But Zuck’s visit was a tad more subdued, with the head of the Western economy meeting with some lesser-known politicians, enquiring politely as to the workings of German democracy. We know not why. Perhaps he was simply avoiding Philipp Rösler in Silicon Valley.

One startup insider may have the answer: “I think this deal makes a lot of sense. The FDP has been running out of voters and ideas for a long time and being part of Facebook will enable them to do things at Zuck-scale. Also, it’ll help Facebook to rejuvenate its image and regain its “cool” – let’s not forget that the FDP still has access to roughly 300 business students in Germany…”

But if the buoyant billionaire *were* in a buying mood in Berlin, who would be in the running for an acquisition? We take a look at some of the contenders…

ResearchGate

Already dubbed “the Facebook for scientists”, ResearchGate has recently proved its worth with a $20m investment at a time when most Berlin startups are raising a few thousand and a case of Club Mate. The company connects scientists and research data, and claims 2.6 million users… with several thousand new sign-ups each day. And let’s not forget, these users will be an educated and engaged bunch. If Zuck was looking for a new vertical, this could be it.

SoundCloud

Remember Myspace? Of course you don’t. That’s because you’ve had it erased from your memory, Men in Black style. It was either that or claw your own eyes, then brain, out. Not even a Trousersnake endorsement could redeem the memory of what happens when you let hoi polloi near a control panel.

But as a platform with music at its core, MySpace bests Facebook by miles. I have an email from my ex-boyfriend in 2007 that reads: “Yeah, I tired Facebook today… it’s like MySpace without the music. I’m not convinced…”. He’s a tech journalist.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a fully integrated music player on your social network, and an easy way to share and distribute your tunes? If Facebook snapped up SoundCloud, the service could continue to experiment with native advertising, but to 1.11 billion monthly active users. Ker-ching.

Wooga

Zuck’s love affair with social games maker Zynga has cooled somewhat this year, with the online gaming company stalling while Facebook’s gaming community continues to grow. Facebook states that Q1 was its largest quarter of games revenue to date — despite a 37 per cent drop in year-over-year payments from Zynga, with Zuck pouting that Zynga’s growth “hasn’t been as awesome as everyone had hoped”.

Maybe its time for Wooga, Merkel’s favourite startup, to fill the void, especially given its stronger focus on speedy mobile transition, one of the main failings of Zynga.

Amen/Thanks

The former poster child of the Berlin startup scene has a great team, a slick concept and Ashton Kutcher as a BFF. Using peer recommendations, you can browse opinions and create your own ad hoc city or entertainment guides or “best nearby”s on mobile. It could provide a nice rationalisation of throwing out random questions for your Facebook friends to answer. And it’d also be nice and cheap.

Vamos

“What should I do tonight?” is a question that Facebook normally answers with “waste all your night on Facebook”. But if you manage to break out of the cycle of procrastination, then you need some peer-based inspiration. Sure, Facebook has bundled in Suggested Events for a couple of years, but it desperately needs to develop a native event-discovery feature into something more fun, functional and lucrative. We reckon ultimate chancers Vamos could be the boys for the job, especially given its new partnerships with ticketing services… and Facebook Events.

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Global investment company Grishin Robotics has announced a $500,000 investment in Swivl, the creators behind an intelligent motion-tracking robotic gadget that doubles as a your very own cameraperson for iOS devices or cameras. The funding will go towards developing the second generation Swivl and launching its yet-to-be announced video services.

At first glance, it’s difficult to figure out what exactly Swivl does but after watching the demo video, the device’s impressive human-like ability to smoothly follow and keep the speaker in frame  becomes apparent.

While there have been various applications of the product, Swivl has reportedly been the most popular with educators for filming lectures, distance learning and professional development. According to the company, it has sold over 10,000 units worldwide and is used in over 1000 schools.

“The global educational industry is undergoing huge transforming changes, and robotics plays an increasingly significant role in that process. Swivl represents a rare combination of strong technologies, beautiful design and affordable price-point – exactly the type of product we are looking for,” said Dmitry Grishin, founder of Grishin Robotics and CEO of Mail.Ru Group – Russia’s largest internet company.

