Balderton Capital – News articles

Wellington, Balderton and Ekstranda lead £15 million of investment in Livebookings round

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Wellington, Balderton and Ekstranda lead £15 million of investment in Livebookings round

London, 14 May 2012: 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.

The announcement follows record sales numbers in Q1 2012 when revenue grew by 34% compared to Q1 2011, seated diners grew by 65% to 3.8 million and Bookatable, Livebookings’ consumer facing website, exceeded 1 million visits in a month for the first time.

Colin Tenwick, CEO of Livebookings commented: “Over the last 18 months we have put in place the engines that drive growth by investing in the development of new products, building a larger sales force and implementing new customer support systems to facilitate the growing customer base. The market leading increase in dined covers, customers and revenue is testament to this strategy and the new funds will help us to increase our market leading position, deliver the most innovative products to the marketplace and drive even more incremental revenue for our customers.”

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About Livebookings

Livebookings makes restaurants and diners click. We operate the world’s only global, web-based restaurant reservations and marketing service, delivering over one million diners every month to over 9,000 restaurants including, Pollen Street Social, Tantris, East, Grill and Aquavit. Our reservations tools enable restaurants to provide their diners with a free, easy-to-use online bookings service, to manage those reservations efficiently and to collect valuable customer data. Our marketing services ensure restaurants can run promotions and deals and execute online marketing campaigns to attract and retain their customers.

Our consumer restaurant reservations website, Bookatable.com, is Europe's fastest growing online restaurant booking website, operating in 9 different languages and across 19 countries. It supports our unparalleled network of 300 distribution partners, including tastecard, Afternoon Tea and Eniro.se, to ensure we can spread news of deals far and wide and help our restaurant customers attract new business.

Headquartered in London, with offices across Europe and the USA and customers in 23 countries, Livebookings is the largest online reservations provider in Europe, focused on making restaurants more profitable and dining out more pleasurable.

MedicAnimal.com Announces £10 million Investment led by Balderton Capital

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

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.

This latest investment allows MedicAnimal.com to hire new talent, strengthen its UK leadership position in online pet retailing and further expand into continental European markets.

Launched in October 2007, MedicAnimal.com is an online retailer of pet supplies, including food, supplements, medicines and accessories with a particular focus on veterinary diets, prescription and non-prescription medicines, and premium-quality products. MedicAnimal.com is registered both as a veterinary dispensary as well as a pharmacy in the UK and offers clients free advice from its in-house team of veterinarians and pharmacists via live chat, email or phone. The site also publishes news and advice related to general animal care and health issues. MedicAnimal.com is the UK’s largest pet health e-tailer, with revenue growth rates exceeding 150% per year since inception.

Andrew Bucher, co-founder, chief veterinarian and COO of MedicAnimal.com commented: “We were frustrated by the lack of education, accessibility and affordability of preventative and chronic health treatments - pets were suffering as a result. As a vet I was only able to improve the health of pets under my supervision but MedicAnimal.com offers a platform for improving pet care on a much larger scale.”

Ivan Retzignac, co-founder and CEO of MedicAnimal.com added: “At the core of our company is a simple mission to positively impact the welfare of all animals and to make life easier for pet owners. Often this means shattering the perception that proper diets and health treatments are expensive or inconvenient.”

“MedicAnimal.com continues to show that it can marry the business and growth opportunity afforded by e-commerce, with the noble purpose of benefiting pets by increasing treatment compliance and accessibility,” said Alex Wiedmer, Partner of Iris Capital. “We continue to buy into this vision, and are delighted Balderton joined us as investors in this great company.”

Mark Evans, a Partner at Balderton Capital, commented: “We’ve been hugely impressed by the MedicAnimal.com team and the superb service they provide to people that want the very best for their pets and animals. We see masses of potential in this sector and we’re thrilled to be on board”.

Post the £10m investment, the team remain focused on expanding their customer base and building their operations across Europe.

