RODOLFO CARPINTIER, THE PRESIDENT OF DIGITAL ASSETS DEPLOYMENT (DaD) WAS INTERVIEWED BY THE READERS OF CYBERSUR - AN ONLINE NEWSPAPER FOCUSED ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION.
 
"The economic situation has little to do with creating a new company".
This is how firm Rodolfo Carpintier, was during the meeting held with Cibersur’s readers, where he pointed out the importance of having an idea and carrying it out.
In a controversial economic situation and unemployment, self-employment and entrepreneurship are options to face up to the complex moment we live. 
In this regard, Carpintier has commented that entrepreneurship is likely riskier than work for others but if you have a good idea and want to carry it out, any time is good for it.
Also, the President of DAD spoke about the adjustment of mentality and the need to create an environment for e-commerce in traditional business; in addition he explained what the key factors in the internationalization process are, and what countries should be taken as a priority when Spanish companies consider expansion.
 
Click here to read the entire interview.
(Source: cibersur.com) 

LUDEI, A COMPANY FOUNDED BY ENEKO KNORR, HAS LAUNCHED A NEW PLATFORM THAT TURNS HTML5 GAMES INTO FAST APPLICATIONS.

Making HTML5 games run fast is important because it will simplify life for game developers. Right now, they have to use valuable resources either creating cross-platform but slow games or fast native apps that have to be rewritten for each new platform. Ludei’s CocoonJS is a solution that makesHTML5 mobile games work really fast. 
"We manage to get much better performance for games in a browser,” said Eneko Knorr, CEO and founder of Ludei. “But we aren’t forcing anyone to learn custom code. You can port games to iOS and Android without losing performance.”
Ludei, with its offices in San Francisco and Bilbao, Spain, created its own successful native mobile games iBasket and Slide Soccer. Those games have been downloaded more than 15 million times. The company is self-funded by Knorr, who previously sold a web hosting company to Telefonica. The team has 17 employees.
(Source: venturebeat.com)   

SPEEDINVEST - A COMPANY FOUNDED BY  OLIVER HOLLE MAKES FOUR INVESTMENTS IN FOUR MONTHS

Speedinvest, an angel fun based in Vienna and San Francisco, launched about 8 months ago, has made four investments to date. According to Founder and CEO Oliver Holle, the fund has invested more than €1 million in four startups and doubled that sum through co-investors.
The investments range from VoiP to an already well-known social sharing application Sipwise. Furthermore, the fund invested a “6-digit” amount into Finderly, a social commerce site that focuses on consumer electronics and Soup.me, which launched at Social Media Week last week and which aims to become the digital hub for one’s online presence, much like about.me or flavors.me. Gaminside, another one of the investments made, is a white labeled loyalty program and gamification tool for online entertainment sites, where SpeedInvest led the angel round. In total the SpeedInvest fund has collected $10 million and is looking to expand further – both geographically and financially. 
(Source: techcrunch.com)

VOLOTEA, AN AIRLINE CO-FOUNDED BY CARLOS MUÑOZ, HAS SOLD OVER 100,000 TICKETS IN SEVEN WEEKS.

Volotea, the low cost airline created by the founders of Vueling, Carlos Muñoz and Lázaro Ros, has sold over 100,000 tickets in the first seven weeks.   
The airline took off on April 5th from Marco Polo airport in Venice, its first operative base and now connects over 50 different destinations such as: Ajaccio, Ancona, Oviedo, Biarritz, Bilbao, Genoa, Kos, Metz-Nancy, Mykonos, Nantes, Olbia, Porto, Palermo, Rhodes, Santiago de Compostela, Santorini, Zaragoza, Verona  among others.   
"After a good start of operations in Italy, where in three weeks we had transported over 10,000 passengers on domestic flights, we are pleased to expand operations to international destinations. Spain occupies a very important part of our strategy: this summer, nearly half of our routes will operate from Spanish airports, allowing us to make a significant contribution to the recovery of our tourism sector" said Carlos Muñoz, co-founder and CEO of Volotea.   
During this summer season, Volotea will operate the total of 76 routes in 53 cities in 10 European countries: Germany, Czech Republic, Croatia, Spain, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Portugal. 
(Source: preferente.com)

THE FOUNDERS OF BLAU.DE LAUNCH FASTLANE VENTURES

Dirk Freise, one of the founders of blau.de and handy.de along with his partners has launched Fastlane Ventures, which aims to support other entrepreneurs in developing their companies. Besides financial support, the start-ups in the portfolio will benefit from the broad experience of three fully-fledged entrepreneurs who understand their problems and speak their language.
The company’s portfolio strategy will be internationally oriented right from the outset. The biggest investor in Fastlane Ventures’ fund is the Dutch mobile phone company KPN, the owner of the German mobile phone provider E-Plus.  Due to their professional background in Silicon Valley, the three entrepreneurs also have a direct link to the USA. In Germany, Fastlane Ventures will initially operate from its offices in Hamburg.
(Source:  shortcut.vc)

LUCIAN BUTNARU NOMINATED FOR THE “BEST BUSINESS INITIATIVE IN SMEs” AWARD  

Founded by Lucian Butnaru in October 2009, ZebraPay is an instant payment terminal company conceived as the first local model of one-stop-shops. 
Last year, Zebra Pay made USD 1.5 million of investments in its infrastructure, taking the self-service kiosk network to national level. 
At the end of 2011, the firm had installed 500 terminals in 30 cities across the country, with 15 services available at these points. Zebra Pay has 22 employees and posted a turnover of USD 750,000 in 2011.
(Source: business-review.ro)

MAREK FODOR PARTICIPATES IN BUSINESS ACCELERATION WORKSHOP IN SEVILLA

Marek Fodor, from SeedRocket, participated in the roundtable Business Acceleration Workshop on Online Marketing and Tourism held in the  Tourism Innovation Centre of Andalusia, Andalusia Lab in Seville.  See the videos here and here.