Swivl is currently on the market for $199 per unit.

This is Grishin Robotics’ fourth investment since launching its $25m fund – from Grishin’s own money – which hopes to boost entrepreneurs in the robotics space and “bring a robot into every home”.

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Fielmann Ventures promises to support projects with expertise, scaling competencies and venture capital. The incubator has short cycles, in which teams develop minimum viable products and test them with customers and opticians. The website promises that they’re more interested in the long-term satisfaction of their customers rather than short-term profits.

The optical industry is a lucrative one – according to Fielmann Ventures, last year it made a total of €5.2b in revenue in Germany alone. Fielmann itself makes a large chunk of this revenue – the team claims that Fielmann sold more than seven million glasses in 2012 with a turnover of €1.2b.

So far, you can’t buy anything from the company online, but according to an interview with Manager Magazine, that’s one of the things Fielmann Ventures is out to solve. Apparently, they’re currently working on a mobile app to start selling contact lenses online, putting them in competition with Mister Spex – the leading online optical retailer in Germany which last week received €16m funding. Fielmann are also out to optimise their data processing, wanting to shorten the amount of working time it takes to sell one pair of glasses by seven minutes.

Fielmann joins a growing number of German corporations who have decided to capitalise on the startup scene with their own incubators, including Rewe, Deutsche Telekom, Axel Springer, ProSiebenSat.1 and Deutsche Post (through its subsidiary target advertising platform Nugg.ad).  It’s too early to tell if the plethora of incubators will really accel the startup scene in Germany or whether it’s just a case of corporates trying to stay innovative by jumping on the startup bandwagon.

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Of all the emerging internet markets, Asia is making entrepreneurs and investors most exited. China is set to outgrow the US online retail market – the market size is estimated at $650bn, India with its population of 1.25bn already has an online population bigger than Germany, France and Italy’s combined and for the first time, businesses have the chance to reach Indonesia’s 17,500 islands and 250 million people via a single outlet.

Southeast Asia is of particular interest with an overall population of around 600 million people, and the current unexpected economic growth is offering up huge opportunities, primarily due to expanding economic liberalisation. This is not without justification – in 2015 the ten ASEAN member countries will merge their markets to a single, unified Asian Economic Community (AEC), largely built on the model of the single European market.

Out of the ten ASEAN countries, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore will be under the spotlight: Indonesia due to its huge size and therefore potential (250 million people), Malaysia due to its overall advanced level of development and combined widespread use of English and Singapore with its superb business and regulatory environment. However, largely overlooked is Thailand – currently ASEAN’s second-biggest economy and fourth most populous country, not to mention it has a thriving startup scene.

The number of Thais online is set to reach 40-50 million by 2015

Thailand has a population of roughly 70 million people and a GDP of $646bn, which make it the world’s 24th-largest economy. There are approximately 25 million Thais online with this figure expected to reach 40-50 million by 2015.

Unseen by Europe, is the degree to which Thailand’s internet users are “social” – more than three quarters of the online population is on Facebook, making Bangkok the world’s Facebook capital with a Facebook population of more than 8.5 million. Such is the degree of social media engagement that Zalora Thailand, Rocket Internet’s Thailand fashion venture, established in late 2011, has more than 528,000 fans, of whom 115,000 talk about it.

Meanwhile, Zalando, Rocket Internet’s European fashion venture, established in 2008, has 539,000 fans but only 12,000 actively talk about it. Thus highlighting the serious importance and the implications of the online marketing strategies that startups adopt.

Despite these more than healthy stats, the Thai internet market is still in its infancy. Back in early 2012, a survey among Zalora Thailand customers showed an impressive result: for more than three quarters of them, Zalora was their first online shopping experience for physical goods. Previously, if they shopped online it was for the standard plane ticket or hotel reservation. 

