema of Ahoy! Berlin, a new co-working and event space in Charlottenburg. The cinema was originally built in 1911 and is one of the oldest in Germany. The startups were given the chance to train their 1-minute pitches with a show biz coach as well as VC Christian Thaler Wolski from Wellington Partners and Paula Marttila, a Seedcamp mentor in London.
The Pre-Selection
A total of 19 startups had signed up to pitch Jason and Tyler live on the TWIST show. However, since the 1-hour show format only fits 5 startup pitches, there had to be a pre-selection on Friday night, just hours before the actual TWIST show.
The cinema was completely packed and with every entrepreneur giving their passionate product pitch the atmosphere heated up. For those who could not fit into the cinema anymore (it only takes 120 people), a livestream was shown at the Ahoy! loft upstairs. Both locations combined, a total of more than 200 people showed up, enjoying free beer and pizza alongside the pitch event. Unfortunately the audio transmission between the cinema and loft had some problems, but it was fun to communicate visually between the two locations with people giving their best at sign language. One guy even bluffed a striptease!
The jury, comprised of entrepreneur Henrik Berggren (Readmill), VC Paul Jozefak (Liquid Labs) and blogger Marguerite Imbert (Venture Village) had a tough job choosing the best 5 startup pitches, since the quality was just so damn good overall. Reflecting on the pitches Henrik Berggren later said: “It’s amazing how diverse and creative the Berlin startup scene is, copycats is definitely a thing of the past. The fact that my favorite pitch was a Windows app says a whole lot.” VC Paul Jozefak got a similar impression, stating that he ”.. was positively surprised by the number of innovative ideas, i.e. hardly any copycats” and that “pitches were also well prepared!”
The TWIST Show itself
At 10pm CET, the actual live TWIST show was broadcasted. The five finalists of the pre-selection all boasted compelling products:
- MeineSpielzeugKiste.de - A subscription based model that sends out monthly boxes with educational toys for your children. Great for cash rich, time poor parents. If you just want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
- KeyRocket - A software that lets you effortlessly learn new shortcuts for your computer. By improving productivity of workers (i.e. Excel!), companies may be very price insensitive here. If you want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
- Fashioni.sm - A location based discovery app for fashion products, think Foodspotting for fashion! The local off-line search market that this app taps into is huge and still unsolved. If you just want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
- SquadMail - Allows you to share email folders directly from your mailbox with groups and teams across other mail providers. Neat feature that also increases productivity. If you just want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
- Cinovu - A stylish platform for independent films. Users pay per minute, which leverages curiosity and allows users to test out different genres. If you just want to watch their pitch only, click here. Complete video with feedback, etc. further below.
The live show started at the Ahoy! cinema, but as the Wifi got worse moved up to the Ahoy! loft. The atmosphere was truly electrifying, with startup founders giving enthusiastic pitches full of passion. When the show host Jason Calacanis criticized some aspects of Cinovu, founder Shermin Voshmgir fought back and won the hearts and minds not only of the audience at Ahoy!, but also of the host himself in the US: “I love the fire in Berlin… this is a fiery group. They are going to get their point across!”
The Rant against the Samwer Brothers
After acknowledging the innovative new startup spirit in Berlin Jason started a rant against the Samwer Brothers and how they had ruined the image of the German startup landscape. He said that Germany was getting a “bad name” because of the Samwer brothers whom he referred to as “lying and cheating … photocopying thieves”.
The audience loudly cheered in consent! It seemed that finally someone with broad international reach called out what many Berliners think.
What became clear though is that Calacanis’s remarks about German copying referred to the past. At TWiST Berlin he got to see the present and he should better fasten his seatbelt for the innovative future of the Berlin startup scene!
The TWiST Berlin Winners
Because of the great quality of pitches and products, the two hosts of TWiST ended up having real problems determining a winner and opted for a tie between KeyRocket and MeineSpielzeugKiste instead! However, all 5 startups ended up winning tickets to the coveted Launch Conference that Jason organizes in San Francisco in March. To conclude with the words of Christoph Räthke, who ran the Founder Institute in Berlin and has lots of experience evaluating pitches:”I can’t remember when I heard so many solid pitches the last time!”
The Video recording of the TWiST Berlin Show
Be sure to have a look at the full video of this wicked TWiST episode! If the video does not open in the Browser, then just click on this link: http://youtu.be/ibLRmy-oA6o
The After-Party
After the show was over at around 11:30pm, our legendary Ahoy! Berlin “resident DJ” :-) Daddy Hemingway took to the turntables and span his great tunes. For those of you who do not know Daddy yet: He is the most legendary musician and DJ you are likely to ever meet! He was a roadie for Coltrane, sat on a panel with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, won a Grammy and received a thank you note from Bill Clinton! Nuff said?
So we ended up doing what had to be done and partied the night away with the last guests leaving Ahoy! at 6am!
Thanks to Radek and Lutz for bringing this event to Berlin. It was an honor to be involved!
