And The TechCrunch Disrupt Europe Finalists Are Crate, Disease Diagnostic Group, Oscult And PhotoMath

Over 1,500 people have walked through door at this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt Europe conference in London. We had everyone from Elvis impersonators to people dressed up as chickens participate, as one does at a tech conference.

Highlights included watching our boss Tim Armstrong chat with Josh Constine about the high growth future of Aol, and what he learned after the mistake of firing TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and Neelie Kroes pontificate on what’s next for the European startup ecosystem.

And after some very intense and sophisticated Startup Battlefield pitches, we are down to our four finalists at TechCrunch Disrupt Europe. It was a difficult decision because the 15 startups that presented all were solving hard problems, and impressed their judges in their own right.

But we had to whittle them down to four. Here they are:

Crate Lets You Build Database Backends Quickly and Painlessly
“Crate makes central database servers obsolete, it allows you to launch a highly scalable back end in minutes. Based on the familiar SQL syntax, Crate combines high availability, resiliency, and scalability in a distributed design that allows you to query mountains of data in real time, not batches.” Disease Diagnostic Group Can Diagnose Malaria in Seconds

“What if we told you we could save one million lives every year with just refrigerator magnets and a laser pointer? DDG uses magneto-optical technology to change the way diseases are diagnosed. Our mission is to create a low-cost, reusable device that can reach the patient and differentiate between multiple diseases.”

Oscadi Portable Ultrasound Device for Telemedicine
“At Oscadi, we’re seeking to bring excellence to our users. We do so with simple and yet powerful devices like Oscult, our first product. Oscult is an imaging device interfaced with an iPad Air, changing the way medical devices are used. Our full-featured iPad app allows a rich, precise and connected experience.” PhotoMath Can Do Your Homework AND Show Its Work

“PhotoMath is the world’s first camera calculator app. Point your phone camera toward a math expression and get an instant solution with detailed solving steps. The company behind PhotoMath is MicroBlink, with its mobile vision and real-time text-recognition technology.”

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October’s Disrupt Conference Brings Together Europe And The Valley

Following a massively successful inaugural event last year in Berlin, the second TechCrunch Disrupt Europe will take place from 18-21st October 2014 in London, at the amazing Old Billingsgate venue.

The London conference kicks off with the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon from 18th to 19th October, followed by two days of in-depth onstage interviews and panels with some of the biggest names in technology.

Disrupt Europe is being supported by all the key institutions and ecosystem players, and we’re delighted to be joined by some of the best names in our industry.

Justin Kan

Justin Kan was best known for founding Kiko, the first AJAX web calendar; Justin.tv, a live video streaming platform; Socialcam, a mobile video-sharing app (acquired for $60 million by Autodesk in 2012); Twitch, a video-game-streaming platform (acquired by Amazon for $970 million only this year); and Exec, an on demand maid service (acquired by Handybook in 2014). He is currently a partner at the seed fund Y Combinator and is sure to impart his incredible knowledge onstage at Disrupt.

Mikkel Svane

Mikkel Svane is the CEO and founder of Zendesk. He has served as CEO and a member of the board of directors since August 2007. He was appointed chairman of the board of directors in January 2014. He started the company with Morten Primdahl and Alexander Aghassipour to make customer service available to everyone. Today, he leads Zendesk’s global operations and business strategy. In 2009, Mikkel moved the company from Copenhagen to San Francisco.

Since July 2011, Maelle Gavet has been CEO of OZON Holdings, which includes OZON.ru, OZON travel, O’Courier, Sapato.ru and OZON Solutions, and is currently Russia’s leading e-commerce business. Under Gavet’s leadership, OZON’s five diversified businesses grew revenue by 84% in 2011 with sales topping $300 million.

The business has since grown exponentially with OZON Holdings reporting $750 million turnover in 2013. Gavet helped secure one of Russia’s largest infusions of VC funding, a $100 million round of funding in September 2011. This round was eclipsed by a $150 million fundraising closed in April this year.

London has a large and fast-growing startup ecosystem, one which is increasingly connected both to the European hubs, as well as to the U.S. and Asia. Between 2012 and 2013, more than 15,000 startups were established in the capital and, according to the Deloitte Technology Fast 50, the combined average five-year growth rate for tech startups in London is 1,382 percent.

TechCrunch Disrupt Europe will also bring the Startup Battlefield and Startup Alley to London.