Doing business in Thailand? Good luck…

To put it simply, doing business in Thailand isn’t easy for foreigners. So far, it’s mainly the internet giants that have entered Thailand’s market: Rakuten with the acquisition of Tarad in 2009, Living Social with the acquisition of Ensogo in 2011, Tencent with the acquisition of Sanook in 2010 and lately Rocket Internet with Zalora in 2011. But strong regulatory procedures are making doing business in Thailand somewhat of a challenge.

Among the market challenges there is a general lack of trust and an extreme lack of  suitable payment systems. In total, there are just 17 million credit cards in Thailand, with unique credit-card holders numbering less than eight million. Many card-holders are reluctant to use their cards online, mainly due to a large scandal in the early 2000′s that still plays on the minds of consumers.

Most payments have traditionally been executed by either ATM bank transfers or more recently by the introduction of a revolutionary over-the-counter payment system. Many bills, including the ones from internet companies can be settled at virtually all convenience stores, petrol stations and post offices by simply showing a unique QR code which is redeemed during the check-out process.

Back in 2012, Zalora paved the way with a somewhat revolutionary (or perhaps novel) payment idea. Zalora was the first B2C company to introduce cash on delivery as a payment method. The introduction of this payment method proved to be a real game-changer – these days more than two thirds of all orders at Thailand’s biggest online fashion stores are settled by cash on delivery.

Distribution can be expensive and unreliable

Generating orders is challenging, but fulfilling them often proves even more challenging in Thailand. Even though the infrastructure in general is good, there are very few logistic providers equipped for B2C operations, partly due to the fact that up until two years ago there was simply no demand for these services. The Thai state postal authority is affordable, but unreliable. Most other operators only cover selective areas of the country and are in general very pricey.

Basically, there are no mid-tier providers: either companies go with the affordable, but unreliable, state provider or they go with the pricey but fast and reliable premium providers. Considering that the average checkout baskets are lower by nature in less developed countries, high order execution costs make the individual unit economics of shipments challenging.

With regards to the regulatory challenges, potential entrepreneurs and investors must know that Thailand in general does not allow majority foreign ownership in any company. Plus, as an aftermath of the 2009 Asian crisis, the flow of capital in and out of the country is now heavily regulated, as is the employment of non-Thai nationals. In addition, corruption and perceived discrimination of non-Thai companies and a general lack of English language skills among state organisations contributes to an overall challenging regulatory environment.

Government support for eCommerce and software development is set to end

However, it has to be mentioned that certain industries are being specifically promoted by the Thai government. The Board of Investment (BOI), Thailand’s official investment promotion organisation actively encourages activities in specific sectors. Luckily for the internet world, two of these industries are software development (chapter 5.8) and eCommerce (chapter 5.9).

These two chapters cover virtually all entrepreneurial activities in the internet: app development, digital models, online retail, lead generation etc. The investment promotions for both categories include the right to full foreign ownership, import duty exemptions on various tools and machinery, relaxed restrictions with regards to the flow of capital, easier employment of non-Thai nationals as well as a guarantee from the government against being nationalised.

However, following pressure from larger, well established offline competitors, it has been decided to bring an end to the promotion of eCommerce (chapter 5.9) and to downgrade the promotion incentives for software development (chapter 5.8) by mid 2013.

The Thai internet market offers opportunities like few others: it is largely untapped, rapidly developing, exploding in terms of size and is the perfect base for those with ASEAN-wide ambitions. However, startups need to overcome severe challenges, the like of which are mostly unknown in most of the Western world: regulatory challenges, operational challenges and of course the huge language barrier.

Image credits”
Tuk Tuk – flickr user Lawerece King
Thai Temple – flickr user mikebehnken
eCommerce – flickr user fosforix 

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The annual Term Sheet Battle, which pits an experienced entrepreneur against an investor to negotiate the details of a mock term sheet live on stage, is returning to Berlin on 7 June. This year, the audience will see Earlybird‘s co-founder and Partner Christian Nagel take the hot seat with a yet-to-be-determined entrepreneur.

