Spotify Doubled Its Market Share In 2011
According to reports by IFPI and some other data available, it seems that Spotify doubled its market share in 2011 as compared to 2010. And by market share we mean the global streaming music market as followed by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Also, according to public records the company had filed in the UK we can tell Spotify's revenue was $99 million in 2010. Towards the end of 2010 they also shared that they had some 750 000 paying subscribers world wide. According to IFPI estimates, the global market for subscription services had about 8,2 millioin paying users. This yields Spotify a market share of around 9,1% in 2010.
Burt expands to Norway, Focuses Development on Rich
Following the company's €2.2 million investment from Industrifonden and angel-investors last year, Sweden-based Burt is expanding to Norway, as part of their expansion program. The company produces tools to help advertisers and agencies improve the efficiency and effect of their online campaigns, which we covered last June. Their main product, Rich, distinguishes itself by focusing on the media industry and offering analytics that form a more complete overview of the environment in which their ads are being displayed. As a result ad-buyers can compare online performance of their ads with broadcast and print advertising and media agencies get a greater control over ads, their vital revenue source.
Flattr Founder Faces 8 Months In Prison Due To Rejection Of Appeal in Pirate Bay Case
TorrentFreak has come out with an article on the situation with the legal problems of the Pirate Bay founders. The Swedish Supreme Court has rejected the leave to appeal in the trial. This essentially means that the sentences in place given to the founders of the file-sharing site will stand. The founders, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström, all received sentences of different length, but combined they are required to pay back $6.8 million in damages.
Videoplaza Secures $12 Million Series B
Videoplaza has just come out with an announcement that they have secured a $12 million investment aimed for global expansion. The Series B funding comes from Qualcomm Ventures and Innovacom. We've written about the Sweden based company before as well, regarding their strong growth. With this investment the growth is sure to follow. The company had a great 2011 according to the press release. It served five times greater ad volume than the year before and opened up new offices in Madrid, Berlin and Singapore. It now operates in 17 different countries.
Stardoll Reaches 150 Million Users
Stardoll, the Swedish paper doll site has reached 150 million registered users. The news was disclosed by Mattias Miksche, the CEO of the company in his twitter stream. We also caught the news in the official Stardoll news stream in the morning, but it has since disappeared. The site has definitely hit a nice growth trajectory. Back in March last year we reported the company counting down to 100 million users.
46elks' Cloud Communication Platform Now Supports Outgoing Calls
Arctic15 finalist 46elks has released its Global Voice feature this morning, meaning that applications can receive and make international calls to anywhere in the world through the 46elks cloud communication platform. As part of the total package, 46elks makes it very easy to integrate Voice, SMS & MMS into your applications by providing the API infrastructure and phone numbers behind whatever service you're building.
Qubulus Creates Indoor Positioning Solutions For Users, Developers
Qubulus is a Swedish company producing the engine and algorithms behind what they call QPS, the "Qublus Positioning System". With it, they seek to solve the mobile phone indoor positioning problem that will provide an accurate X, Y and Z level for their own positioning products, and for solutions for developers.
One end-user product they're advertising is Iguana, a workforce collaboration solution that offers you the ability to find and interact with your colleagues, no matter what floor or building they're in. For Developers, Gecko is a tool they've built so anyone can provide indoor positioning in their apps. It's advertised as free to use, and to implement it, basically all you have to do is provide a map of your venue and record a "fingerprints" file by walking through the venue to collect the radio signals.
SoundCloud Reaches 10 Million Users
SoundCloud has just announced it has reached 10 million users. SoundCloud is a music startup currently in Berlin, but its roots lay in Sweden where its two co-founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss are from. We've covered the music service in the past as well a couple of times and they've definitely been one of the more interesting startups in Europe in the recent months. Just a few weeks ago the company closed a, reportedly, $50 million finance round.
Statistics On Scandinavian Music Streamers
A market survey conducted by Norstat for the WiMP music streaming service shows that roughly 3 out of 10 Norwegians and Swedes have listened to music by streaming in the week before the questioning took place. The survey was collected in January of 2012. In Norway, this proportion increased 20 to 29 percent from June of the past year, while Sweden saw a jump of 27 to 29 percent, showing the early saturation of the market. Danish users are behind the times, with a jump from 14 to a current 20%. This low penetration can likely be explained by Spotify only launching in Denmark in October.
Freephoo 2.0 Gets Social Media Integration And HD Audio
Swedish VoIP startup freephoo has updated its app with a bunch of new features that include Facebook and LinkedIn integration, as well as HD quality audio. The update is currently available for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch, with later releases planned for Android and the iPad.
Would Transparency In Company Financials Increase Innovation?
A few days ago I listened to Horace Dediu's Critical Path and it got me thinking that would governments be able to increase innovation and competition through more transparency in the economy. Dediu talked about the movie business in one the more recent shows and he stated it many times that it is very hard to analyse the industry at large as they do not provide any figures on how different players are doing.