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Contacts

For Balderton Capital:

Victoria Palmer-Moore, Powerscourt

+44 20 7324 0493 / +44 7725 565 545 / vpm@powerscourt-group.com

Carmen Murray, Powerscourt

+44 20 7324 0496 / +44 7713 110 624 / carmen.murray@powerscourt-group.com

For Iris Capital:

Alexander Wiedmer

+33 1 45 62 73 65 / a.wiedmer@iriscapital.com

For MedicAnimal.com:

Ivan Retzignac

+44 203 058 0500 / ivan@medicanimal.com

About Balderton Capital

Balderton Capital is one of the largest venture capital firms in Europe, committed to finding and helping talented entrepreneurs build great companies. Based in London, the firm manages $1.9 billion in committed venture capital. Since 2000, Balderton has invested in over 100 companies, principally in numerous European countries but also in the US and Asia. Notable investments include YOOX Group (the online retailer of leading fashion brands, listed in December 2009), LOVEFiLM (the home entertainment subscription service sold to Amazon in January 2011), Betfair (the online betting exchange floated in London in October 2010), Bebo (sold to AOL for $850m), and MySQL (sold to Sun for $1 billion). Further investments in Balderton’s growing e-commerce portfolio include: The Hut Group, Achica, WorldStores, Gemvara, KupiVIP, My-Wardrobe.com and Vestiaire Collective. For more information, visit: www.balderton.com.

About Iris Capital

Iris Capital is a leading pan‐European venture capital fund manager specializing in the digital economy: media, telecoms, internet and IT. Iris Capital has recently partnered with Orange and Publicis to manage their joint venture capital initiative. Since its inception in 1986, the Iris Capital team has invested more than €870 million. Iris Capital targets opportunities in service or technology companies, seeking growth capital in order to realize its strategy. It provides active support to its portfolio companies on the basis of its strong sector specialization and experience. Iris Capital’s team currently has presence in Paris, Dusseldorf and Dubai.

About MedicAnimal

MedicAnimal was founded in October 2007 by Ivan Retzignac and Andrew Bucher. Prior to MedicAnimal, Andrew spent 6 years as a practising veterinary surgeon in the UK and Australia and Ivan worked for Goldman Sachs in London. The company has now grown to 150 employees and is based in North London. In 2011 they were featured in the Red Herring Top 100 companies in Europe and earlier this year they were listed as one of the top 50 fastest growing digital companies in the GP Bullhound Media Momentum Awards.

Why Business As Usual Will Kill The Wireless Industry

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

With telecom operators generating most of their revenue from voice, text and data, the need to differentiate service was of minimal concern. As long as this profit came in and they had the largest customer base, this model “worked” and was rewarded by the market.

Unfortunately for the telcos, this business model has been outdated by two developments : the rise of really terrific devices and the ubiquity of the Internet enabled by high speed data networks. This in turn has exposed the traditional model to be too one-dimensional. The old model no longer pays off – as voice and text pricing continues to fall, growth for operators is only happening in new innovative data services. Recent reports from Juniper Research and Ovum paint a dire picture, with telcos hemorrhaging profits. Higher costs for consumers’ data use have been installed to supplant declining voice and messaging losses.

With the legacy business model running out of runway, the operators have to rethink their revenue channels and modify their approach to business innovation.

One option is to flip the previous model entirely, and focus first on differentiating services, followed by increasing profitability and then neutralizing competitors. By reversing priorities, carriers can begin to build a business model that is two-sided and transactional. Think how Visa and Mastercard operate their business: the end-customer and the merchants both pay. The operators are now deploying such models with data and Internet services to similar ambition.

At Mobile World Congress 2012, one session addressed this concept of a two-sided business model, with representatives from AT&T, Facebook and Expedia on the panel. With voices from both operators and over-the-top application and content providers, this discussion was a perspective on the current telecom environment and focused on how collaboration between the two can lead to opportunities for both. The consensus: partnerships can create sustainable profitability and enhance how both serve their customers.

While buy-in from both sides makes the shift to this new, two-sided business model seem like a no-brainer, a recent survey from STL Partners identifies that while carriers and OTT providers are in agreement of what should happen, there are barriers that are obstructing any possibility for change.

The STL Partners survey includes perspectives from 25 major OTT providers – including Google, Fox Networks and Salesforce.com – and 15 operators, including AT&T and Verizon. One conclusion from the survey is that the carriers’ risk-adverse culture is the largest roadblock to business model innovation. The survey found that technical issues, the cost of IT integration and even lack of interest among carriers were of minimal concern.

Although operators are under pressure to change, timing is still critical. If an operator invests too early, there are risks of wasting resources and destroying what value is currently available. Conversely, investing too late could lead to a potentially fatal game of catch-up.

Operators face a prisoners’ dilemma when it comes to entertaining the idea of collaboration. They are aware of the benefits and consequences if they choose to do nothing, but cite cultural limitations as an excuse to do nothing.

Three technology considerations that could kick start change:

- Focus on productivity: Today’s operators are paying up to boost network speeds, but it won’t matter unless networks are flexible. Rebalance network investments into platforms that enable third-parties.

- The Internet is not the enemy: Web-based OTT providers offer operators a chance to improve revenue and customer service. Leveraging cooperation with these agile players can create mutual benefits.

