News.

Livebookings, the European leader in online marketing services for restaurants, has increased its capital base by £15m following a funding round led by existing investors Balderton Capital, Wellington Partners and Ekstranda. The funding will support Livebookings’ continued rapid growth.

London, 10 May 2012 – MedicAnimal.com, the UK’s leading online pet health retailer, today announced that it has completed a £10 million Series C funding round. The fundraising, led by major European venture capital firm Balderton Capital, also includes investments by Iris Capital, who led the previous round in October 2010, as well as existing angel investors from Europe, the U.S. and Asia. Mark Evans of Balderton Capital will join Alexander Wiedmer of Iris Capital, Cesar Mascaraque, former Managing Director for Europe at IAC/InterActiveCorp, and MedicAnimal.com founders Ivan Retzignac and Andrew Bucher on the board.

Telcos have always held incredible influence on other industries and have set the agenda as innovators. Outside of keeping the network infrastructure up and running, operator innovation was comprised largely of two goals: neutralizing competitors and maximizing profits.

LONDON (Reuters) -Online payday loans provider Wonga.com launched a credit service for small businesses on Monday, aiming to fill a gap in the market left by banks who have been hamstrung by tight lending conditions imposed since the credit crunch.

Sulake, the parent company of Habbo Hotel, today announced its first partner for its third party development programme that will bring new games to the world's largest social game and online community for teenagers at 10 million monthly unique users. Remode, a UK-based development studio specializing in online and mobile games, is currently developing the first game for the Habbo social hub. 

archify announces today that it has closed a seed investment from Balderton Capital.

From a slow start in the aftermath of the Soviet Union, Russia is now Europe’s biggest internet market with 53 million users (compared to number-two Germany at 51 million), and figures from GP Bullhound and comScore indicate that it is also growing the fastest, at 14 percent (other European countries are at less than six percent it says). 

LevelUp, the pay phone app, today announced a redesign of its mobile app, along with several key executive hires at its parent company, SCVNGR.

A simple blood test that can detect lung cancer five years earlier than conventional screening will be trialled by the NHS on thousands of high risk smokers.

Berlin’s Wooga and the long-established Electronic Arts are currently neck-and-neck for second place among social games companies on Facebook according to the latest metrics from AppData. The two developers each have around 49m active monthly users of their games, although that is a long way behind Zynga of FarmVille fame’s 245m.