venture

European VC funding as bounced back. That’s according to Q2 figures produced by Dow Jones VentureSource which reports that investment is up by 50 percent compared to the record low of this time last year. €1.1 billion into 289 deals against 252 deals, which raised just €735 million. But specifically, says Dow Jones, the Information Technology (IT) industry, which apparently accounted for much of the venture market’s losses during the economic downturn, was the “star performer” in the most recent quarter. IT saw a 69% increase in investment from the second quarter last year to €334 million, as well as a 13% increase in deal flow to 90 completed deals. For the first time in two years, the report notes, IT was Europe’s largest industry for venture investment, taking 31% of overall investment. Here’s a few more interesting tidbits quoted from the report:

European VC Funding Bounces Back, Information Technology Is “Star Performer”

Betable, where users can literally place a bet on anything and have their friends bet with them, has secured a $3 million first time funding led by Atomico, the venture fund set up by former Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. Former Skype chief strategy officer Geoffrey Prentice joins the board. It’s an unusual move for a VC house to back what is in effect a gambling site, but Betable is presumably in the ’social’ space sufficiently enough for Atomico to feel comfortable with the investment. While the site is built almost entirely in the US, the CEO and founder Christopher Griffin based and launched the company in the UK where gambling laws are more more conducive to gaming sites than the US. It will compete to some extent with another UK-based social betting site founded by Americans, Smarkets, but where the latter is more for regular gamblers, Betable is designed to be a more casual “Twitter for Betting”. Griffin hopes the site will attract the normal bets made between office workers or between university students (betters have to be over 18).