- Invite collaboration: There’s no merit in keeping the network closed to over-the-top services. Build a platform that includes success for both the third party solution and the operator.

It won’t be easy to re-engineer existing business mode. But if operators choose to do nothing, the risk of fragmentation and losing their revenue base is very real. Partnerships between carriers and OTT providers would allow carriers to focus their innovation efforts on creating new revenue channels, counteracting disintermediation and increase profitability.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/05/08/why-business-as-usual-will-kill-the-wireless-industry/

Payday Loan Firm Wonga to Lend to Small Businesses

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Wonga, which has made 4 million short-term loans to consumers since its launch in 2007, will offer small businesses loans of 3,000 to 10,000 pounds for periods of between one and 52 weeks.

Interest rates will be fixed at between 0.3 and 2 percent per week, depending on how risky the loan is judged to be.

Wonga uses automated risk-processing technology to give near-instant answers to online applicants, and turns down about two-thirds of applications.

It now aims to export its more popular features, including the simple application screen featuring sliders that can be dragged to the desired amount to be borrowed and repayment period, to the business world.

"We wanted it to have all the characteristics that people positively associate with Wonga in terms of transparency, simplicity, ease of use, speed ... and we wanted to bring that to small business," said Chief Executive Errol Damelin.

Wonga's business has boomed during the downturn as cash-strapped consumers who found it hard to obtain short-term credit elsewhere turned to it for loans of up to 1,000 pounds to tide them over for up to a month.

The company has been criticised for charging too much interest - it charges simple interest to consumers of just under 1 percent per day - and for targeting the vulnerable.

But Wonga says its transparency, strict acceptance criteria and low default rates, which are in the mid-single digits, show it is a responsible lender.

Because it does not take deposits, Wonga operates under a consumer-credit licence, not a banking licence, meaning it is not subject to the capital requirements that are currently preventing banks from lending more.

"What became crystal clear to us a year or so ago was that small businesses had maybe even more need than individuals for solving short-term cash-flow problems," Damelin, who is also one of the company's two founders, told Reuters in an interview.

"For owner-operated businesses, capital is their oxygen. That's what they live and breathe and that's what's gives them the opportunity to stay in business and grow their businesses and employ people and help the economy recover."

Unlike the consumer-loan application process, which instantly displays the total cost of borrowing, Wonga for Business will have no instant decisions or predetermined interest rates because of the larger sums at stake and variety of risk factors.

Applicants must provide information about their company and its directors, who personally guarantee the loan. Wonga says the application process can be completed in 12 minutes, and money can be transferred to the business in as little as half an hour.

Wonga is the market leader for short-term, unsecured loans that can only be obtained online. It currently operates in Britain but is considering entering other markets such as Canada and South Africa in time.

Wonga's backers include Accel Partners, Balderton Capital, Greylock Partners, Oak Investment Partners and the Wellcome Trust. The company raised 73 million pounds in fresh capital a year ago.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/10230380

UK Game Developer Remode to bring new games to Habbo Social Hub

Fri, 04 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Helsinki, Finland – May 4, 2012 - 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.

“As a company with a proven track record in social and mobile games that also understands the needs and wants of the teen market, we couldn’t be happier to make Remode our inaugural development partner,” said Paul LaFontaine, CEO of Sulake.

The first title is scheduled to debut in Habbo in July. Details will be announced shortly.

“It is a tremendous honor to be named Sulake’s inaugural development partner as it will give us a unique opportunity to showcase our technology and gaming expertise to tens of millions teenagers worldwide,” said Ella Romanos, Managing Director, Remode Studios.

“We are opening up our environment so that independent developers looking to reach a teen audience can benefit from our expertise with that age group, while our loyal user base will be enriched by the creative collective that only a worldwide team of game developers can bring to Habbo,” added LaFontaine.

About Habbo Hotel and Sulake

Habbo Hotel is the world’s largest social game and community for teens. Users join by creating a fully customized online character called a Habbo. From there, they can explore wide variety of spaces and millions of rooms created by other users in the community, play a variety of games, connect with friends, decorate their own rooms, and have fun through creativity and self expression. Currently Habbo Hotel has customers in over 150 countries and the service is available in 11 language versions. To date, over 255 million characters have been created and 10 million unique users worldwide visit Habbo Hotel each month, spending a total of 45 million hours in the service.

Habbo Hotel is operated by Finnish company Sulake. With offices in 4 countries and headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, the company currently employs some 160 employees worldwide.

www.habbo.com

www.sulake.com

About Remode

Remode is an interactive production and game development studio founded in 2007 by duo Ella Romanos and Martin Darby. Remode creates original games and works with clients, partners and brands to deliver engaging interactive experiences.