The term sheet is a critical document that lays out the groundwork to ensure all parties agree on major aspects of a deal. For entrepreneurs, dealing with term sheets is an essential – and often confusing – process that they will have to face at some stage.

“Term Sheet Battle is really about levelling the playing field between investors on the one hand (who have done hundreds of deals) and entrepreneurs who are usually very poorly prepared to negotiate what can be a complicated document,” explained Alex Farcet, founder of Startupbootcamp, a lead sponsor of the event.

The faceoff is a great opportunity for startups interested in raising funding to learn the ropes of term-sheet negotiation or investors who want to brush up their skills. Brad Furber, seasoned investor and creator of Term Sheet Battle, will be moderating the event – calling timeouts to offer advice to entrepreneurs as well as explaining specific terms and concepts to the audience.

VentureVillage is giving out five tickets to our readers to the Term Sheet Battle in Berlin on 7 June 2013! Leave a comment below for your chance to win one ticket (valued at €30). Please read our Contest Guidelines for terms and conditions – contest closes 25 May 2013. Good luck!

Image credits:
Featured image – JD Hancock
Negotiation via the Term Sheet Battle site

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CDU member of parliament Peter Tauber

Mark Zuckerberg has been spotted in Berlin this week, as part of a whistle-stop tour of Germany, taking in both the German capital and Hamburg and squeezing in a rooftop meeting with politicians at the Reichstag.

According to a report in German newspaper Bild.de, the 29-year-old Facebook boss travelled from Hamburg to Berlin on Tuesday 21 May, taking the opportunity to meet with FDP politician Burkhardt Müller-Sönksen and CDU colleague Peter Tauber.

According to the report, Facebook contacted Müller-Sönsken, media spokesman of the FDP party, to ask if Zuckerberg could be shown round the Reichstag.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the internet billionaire was keen to learn about the German political system and to see the views over the capital from the Reichstag roof. There have also been separate reports of Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, taking in the sights at Hackescher Markt.

Facebook remained tight-lipped as to whether Zuckerberg, thought to have a net worth of $13.3bn, met with any businesses or startups during his visit to Berlin. It’s unfortunate timing for German Minister for Economics and Technology, Philipp Rösler, who is currently touring companies on a fact-finding mission to Silicon Valley.

Since 2005, Facebook has acquired more than 35 companies, the most famous including Tel Aviv-based facial recognition tool Face.com for $100m and Instagram for $1bn. Maybe a Berlin startup could be next? Let us know at editorial@venturevillage.eu.

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The news comes just two months after Tengelmann invested €20m in the company and  JP Morgan invested a significant double-digit sum last September. Zalora operates in nine countries in the South-East Asia region and claims a big part of its success comes from supplying customers with international fashion and beauty brands that were previously only available in capital cities.

Michele Ferrario, Managing Director at Zalora, commented on the funding: “Our company is one of the fastest growing eCommerce companies in South-East Asia and has bright prospects. It is an honor for us that investors of such great repute have invested into an eCommerce company as young as Zalora.”

The investment will be used to scale operations and strengthen the company’s foothold in South-East Asia and target the 600 million potential customers in the region. Zalora will also add to the brands it currently has on offer. In the year it has been active, Zalora achieved double-digit million USD in revenues – which was revealed in confidential documents leaked from Rocket Internet last month. The documents also highlighted the biggest investors in Rocket Internet companies, with Tengelmann, Kinnevik and Summit making the top ten.

While Rocket Internet ventures are no strangers to hefty funding rounds, the latest investment is huge even for Rocket standards – which demonstrates a definite confidence from the investors in the development of Zalora. The business model of the company is typical Samwer-style – targeting developing regions with copy-cat eCommerce ventures and rapidly scaling operations.

German chauffeur and limousine booking service Blacklane has closed a funding round in the “several million euros” range from existing investors Carsten Maschmeyer, RI Digital Ventures, B-to-V Partners and Car4You. With the new financing, the Berlin-based startup is looking to expand to the US.