The Jason Calacanis Rant against the Samwer Brothers and German Copying on TWiST Berlin
After acknowledging the innovative new startup spirit in Berlin (“this is a fiery group”) during the TWiST Berlin show, the host Jason Calacanis starts a rant against the Samwer Brothers and how they had ruined the image of the German startup landscape.
He said that Germany was getting a “bad name” because of the Samwer brothers whom he referred to as “lying and cheating … photocopying thieves”. According to Jason people around the world started to believe that Germans are not original thinkers and that this was not true! He asked the audience to “boo and hiss” at the Samwers whenever someone runs into them and to convince one’s friends to not work for them.
The audience loudly cheered in consent! It seemed that finally someone with broad international reach called out what many Berliners think.
Meet Christoph Räthke, Organizer of “Battle of the Startup Bands”
He is the “gute Seele” (“good soul”) of the Berlin startup ecosystem. A man who has “been there and done that.” A startup warrior who seems to have seen it all! Christoph likes to refer to the time before the bubble burst in 2001 as “before the war”. Who knows, maybe that was not even the first tech bubble he experienced :-).
A passionate musician, Christoph came up with the idea of a startup band contest, called Battle of the Startup Bands. The best thing about it: You do not have to be a musician, everybody can take part! Who better to tell you about it all than Mista Organizor himself. Action!
Interview with TWIST Berlin organizer Radek Rybicki
Radek’s story on how he ended up as CTO at a chemical company with a fascinating product outside Berlin is intriguing and we will have a more detailed interview about that soon. In this short interview Radek talks briefly about his background and how he managed to get TWIST to do a show in Berlin, which Radek organizes together with Lutz Villalba. TWIST, the popular startup show hosted by Jason Calacanis and Tyler Crowley, is actually part of the reason why Radek left the corporate world and became an entrepreneur. Awesome stuff!
BTW: MORE TICKETS TO THE SHOW WERE RELEASED TODAY. THEY ARE SELLING OUT VERY FAST, SO GET YOUR TICKET NOW: http://twistberlin.eventbrite.com/
TWIST & Shout! SHOWCASING BERLIN STARTUPS ON “THIS WEEK IN STARTUPS”
Yuri Milner passes on Samwer investment due to “Rude” Biz Style
It seems that the reputation of the Samwer brothers is not just crumbling among their staff or being subjected to bitter satire these days. Big international players are also starting to turn their back on the trio that is said to leave ethics off the table when doing business. Focus, one of the leading magazines in Germany reported that Russian Billionaire investor Yuri Milner (Twitter, Groupon, Zynga, Facebook) opted out of investing into Samwer’s new fund. According to Focus, Milner and other investors do not want to be associated with the “rude leadership style” of the German clone factory. Rocket Internet is said to raise state funds from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Temasek Holding of Singapore instead. #samwerbashing
Skype a Founder #11: Marcel Duee, Tweek
Ok, this one is very dear to TechBerlin’s heart since Tweek and TechBerlin started out at around the same time! In fact, this is already the second interview I did with Tweek co-founder Marcel. The first one was actually the very first interview i ever did for TechBerlin!
Why did our ways cross so early? At the time I was working as Venture Partner at Catagonia Capital and the Tweek team, introduced by biz savvy Holger G. Weiss, was pitching us. Catagonia ended up investing in Tweek with the investment being announced in December of last year!
Today Tweek is crushingIT and likely to become the next big hit in Berlin. And rightly so! Not only are its founders uber-sympathetic and willing to help out wherever they can. They are also great professionals (ex Nokia) who created a kick ass beta product! And yes, they know how to throw parties, too!
So what the hell is Tweek?
Ever felt that the over supply of online video content (i.e. on portals such as Youtube, Netflix or Apple TV) is rather overwhelming and makes it difficult to discover videos that you love? Tweek may come to your rescue! The super slick iPad app allows you to discover video content via your social graph a.k.a your friends and interests! It is beautifully designed and features a neat user experience.
Watch the video to hear about the forthcoming disruption in TV and find out more about Tweek and how it seeks to differentiate itself in this highly competitive market.
Beta Access: Tweek is still in closed beta, but gave TechBerlin 10 access codes. Sign up on the Tweek website and then send an email to info(at)techberlin.com with the subject line “Tweek Beta”. The first 10 people to do so will get beta access.
Twitter Developer Teatime Berlin
Twitter, the communication juggernaut that is said to hit 500M accounts by February took to the streets of Berlin last week for its first Developer Teatime event in Germany. The turnout was great with more than 200 developers, entrepreneurs and product managers attending the event at Mobile Suite in Prenzlauer Berg.
Twitter was impressed with the developer community in Berlin! In fact, a Twitter representative told me that they were surprised when they saw that the attendee list reached the limit of 300 attendees faster in Berlin than at the Developer Teatime events in in London or New York! There you go, Berlin proved once more why international media may be right to hype it so much! Ok, in order to not lack sportmanship: Seoul filled up even faster than Berlin!