Press images can be found at: http://www.sulake.com/press/image-bank/#category

Sulake Corporation Oy, Domicile: Helsinki, Registration No: 1603628-6, www.sulake.com

Porkkalankatu 1, 00130 Helsinki, Finland, Telephone: +358 10 656 7000, fax: +358 10 656 7010

UK Contact information:

Kirsty Endfield

Indigo Pearl

kirsty@indigopearl.com

02089 644 545

Balderton Capital Invests In Archify

Fri, 04 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

archify is a ground-breaking new service created to tackle the information overload crisis. On average, people are spending more than 35 hours per month online, consuming 3,205 pages . And it’s not just at their desks: Cisco predicts there will be two Internet-connected devices for every person on the planet by 2015 . But is it getting too much? Studies show that information overload is starting to harm people’s productivity because they can’t retrieve all this information efficiently. As Max Kossatz, Archify founder, illustrates, “I know I read something last week, but I can’t remember whether it was on Twitter, Facebook, or WebMD. Was it on my work PC or my iPad or my phone? This is where archify comes in.”

archify archives everything you see on the web or in your social stream (Facebook, Twitter etc) – then lets you search it quickly. The tool is seamlessly integrated into most browsers and runs automatically, so there’s no need to bookmark or manually save information. “Nowadays people don’t have time to trawl through their browser history and twitter feeds to find the article they read ten days ago. They want to search across multiple devices and through all their personal data streams. And they want the answer right now.” said Max.

And as co-founder Gerald Bäck adds, Google is increasingly unhelpful for the modern overloaded web-user: “Nowadays, so much of the information we read is siloed within Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest – where you can only search the last few days of history, and you have to search separately in each one. We think there’s huge demand for a service that remembers everything we view online”.

Rob Moffat, a Principal at Balderton Capital, agrees: “Fragmentation and information overload are both fascinating areas and we’re seeing solutions such as archify expand rapidly. Gerald, Max & Walter have built an intuitive and powerful product and we’re excited by the possibilities ahead”. Mark Evans (Partner at Balderton) & Rob Moffat will be joining the founders on the board.

The Vienna-based company also announced it will be expanding and moving to the “tech hub of Europe”, Berlin. “We wanted to take advantage of the city’s exceptional talent pool and the thriving start-up community” said co-founder Walter Palmetshofer.

archify is in Closed Beta at present, and will be opening to the public later this year. The investment will help archify complete their web product and develop a mobile version. For more information, see www.archify.com

About Balderton Capital (@Balderton / www.balderton.com)
Balderton Capital is one of the largest venture capital firms in Europe, committed to finding and helping talented entrepreneurs build great companies. Based in London, it manages $1.9 billion in committed venture capital. Since 2000, Balderton has invested in over 100 companies, principally in numerous European countries but also in the US and Asia. Notable investments include Bebo (sold to AOL for $850m), Betfair (floated on the LSE in 2010), LOVEFiLM (sold to Amazon in 2011), ScanSafe (sold to Cisco Systems for $183m) and MySQL (sold to Sun for $1 billion).

About archify (www.archify.com)
Archify was founded by Gerald Bäck, Max Kossatz and Walter Palmetshofer in Vienna in 2010.
Archify was a finalist at Startupbootcamp Copenhagen 2011.

Contacts

For Balderton Capital:
Victoria Palmer-Moore, Powerscourt
+44 20 7324 0493 / +44 7725 565 545
Carmen Murray, Powerscourt
+44 20 7324 0496 / +44 7713 110 624

For archify:
Gerald Bäck
+43 664 5107761 / gb@egoarchive.com

From Russia With Money: How Flash Sales Startup KupiVIP Is Riding The Middle Class Wave

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

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). On top of that, a growing base of middle class consumers — 15 million today, expected to double to 30 million in the next five years in an e-commerce market that is projected to be worth $40 billion — has translated into a veritable boom in the rise of tech companies.

But not all of that growth means big money just yet.

KupiVIP, the Russian flash-sales site, is on track to make $200 million in net sales this year, on revenues of $300 million. Oskar Hartmann (pictured), KupiVIP’s young and bullish CEO and co-founder, who I met while on a tour of Moscow’s tech scene this week (another story on that here), believes the company will be making $1 billion in sales annually within the next five years — pretty modest by the standards of Amazon, a company to which KupiVIP is compared, which had revenues of over $48 billion in 2011, but still making KupiVIP one to watch.