Blacklane – which is targeted at business types – does not actually own vehicles, but instead aggregates limousine services so that they can be easily bookable through its website and app. Currently, the startup operates in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the UK, France and Austria.

Unlike San Francisco-based on-demand private driving competitor Uber, Blacklane offers a fixed price for bookings rather than the common charge-as-you-go pricing system for car services.

With Uber already available in many US cities, Blacklane will be facing stiff competition across the pond. Not only that, if Uber’s recent setbacks – the company is facing legal troubles in Washington DC and was forced to shut down in New York – are any indication, the German startup is in for a bumpy road ahead.

Image credits:
featured image via flickr user aidenjewell 

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The case centred around Nigel Warren, a casual Airbnb user who rented out his East Village apartment for $105 per night, violating the 2010 “Illegal Hotel Law” that prevents individuals from renting out properties for fewer than 29 days.

Warren initially faced fines of $7,000 from the the New York City Environmental Control Board (ECB). While this has been lessened to $2,400, the ruling acts as an interesting landmark case for the disruptive business model that lets users privately rent out their rooms or apartment to holidaymakers.

The ruling doesn’t mean that all Airbnb hosts will be faced with fines, however: it can only be enforced as a secondary violation. So if a complaint has been raised for something else and you’re found to be breaking the hotel law in addition to this.

Airbnb, an ex-YCombinator company founded by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, has been quick to intervene in the case, and released this statement: “This decision runs contrary to the stated intention and the plain text of New York law, so obviously we are disappointed. But more importantly, this decision makes it even more critical that New York law be clarified to make sure regular New Yorkers can occasionally rent out their own homes. There is universal agreement that occasional hosts like Nigel Warren were not the target of the 2010 law, but that agreement provides little comfort to the handful of people, like Nigel, who find themselves targeted by overzealous enforcement officials. It is time to fix this law and protect hosts who occasionally rent out their own homes…”

A bumpy ride for peer-to-peer services?

New York has become the battleground for Airbnb’s difficulties with regulators over issues such as tax and health and safety. According to The Verge, Airbnb took 300,000 bookings in New York City in 2012, and is looking to take $1 billion in bookings in the city this year.

The company, which operates in 26,000 cities and 192 countries worldwide and is currently valued at $1.3 billion said the law is aimed at tenants who convert residential property into full-time illegal hotels and is being misconstrued by the authorities.

In Germany, local competitors include Rocket Internet clone Wimdu and Stephan Uhrenbacher’s 9Flats. Airbnb has faced similar legal skirmishes in Amsterdam earlier this year when local authorities cracked down on illegal hotels. This latest ruling could spell a bumpy ride for peer-to-peer services that prove problematic for legislation that hasn’t caught up to accomodate these new business models.

Image credits:
No Vacancy: flickr user camkage

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Pan-European startup accelerator programme Startupbootcamp has announced its plans to go global. Andy Shannon – previously a family office Investment Manager and Fellow at Seedcamp – will join the accelerator and spearhead its expansion efforts from London.

Launched in 2010 in Copenhagen, Startupbootcamp currently operates in seven European cities, including Berlin, Amsterdam, London and Dublin to name a few. The three-month programme provides startups with mentorship, €15,000 in seed funding, coworking space and the opportunity to pitch at an Investor Demo Day – in return for eight per cent equity.

“The vision is to create a world-class team that can support all of Startupbootcamp’s programmes and companies alike from a central London hub,” said Carsten Kolbek, serial entrepreneur and cofounder of Startupbootcamp.

Recently, the global accelerator made waves in the European accelerator scene by announcing the offering of a $1m loan to participating teams in its Copenhagen MobilityXL programme as well as securing partnerships with corporate giants Mercedes-Benz, HDI and Bosch.

To support and strengthen its network, Startupbootcamp promises to train angel investors, host hackathons and create forums to share learning. Additionally, a new global headquarter will be announced “soon”.

Image credits:
featured image via Startupbootcamp blog 

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