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Web 2.0 in Belgium (5 unread)

Plugg Conference 2008 - discount codes here!

Posted: January 30th, 2008, 5:42am MST

Many of you know I organize the Plugg Conference 2008 in Brussels, due to be held the 19th of March.

We’re ready to start distributing discount codes to many of Plugg’s media partners for them to share with their readership.

We’ve decided to share discount codes with subscribers of the Plugg blog, as well as the readers of my personal blogs (one of which you’re reading now), the members of the Plugg Facebook Group and anyone who is following @plugg or @robinwauters on Twitter.

The following discount code will knock off 25% (or 100 €) of the price of the entrance fee upon registration: PLUGGFRIEND

Enter that code when registering for Plugg in the field ‘Coupon Code’ and the price will drop 100 €.

You’re welcome

By the way, if you’re a start-up, you might want to take a look at the Start-Ups Rally. Don’t wait too long, deadline for entering is 8 February 2008!
Clear2Pay Raises An Extra 10 Million Euro

Posted: January 29th, 2008, 5:12am MST

Clear2Pay, the Belgian financial technology company focused on delivering globally applicable solutions for secure, timely electronic payments, has raised 10 million euro from its initial investors in a round led by Iris Capital Management.

Erkan Kilicaslan, Partner at Iris Capital Management states: “We stand very strong by our statement at the time of our first investment and I am even more convinced today that we are building a market winner. The future outlook for financial software solutions remains positive and analysts, banks and technology framework partners alike are now truly convinced of the future proof nature of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), on which the Open Payment Framework is based, and the ability it offers financial institutions to embrace both new and proprietary environments. Finally, we are very impressed with the excellent execution of the growth strategy by the management team under Michel Akkermans’ lead.”

Jurgen Ingels, Co-founder and CFO of Clear2Pay adds: “Our investors wholeheartedly underwrite the strategy we are currently executing, such as sustaining a very targeted acquisition and integration strategy, expansion in China, where we will add another 40 people next month, and the continued development of our core Open Payment Framework. We are delighted with their commitment and by our staff’s dedication to deliver upon this”.

[Via Datanews]
Yuntaa Raises 1 Million Euro from Arkafund

Posted: January 25th, 2008, 7:53am MST

When Yuntaa launched in July 2007, I ended my post (back then on blognation Belgium) with this sentence: “Expect us to report a venture capital investment for this company soon!”.

I’ve been proven right. Arkafund, a venture capital fund initiated by Dexia Bank & Sydes, has agreed to back the Web 2.0 backup company for 1 million euro. I just had lunch with founder and CEO Jan Lambrechts, who confirmed the deal and told me that he’s very excited about the investment, particularly about the level of people Arkafund is bringing in. Luc De Vos, well known a.o. for his previous ventures as founder of EUnet International and PING, will chair the company’s Board of Directors as part of the investment agreement.

Yuntaa is a Belgian Web 2.0 platform where users from around the world can store, manage and share a variety of digital files like photos, music and video. Yuntaa’s user base counts well over 25 000 registered users at present.

Yuntaa’s new management structure will be set up around 3 business objectives: further development of the consumer-oriented Yuntaa.com, the professional version Yuntaa.biz and Yuntaa OEM, which will focus more on sectorial partners.

With the help of Arkafund, Yuntaa is looking to hire 3 to 5 additional staff members in Belgium. Further development of the application will remain its key focus, but Yuntaa is also looking to expand its marketing efforts.

Yuntaa was founded by Jan Lambrechts, who will remain CEO of the company, Nadia Lambrechts as COO while Andy Barrett heads a 20-person team of programmers as CTO.

(Full disclosure: Arkafund is the lead sponsor of Plugg, a European Web 2.0 Conference I organize)
Opened up registrations for Plugg Start-Ups Rally 2008

Posted: January 11th, 2008, 5:45am MST

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but I can use any publicity for Plugg, so might as well do it on my own blog(s)

With a little more than 2 months to go before the conference, we’ve now made it possible for start-ups to submit their company profile online for the Plugg Start-Ups Rally.

This is an opportunity for European web, mobile and enterprise 2.0 start-ups to raise awareness for their innovations and for their team members to hopefully get widespread recognition for their entrepreneurial efforts.

The deadline for entering the information comes one week before the one for registering for the event with the reduced early-bird entrance fee of 400 €: Friday the 8th of February. After that date, all submitted profile sheets will be carefully selected to see if the criteria have been met. A professional jury will then jointly decide which 20 start-ups will get to deliver a 2-minute pitch on stage to the entire audience.

Of those 20, three start-ups will be selected to deliver a more profound 10-minute pitch to the audience in an afternoon session. Ultimately, one of the finalists will receive the Plugg Start-Up of the Year Award 2008 from the jury at the end of the conference.

Registration for the start-ups rally is free of charge. We do however ask representatives of the selected companies to pay a reduced entrance fee to cover some of the fixed costs. The first 50 companies to register will receive a free 25 € voucher from our sponsor Brabo Ventures / Gate2Growth. With this voucher, they can get an expert opinion on their business plan using the G2G business assesment tool.

You can do your part too!

Please help spread the word about Plugg and the start-ups rally along with our media partners. We also still have some sponsor slots available for companies who are looking for qualitative visibility at the only true European-focused Web 2.0 conference to date. Help us in making this event a success and stimulate technological innovation in Europe!

You can follow this blog for more information, subscribe to our dedicated Twitter feed our join the Facebook group.
T-Zine

Posted: January 7th, 2008, 6:37am MST

A new year, a new challenge, allbeit right up my alley (hope I’m not blowing my own horn too much). As from today, I’ll be contributing to T-Zine on a regular basis.

In case you don’t know, T-Zine is the technology & multimedia blog / newsletter from quality newspaper De Tijd. Blog posts on a variety of topics related to Web 2.0 and new media will be published in Dutch and translated in French most of the time.

My first post is about the Wikia Search launch and how this relates to Google.

If you’re interested, visit the blog and don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed.
T-Zine’s also on Twitter: follow the Dutch feed and the French feed.