A story that Hartmann tells gives an insight into some of the trials and tribulations of building a startup in a country like Russia:

“It was January 21, 2009, and we were just about to get a new financing round. At the time we had negative 200 million euros in the bank,” recalls Hartmann. He explains that while VCs in Europe consider a deal done when the term sheet is delivered, and in the U.S. when the shareholder agreement is finalized. But in Russia it’s when the money gets wired to a bank account, with the paperwork being effectively meaningless without it. “Then we suddenly got a call from the main investor, who said they’d changed their mind. It was game over for us.”

So they got to thinking fast. “We called our retail partners, and asked if they would be willing to give us six months of credit. We worked out a revenue sharing deal with our biggest retailer. And then our existing VC, Mangrove, gave us a bridge loan. Then our company grew by 40 times in the next eight months.” He said the VC that dropped out at the last minute later approached them to invest again — possibly in the $55 million round the company secured in April 2011 from Balderton, Bessemer, Accel, Mangrove and others. “And they did.”

Since then, KupiVIP (‘kupi’ means buy in Russian) has been becoming an ever more ubiquitous presence in the market on a business that still counts flash sales as its biggest pillar, but now also includes white-label e commerce sites and a full-priced e-commerce site of its own called ShopTime — all distributed on a logistics network created and owned by KupiVIP that includes warehouses, a fleet of delivery trucks and even delivery men who will bring a product and wait at the door until you try the item on and decide whether you want to keep it, and then pay they guy, in cash, if you do.

Most recently, the white-label service, which KupiVIP started building two years ago, has now begun to grow in earnest: it now has nine big brands signed on (Adidas being one of the most recent, going live just this week), with plans to have 23 by the end of this year, launching two new sites every month. White-label is already providing 25 percent of the company’s revenues but they expect that to account for half by 2013.

Hartmann’s big idea for KupiVIP is to sell name-brand fashion at deep discounts (as with other consumer goods like electronics and food, name brand clothes from regular stores can be ridiculously expensive) with the aim of building a solution covering middle class women — and men — in “every region, every city.”

It definitely fills a hole — nothing like this existed before, and Russian women love to shop and are huge impulse buyers. Two of KupiVIP’s biggest assets are more behind the scenes:

The first has been in the creation of that logistics infrastructure. It includes a battery of attractive in-house call center girls (I think some of them may double as models for the site, and one of their incentives was for good performance to get rewarded with photo shoots for the company calendar); plus distribution centers, trucks and a fleet of customer-friendly delivery people who double as sales assistants to work with customers at the point of delivery.

Hartmann says that it had to build this from scratch because existing delivery services were just not up to the task involved: not just sending goods to so many extensive parts of Russia but then being on hand to collect money or the goods if they’re not up to scratch. (Ozon, a competitor to KupiVIP, says that 80 percent of its sales are in cash, too.) You can imagine that if another international e-commerce company like Amazon or eBay decide to really make a play for Russia, this is the kind of infrastructure that they would need to either build as well, or buy.

The other is in the area of data collection: the company is picking up an enormous amount of information about what people like to buy and when. This is an area where KupiVIP is already making acquisitions to improve its position, specifically looking for companies that are “supportive of data intelligence, consumer mining and individualization in shopping.” That information is already helping them shape the product experience for individual shoppers, Hartmann says.

There are some areas that are no-go for KupiVIP. For one, Hartmann says that the company will not touch electronics and books, which are already being served well by Ozon and others, because he believes startups first and foremost need to “solve problems that are unsolved.”

Plus he thinks that even for a company like Ozon these product categories do not make much money. He argues that this was the motivation behind Ozon’s purchase of Sapato, Russia’s Zappos, in February 2012: to be able to distribute more profitable products over Ozon’s own logistics infrastructure. “Books/electronics will always lose money. They want to overlay their delivery engine with profitable products, antiques, fashion and shoes, so it make a lot of sense for Ozon to buy Sapato.”

International expansion is another. “We have no interest in extending outside of Russia and the CIS,” he says. “There are already huge e-commerce companies in Europe. We would have to build up from zero. We need to look at markets where we can add value in the CIS before looking where we can grow internationally.” PriceWaterhouse estimates that the whole of the e-commerce market (including content like games, lottery tickets and money transfer) was worth $9 billion in Russia in 2010 and that this will double by next year. Hartmann also notes that the kinds of market gaps that exist in Russia are in other parts of the world, too — for example Saudi Arabia and India.