Further into the podcast, he went on to explain the findings of his study and more specifically how movies are financed as well as how the accounting works in the industry. Having listened to his findings, I completely understand why there is so little innovation and disruption taking place in the industry.
The lack of innovation was put in concrete explanation in Fred Wilson's blog post on AVC yesterday where he argues that scarcity is a bad business. He writes how he wanted to find something interesting to watch through many different legal movie services, but was unable to find anything worthwhile. In the end he had to resort to a "foreign rogue site", as he put it.
Holy Startup! Swedes Convert Former Church Into A Center For Entrepreneurship
Swedish entrepreneurs can now start reaching for truly divine heights as a former Greek Orthodox Church in the city of Stockholm has been converted into a full-blown, multifunctional coworking space for startups.
The Entreprenörskyrkan (Entrepreneurs Church) hosts 300 square meters of open plan office space with two conference rooms, a telephone room and a small kitchen. For 3600 SEK a month (ex. VAT), startups receive everything from basic utilities to furniture, wireless broadband and cleaning, not to mention invaluable help and advice from fellow startups. The church currently houses 15 companies but there’s room for about 30 office slots altogether.
SoundCloud Scores A $50 Million Round
Soundcloud, the Berlin-based startup founded by Swedes Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, has reportedly received a $50 million investment led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers including participation by GGV Capital. TechCrunch has estimated the round to be around $50 million, but Soundcloud did not confirm the round size in their press release about the investment.
Scrive - Swedish E-Signing Service Closes Second Angel Round
While the world has become paperless, one thing that has been lost is how to get signatures for legal documents. Scrive is a Stockholm based service for e-signing of tenders, contracts, and other documents. To use Scrive, you just have to upload you document, sign it, send it to your contractee, let them sign it digitally, and then it is saved and archived. The company just closed their second angel round on the 15th.
Saying Something Over And Over Again Doesn't Make It So
Om Malik, the founder of GigaOm was speaking in Helsinki to a room of media representatives yesterday morning at the Aalto Venture Garage. His visit to Finland is part of a tour to come understand the companies and environment the local startups work in. Before Helsinki, he had visited Berlin and the LeWeb conference in Paris. I managed to talk to Malik about the way he sees these entrepreneurial hubs.
The big part of our discussion circled around the fact that people in Europe always look up to Silicon Valley and how they succeed in everything they do, while failing to see all the potential in front of their eyes. I have to say, while I knowledge the value Silicon Valley has on companies - I wonder how much possibility is wasted when following a given path without truly thinking of the possibilities closer to you. After all, Rovio didn't go to Silicon Valley to succeed - it all started with an innocent tweet by a Swedish athlete in the Nordics (going international I mean).
Nordic Startups: A New Accelerator Program For Web And Mobile Startups In Sweden
Nordic Startups, a brand new accelerator program for Swedish web and mobile startups, will soon start its operations in Stockholm. According to the accelerator's representatives, the program will be modeled after some of the world’s leading accelerators, such as TechStars, YCombinator and Seedcamp.
Nordic Startups plans to take in six new startups every three months. During each three-month period, the accelerator will provide startups with in-depth coaching, mentoring, office space, and a fun and enriching work environment. The program is largely based on lean startup methodology and includes an investor demo day as well.
Minecraft Reaches 18 Million Downloads
Minecraft, the super popular Swedish indie game, has reached 18 million downloads. This can be seen from the statistics on the game website. In addition to the 18 million downloads, the game has been bought by 4.3 million people. With current price of 19,95€ a piece that translates to a over 80 million euros in revenue. However, the game has been priced differently over the years so this is just a guiding figure.
Swedish App Developers Sigh In Relief, Dodge Double VAT
A couple of months ago we reported that Swedish app developers were facing a double value added tax in the EU market. Once implemented, the tax would have put several Swedish startups at a competitive disadvantage.
With pressure from Per Strömbäck, spokesperson for the Swedish Games Industry, and others, the Swedish authorities finally caved in last week and announced that they will put the double tax on indefinite hold until EU member states can agree on common guidelines for the taxation of electronic services.
ShapeUp Club Reaches 1 Million Users
We covered ShapeUp Club almost a year ago (see our coverage here). It's a service by Sillens Ab from Sweden and they've reached one of their bigger milestones, one month ahead of schedule. Today the company reported reaching one million users and also came out in stating that they are now the fastest growing weight loss service in Europe.
Clipsource: Online Marketplace For News Videos
Clipsource is an online marketplace for news videos. Launched originally in Sweden in 2009, the service enables media companies to buy, sell or share news videos that have been produced in-house or sourced from viewers and readers.
The company aims to capitalize on the recent proliferation of video content on news and media sites. According to Dan Willstrand, CEO of Clipsource, "As online video advertising offers nearly ten times higher revenue per impression than standard banners, there is a strong economic incentive for the publishers to show more video".