Meet Team Twitter
Present at the event was a Twitter A-Team consisting of Ryan Sarver (Head of Platform), Jason Costa (Developer Relations Manager), Katie Jacobs Stanton (Head of International Strategy), Thomas Arend (International Product Management and with a Twitter handle many Berlin DJs would die for), Arne Roomann Kurrik (Developer Advocate) and German Twitter newbie Isa Sonnenfeld.
The presentations
First Director of Platform Ryan Sarver took to the stage, giving a “state of the union” presentation, in which he talked about the growth of the Twitter ecosytem and the opportunities it offers for developers. According to Sarver more than half a billion US Dollars of venture capital went into Twitter ecosystem companies during a period of just six months last year.
He specifically highlighted the opportunities that lie in the field of curation for developers. The importance of curation for Twitter became imminent when the company acquired Canadian startup Summify just this month. Summify allows users to enjoy a summarized version of all their social media streams.
Another example of a successful startup that builds on top of the Twitter API Sarver mentioned was “Twitter ecosystem poster child” Socialflow, a startup that shows brands how to use Twitter most effectively.
The biggest news however, came when Sarver confirmed that Twitter will be opening an office in Germany. And you can guess once where that shall be! :-)
- The Twitter ecosystem has more than 750.000 developers
- There are a total of 15 Billion API requests per day
- There are more than 1.1M registered applications
Then things got more technical with Developer Advocate Arne Roomann Kurrik giving a deep dive technical workshop on the Twitter API, including the Search API, Rest API and Streaming APIs. Before i make a fool out of myself trying to summarize the technical characteristics of each, I better link to his presentation slides.
After the technical part, which Travis J. Todd of BuddyBeers who live tweeted for Silicon Allee described as “DevPorn”, two Berlin startups (Soundcloud and Readmill) showed the audience how they incorportate Twitter into their products. Readmill founder Henrik Berggren shared a stat that went down well at this event: “34% of Readmill users sign up to Readmill via Twitter, which is more than sign up via Facebook.”
The event closed with a long Q&A session and enough time to grab some beers and mingle. (Thanks to Early Bird Venture Capital for sponsoring the drinks!)
The Twitterati that were present
Sighted at the event were among others: Ingo Hinterding (CPO of Crowdpark), Gunnar Berning (CEO of Twago), Klaus Hartl (CTO of Tweek.tv), Ramzi Rizk (CTO of EyeEm), Zoe Adamovicz (Founder of Xyologic), Stefan Hoth (Organizer of Hack and Tell), Rowan Barnett (Head of Social at Bild.de) and Maike Haselmann (Social Media Editor at Spiegel Online). A special mention goes out to the Skylin.es team that came all the way from Amsterdam just for the event, taking the train back home right afterwards.
A selection of Tweets from the event (#teatimeBLN)
I GUESS THE EVENT JUST LEFT ONE QUESTION OPEN:
Many thanks to the whole Twitter team for coming to Berlin and sharing their insights as well as Ciaran O’leary of Early Bird Venture Capital and Frank Spitzfaden of Mobile Suite who helped with the organization of the event.
Questions for the Interview with the founder of Tumblr
Hey everyone, i will be interviewing the founder of Tumblr today and wonder whether you Tumblr users out there have some questions that you want me to ask him. If so, just leave a comment here, tweet me or even better answer the facebook question here:
http://www.facebook.com/questions/370633179619633/?qa_ref=qd
Following the DLD Conference live
Like many other Berliners, i ventured down South to Munich to attend the DLD conference. And just as i would often overhear at dinner and parties yesterday, i, too believe that DLD is the best conference about the digital space in Europe, period! At least the best i have ever attended. There are many reasons for this and I will write a detailed blog post making the case at the end of the conference tomorrow. But let me tell you that one reason is the quality of the talks and that is something everyone around the world can enjoy live as well, no need to buy a plus 3.000EUR conference ticket for that.
Follow the DLD here for live news and talks:
DLD Program
http://www.dld-conference.com/program/
DLD Livestream
DLD iPad App
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dld-magazine-the-infinite/id495003088?ls=1&mt=8
DLD Mobile App
http://mobileroadie.com/apps/dld
DLD Social Networks
Facebook, Twitter (#DLD12), Google Plus
… and of course follow TechBerlin for live coverage.
The “Made in Berlin” Badge for Download
Here you go! Bjorn Isaksen, the winner of the “Made in Berlin” Badge Contest made his logo publicly available, so anyone who would like to incorporate it into his/her website can do so. If you want to shout out to the world where your product is being built, you can download the logo in various sizes under the following link:
http://www.tonic.no/referanseprosjekter/item/125-made-in-berlin-badge-designkonkurranse.html
Thanks Bjorn!
Wunderkit Beta Launch
It is one of the most anticipated softwares to launch in Berlin ever. Yes, we are talking about Wunderkit, the new product by one of Berlin’s hottest startups: 6Wunderkinder. Have a look at what to expect above and tell us what you think!