How do the financials look today? “We are as profitable as we want to be,” Hartmann answers. There is also talk of an IPO in the next two years. The biggest cost, he says, is customer acquisition and delivery, the area that KupiVIP has built out from scratch. (Delivery can cost 20 euros per sale but the company delivers free.) Those margins improve the more the logistics network is used, which is why we will probably continue to see KupiVIP launch ever more services in the future.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/21/from-russia-with-money-how-kupivip-is-riding-the-middle-class-wave-in-europes-most-connected-market/

LevelUp Goes Big With New App Release and Major Executive Expansion

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

LevelUp, the pay phone app, today announced a redesign of its mobile app, along with several key executive hires at its parent company, SCVNGR. These hires include former Akamai Technologies SVP Engineering Harald Prokop -- one of the chief architects of the Cambridge, MA-based Internet giant -- who will be joining as Chief Technology Officer. SCVNGR also added former Omnicom Media Group global CFO Mark Amabile to its expanded leadership team as Chief Financial Officer. Additionally, Chris Mahl, current EVP Enterprise, will become Chief Revenue & Strategy Officer. In his new role, Chris will also be leading strategic initiatives including card and bank partnerships, international expansion and carrier partnerships.

New CTO Harald Prokop served as the key technology strategist at the billion-dollar internet content delivery company Akamai Technologies, which he joined in 1999. In his new role at SCVNGR, he will focus on scaling the LevelUp payment architecture and growing the engineering team.

Mark Amabile, the newly joined CFO, spent over twenty years within several networks of advertising and marketing services giant Omnicom Group. Most recently Mark was global CFO for Omnicom Media Group, which has annual billings in excess of $38 billion according to media agency industry source RECMA. At SCVNGR, Mark will be responsible for further developing the company's financial operations as LevelUp's transaction volume doubles roughly every 6 weeks.

Harald and Mark join SCVNGR's Executive Team comprised of industry veterans like Chris Mahl, whose 25 years of experience include executive roles at Oracle, Yahoo and Salesforce.com, in leading LevelUp's expansion as the nation's 2nd largest mobile payment application.

"It's a pretty amazing time here at SCVNGR & LevelUp. We've just moved headquarters into a new, 40,000 sq. ft. space in downtown Boston, and we've added literally some of the best talent in the industry with Harald and Mark," said Chief Ninja Seth Priebatsch. "Our plan is to grow LevelUp into the largest mobile payment network in the country, and we're building an insanely talented executive team to achieve that goal...fast."

Now available in the iTunes App Store (and coming shortly for Android), LevelUp also launched Version 2.3.0 of its pay phone app this week, which features a stunningly simple user interface. Users can now search LevelUp's 2500+ merchants by category (i.e. "Pizza" or "Mexican food") and can view their full transaction history, along with a local map highlighting places they've visited before.

For further information or to download LevelUp and start saving time and money by paying with your phone, visit http://www.thelevelup.com

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/levelup-goes-big-with-new-app-release-and-major-executive-expansion-2012-04-19

A Revolutionary Breakthrough In Cancer Detection To Be Tested on Smokers

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Sir Harry Burns, The Chief Medical Officer for Scotland announced today that Scotland will conduct a major screening trial for lung cancer using EarlyCDT–Lung – a simple blood test that detects cancer at its earliest stages of development. EarlyCDT–Lung has been available in the US for more than two years and has been shown to detect early and late stage cancers in research studies as well as in clinical use. An audit of more than 1,500 patients has been overseen by independent leading cancer clinicians and confirms the test performs in the clinic as expected. The objective of this randomised prospective trial is to ascertain the cost–effectiveness of EarlyCDT-Lung in screening high risk patients. Initial calculations from an independent firm of health economists in Boston show that it should be highly cost effective and reduce lung cancer mortality. Lung cancer survival rates in the UK have remained very poor (9% five year survival) for decades.

The trial will include 10,000 high-risk smokers (defined as having smoked the equivalent of 20 cigarettes per day for over 20 years). Half of the identified population will have EarlyCDT-Lung; those who are positive will be followed up with low dose computed tomography (CT) scans in order to identify if lung cancer is present. The other half will not be screened with EarlyCDT-Lung but will have the current standard of care. The clinical outcomes and the overall cost of care including using the EarlyCDT–Lung test, will be compared with the clinical outcomes and the overall cost of care of the non-screened group.

Why Conduct this Trial Now?