Thingspotter Helps You Find And Share Products
Need to find a gift for the holidays? Or do you find a lot of cool items on the web, and want to share them with a community who also likes unique stuff? A Swedish startup called Thingspotter might be the website for you. Thingspotter is a social product sharing service that helps you find, collect, organize, and share cool products you find on the internet. They describe themselves as "Like Twitter, but for physical things."
Freephoo Takes On VoIP Giants
Sweden-based Freephoo is a fairly new entrant to the fiercely competitive VoIP market. Going up against the likes of Skype and Rebtel, Freephoo is very similar in concept, offering free calls through 3G/WiFi and low-cost “premium” calls to mobile or landline numbers. The company does have some additional tricks up its sleeve though.
Sweden Tops List Of Android App Downloads Per User
According to estimates by research2guidance, a Berlin-based mobile research specialist, Sweden has the most app downloads per user in the Android store. While the U.S. has the most Android users by volume, this data may suggest that Sweden is a good proving ground for apps.
With an average of more than 5 downloads per Android user per month, usage patterns in Sweden reflects a high interest in apps. The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Spain follow slightly behind, all averaging above 4 apps per user per month. This is well above the US average, which is slightly above 2. You can see in the following graph where the rest of the Nordic countries fall:
uTales: Everything's Interactive, Why Not Stories?
With digital books expanding beyond print, even outside the bulky desktop computers and laptops to the lighter e-book readers and the tablets, book lovers have more than one option to read books. I mean if everything is available on the go, why not books? uTales, a Swedish startup leverages the existing technology to create digital picture books for kids. The bigger advantage here is to make the book reading experience more interactive and thus interesting.
The startup germinates from the founders’ experience with bed time stories, the art of story telling that so many of us have enjoyed in our childhood and want to preserve the same for future generations. The idea is to engage, inspire and educate kids by bringing high quality picture books to the young ones globally. How exactly?
Notes From Stockholm's 24 Hour Business Camp
This is a guest post by Pejman Dashti (@pejman), Chief Elk of Swedish startup (and Arctic15 finalist) 46elks. Read more about his daily activities at his startup blog.
Sweden is the land of entrepreneurship. Though the population is rather small, the rate of innovation makes it to the top of the list in the world. Over the last five years, the entrepreneurship ecosystem has been flourished much more and now there are more monthly events, mingles and conferences for entrepreneurs. This post is my short notes for one of the famous events called 24 hour business camp.
Hiddenhint Takes A Cooler Approach To Find A Special Someone
Who doesn’t have a secret crush once in a lifetime? Unfortunately, many have trouble expressing the emotions to their crush. The reason being nobody wants the crush to crash their reputation by becoming public. True that, I would rather keep affection for someone to myself than to say it out loud putting my reputation at stake. If there is a secret way to express this, who wouldn’t want to make use of it? Hiddenhint does exactly that.
Now there are a lot of other traditional methods, such as tossing a random note on a girl's desk, putting a nice card in her bag, etc but in the age of social media and apps, gadgets, etc it sounds too old school. Hiddenhint makes a note of this and adds a bit more modern and anonymous touch to it. But how exactly does it work?
Patric Blixt At Arctic15 (Video)
More Arctic15 keynotes coming up! This one's from Patric Blixt from Rebtel. Blixt is the Chief Marketing Officer at the VoIP operator that is surprisingly little hyped about, considering they're doing tens of millions of revenue only a few years after their founding. We had the honor to have Blixt share his thoughts on marketing and promoting startups in the early part of their growth phase. He talked a lot about the virality loops, which are a key component of Rebtel's success.
Welcome To The Arctic, Facebook!
In September we covered the news that Facebook might be looking to place their server farm in Luleå, Sweden. Tomorrow, it will be confirmed as Facebook's company representatives will be holding a press conference together with local city representatives. The confirmation ends months of debate and rumors which have been circulating since last summer.
TeliaSonera Introduces Fixed Roaming Data Charges
TeliaSonera, one of the large mobile operators in the Nordics and Baltics, has announced that they are making roaming data charges more straight forward for the traveling customer. Instead of having to pay for mobile data by the megabyte, users will be able to buy a certain package of data that will give them the possibility to roam abroad for a set price until a certain cap has been reached. The pricing will be available for Swedish customers only, in the beginning, but the company plans to expand this to other countries as well. This is great news for mobile app developers, but it has to be asked - why has it taken so long to realize this?
iZettle, Competitor To Square, Closes 8.2M Euro Investment
iZettle, a Sweden based company looking to crack the social payment problem, has closed an 8.2M euro investment from Index Ventures, Creandum and Charles Dunstone, CEO and Co-founder of The Carphone Warehouse. The round was lead by Index Ventures. iZettle's solution is very similar to that of the US leader's in this space, Square. They have an iOS app that users are able to download for free and then use that app, together with a small chip-card reader, to accept and pay for goods and services with your credit card.