The outlook for lung cancer has for the first time been shown to benefit from a screening programme with CT. In the US, the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) (1) on over 53,000 high risk smokers showed a 20% mortality benefit for screening with CT compared to chest X-ray. However, CT screening is expensive and initial calculations from the trial show it is unlikely to achieve a cost effective position to justify national screening. The UK has an additional issue to contend with as there are insufficient CT machines to support a national screening programme. It is therefore very important to find a test that is a pre-screen for CT that reduces the overall cost to an acceptable level and thus will allow the mortality benefit of screening with CT to become a practical reality. EarlyCDT–Lung will detect approximately half the cancers in the screened population and reduce the overall number to be followed up with CT to 7%. Having up to half the cancers in only 7% of the screened population should make the combination of EarlyCDT–Lung followed by CT highly cost effective. Initial calculations show that it may even reduce the overall cost of care for this high risk population whilst at the same time saving a significant number of lives.

Sir Harry Burns (The Chief Medical Officer for Scotland) stated: “The earlier a cancer is diagnosed the greater the chance it can be treated successfully, and currently 85 per cent of patients with lung cancer remain undiagnosed until the disease has reached an advanced stage. This pilot project is part of our Detect Cancer Early programme, which aims to increase the early detection of cancer by 25 per cent. By testing those at greatest risk of developing lung cancer, and diagnosing it at its earliest possible stage, we stand a better chance of being able to treat the cancer successfully. This means patients can be treated when their general health is better and when less aggressive treatment may be required than if the cancer had spread.”

Professor John Robertson ([Director of CEAC, and Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Oncimmune Ltd) said: “After many years of developing and refining this autoantibody test I am very proud of what we have achieved. The test is highly reproducible and will I believe lead to significant improvement in prognosis for a substantial number of lung cancer sufferers. The significant amount of performance validation work that we carried out before the test was launched in the US has led to the test performing commercially as expected. A randomised screening trial of this nature will help validate its use as a screening tool.

We are working hard on bringing the next test for the early detection of breast cancer to the market within a year. We are also working on a number of similar tests for prostate, colon and ovarian cancer – a blood test to aid detection of all tumour cancers (70% of all cancer) is still the overriding objective of our work”.

Geoffrey Hamilton-Fairley (Exec Chairman of Oncimmune Ltd) commented: “It is very good news that a simple blood test with the potential to improve prognosis for lung cancer sufferers is now available. It is important that since the performance of the test has been proven clinically, we establish the test’s cost effectiveness which will enable broad adoption of EarlyCDT-Lung so that the benefits of early detection can become a reality.

The foresight of Scotland’s health team in identifying the clinical and economic benefits of a pre-screening test such as EarlyCDT-Lung and the speed with which they have put this trial in place is to be applauded.”

More about EarlyCDT–Lung

Oncimmune’s EarlyCDT-Lung test uses a panel of tumour antigens to detect the presence of immuno-biomarkers (autoantibodies) produced by the patient’s immune system when lung cancer is present. Elevation of any one of the panel of immuno-biomarkers (autoantibodies) above a predetermined cut-off value suggests that a tumour might be present. Previous studies have shown that immuno-biomarkers can be detected up to five years earlier than tumours can be seen in routine diagnostic imaging procedures. Tests that detect autoantibodies to a single tumour protein have been available for a number of years but have had low pick up rates (sensitivity). Previously, multiple antigen tests had low specificity, especially for early detection. Oncimmune’s EarlyCDT-Lung test has increased the sensitivity of the autoantibody test while maintaining a high level of specificity. The test is performed in Oncimmune’s CLIA-certified laboratory in Kansas City in the US.

Physicians and members of the public who are interested in learning more about ordering the test on a private pay basis can register their interest at www.earlycdt-lung.co.uk .

More about the Trial and Lung Cancer

The trial will be conducted in Scotland. It will start before the end of 2012 and the first results are expected to be reported before the end of 2014. The sponsors for the trial are the NHS in Scotland, CEAC (the Centre of Excellence for Autoimmunity in Cancer at the University of Nottingham) and Oncimmune Ltd. The trial is part of Scotland’s Detect Cancer Early programme which aims to increase the early detection of cancer by 25 per cent.

Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer-related mortality and a major source of cancer mortality in the UK. 85% of patients with lung cancer remain undiagnosed until the disease is symptomatic and has reached an advanced stage. Moreover, Scotland has had one of the highest rates of lung cancer in the world. Approximately 2,460 men and 2,340 women are diagnosed with lung cancer in Scotland every year, 16% of the UK lung cancer total, despite Scotland having only 8% of the UK’s population. (2008 data). Survival across the UK is poor with less than 9% of patients still alive at five years after diagnosis, due primarily to late stage of presentation. Early detection of lung cancer and diagnosis improves prognosis - the current 5-year survival rate is approximately 60% for stage I lung cancer but is only 1% for those with stage IV disease. The potential of early detection of lung cancer to improve outcomes was confirmed recently by the US National Cancer Institute’s National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) which showed a 20% reduction in deaths from lung cancer as a result of early detection of the disease(1). This confirmed previous screening study reports which showed an increase in early stage and longer survival in populations which had been screened for lung cancer (2-4).

More about CEAC

Based on the early work of Professor Robertson, CEAC is leading research into the early detection and management of cancer and pushing forward the introduction of a blood test which can pick up the first signs of cancer as much as five years before some patients present with symptoms. Officially opened in January this year CEAC brings together a multi-disciplinary team of experts to lead to a better understanding of the molecular pathways that cancers in humans exploit as they develop and spread. This will help cancer specialists gain a greater insight into the associated immune response. The Centre is based at The University of Nottingham’s School of Graduate Entry Medicine and Health in Derby, England. Cancer: Early Detection is a flagship project within the University’s new appeal, Impact: The Nottingham campaign, aims to raise £150m to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future.

More about Oncimmune

Oncimmune Ltd was founded in 2003 as a spin out company from the University of Nottingham and is an industry leader in early cancer detection. The company is committed to advancing early cancer detection through proprietary immuno-biomarker technologies identified by John Robertson, M.D., Professor of Surgery at Nottingham University, England, and Chief Scientific Officer of Oncimmune Ltd. Ongoing research and development is conducted by Oncimmune under the direction of Professor Robertson. The company’s mission is to develop early cancer detection tests to identify more than 90% of solid-tumour cancers, which make up 70% of all cancers including lung, breast, colorectal, prostate, stomach, pancreatic and ovarian. Oncimmune (USA) LLC, founded in 2006, is the North American headquarters for Oncimmune and all testing is performed exclusively at Oncimmune’s CLIA-regulated laboratory located in the Kansas City area. Oncimmune (USA) LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oncimmune LTD. Oncimmune LTD owns a portfolio of patents, including Patent Nos. 7,402,403 and 7,205,117, with five others currently filed and under review.

Safe Harbor Statement

Except for historical information contained herein, statements made in this release that would constitute forward-looking statements may involve certain risks and uncertainties. All forward-looking statements made in this release are based on currently available information and the company assumes no responsibility to update any such forward looking statements.

For further information visit www.earlycdt-lung.co.uk , www.oncimmune.com

Contact Information

Oncimmune UK:

Press Department, Oncimmune Ltd

Tel: +44 (0)115 8231869

press@oncimmune.co.uk

Oncimmune USA:

Tonua Fedusenko :

Tel: +1 270-937-2243 (office)

+1 302-893-3948 (mobile)

tonua@tjscommunications.net

How Wooga Could Become the Second-Biggest Player on Facebook

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

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.

The difference is that while Zynga has 73 apps and Electronic Arts has 47 apps the figures for Wooga are accounted for by just seven apps. Last May it landed $24m in funding. The German developer is obviously doing something right and Venture Beat carries a detailed transcript of an interview with Wooga co-founder and chief executive Jens Begemann speaking in San Francisco at the Game Developers’ Conference.

Mr. Begemann said: We’re not doing anything magical. We’re just doing work. But I tried to sum up seven lessons that we’ve learned over the last few years. One of those is to focus on making our games very engaging in such a way that people come back often. We emphasize that instead of virality.

I think some other companies have been complaining that the virality of Facebook is not what it used to be. I think for us what has worked is focusing on engagement and making sure people come back. Every new user…you need to treat them like a small gold nugget — try to keep them. If you keep all of these new users, you’ve made a gold bar…

Basically, if you know the theory of flow , the game has to be challenging but at the same time can’t become too difficult. We ensure that people — from the very first moment on but also if they have played for a very long period of time — always feel challenged. They always have the feeling that they are under control, and they can create their own experience. It’s kind of similar to a triple-A title but obviously much more simple. It’s really about all these small little improvements that make sure people come back over long periods of time.

And then, of course — one element is using the social elements of competition in a good way. If you compete with your friends for a gold medal, that’s more interesting than playing alone or playing with strangers…

We try to focus on very long-term, sustainable growth. For example, if you look at where our traffic is coming from, only five percent of our new users come from advertising. About 40 percent come from virality and 55 percent from cross-linking between our different games. We do not rely on advertising and do not rely on really driving traffic in short bursts.

http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/03/19/how-wooga-could-become-the-second-biggest-player-on-facebook/?KEYWORDS=How+Wooga+Could+Become+the+Second-Biggest+Player+on+FacebookKEYWORDS%3DHow+Wooga+Could+Become+the+Second-Biggest+Player+on+Facebook