Startup Battlefield competitors pitch their companies live and onstage to innovators, investors and influencers in the tech community. TechCrunch identifies emerging companies to demo and compete for a prize of £30,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup. Last year Lock8, the London and Berlin-based startup behind the world’s first smart bike lock, was the winner and has gone on to launch its product.

Previous Battlefield competitions have launched companies such as Dropbox, Mint.com, Yammer, Fitbit and many more.

Startup Alley offers another way for early-stage companies to gain exposure with a format that encourages both exhibiting and networking, as well as high visibility. Roughly 200 invited startups make up Startup Alley with companies showcasing on the Monday and Tuesday of the event.

Find all the latest information on the Disrupt Europe website.

Grab a ticket before they sell out and the early bird discount expires.

To request media accreditation, email tcdisruptlondon [ @ ] balloupr.com

To sponsor the event, see here.

We’ll see you there!

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German Regulator Backs Google Over Publishers, As Europe Gets Embarrassing

German regulators will not pursue a complaint brought against Google by a group of publishers for giving users access to their news articles.

A number of German publishers, including Axel Springer and Burda, brought the action under a group called VG Media to demand Google pay them for making their articles available to the public on the search engine without paying them.

But Andreas Mundt, president of Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, said in a statement on Friday that: “Sufficient suspicion is always necessary to initiate an abuse procedure. The complaint from VG Media did not establish this.” In other words, there’s no suspicion of abuse – Google is just doing the job of a search engine. Duh.

German legislation came into effect a year ago stating that publishers can stop search engines from using their news articles beyond very short excerpts.

The cartel office has ruled that the scope of that legislation is not entirely clear, but it would continue to monitor Google’s treatment of publishers’ and launch anti-trust proceedings if that was warranted.

In contrast, Spain has passed a law requiring news aggregators such as Google News to pay publishers a fee if they link to their content. Supporters say it will prevent copyright infringements. Opponents say it limits freedom of expression. However, no-one is quite sure how the Google Tax will work.

And guess – what? Spain was where the “right to be forgotten” began, with the European Commission recently ruling that individuals can demand Google remove unfavourable links about them from search results displayed in Europe. The ruling does not apply to Google.com, which is where I find myself search much more these days…

Frankly, some European countries’ attitude to the Internet is becoming embarrassing. I’m sure George Orwell would be shaking his head right now. As least this German regulator seems to get it.

Napster Owner Rhapsody Passes 2M Paying Users As It Extends unRadio To Europe

In 2012, Rhapsody nabbed the European assets of streaming service Napster, covering the UK and Germany, to fill out its 2011 acquisition of Napster in the U.S., as part of its strategy to square up globally to Spotify and other online music rivals. Today, it’s putting that reach to use as Rhapsody is expanding its unRadio service for the first time outside of the U.S. The news comes as Rhapsody says that it has now passed 2 million paying subscribers between its eponymous music streaming app, Napster and unRadio.

To put that number into context, Rhapsody and Napster are now available in 32 countries, and they passed 1 million subscribers way back in 2011. The company is also competing against some juggernauts. Spotify in May this year said it had 10 million paying users, with 40 million overall.

When Rhapsody launched its unRadio service — a Pandora-style curated service that’s been created in part to attract less die-hard music fans but also to market the more premium on-demand streaming service — last month, it did so in partnership with T-Mobile in the U.S. It’s following the same pattern in Europe, partnering with number-two French mobile operator SFR. (France’s leading mobile carrier, Orange, is an investor in another large competitor in the space, Deezer.)

For the French launch, the service is going under Napster Découverte (Napster Discovery), and will give users the same service options as in the original service in the U.S.: while the list is pre-selected by Napster/Rhapsody, listeners can skip as many songs as they want to, and, because they are paying €3.95, listen ad-free. Marking a song as a favorite gives users the option to listen to it again later, even offline.

“We are very satisfied with the development of Napster in France and the successful co-operation with SFR,” said Thorsten Schliesche, Napster SVP and GM for Europe, noted in a statement. “France is one of the fastest growing markets in Europe. The success of our service proves that customers are eager for a blend of on-demand and mobile data bundles.”

Rhapsody/Napster are also digging deeper in the Latin America with another European carrier deal. Telefonica Movistar, the Spanish carrier’s operation in South America, will be “actively promoting” Napster Premier in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay — an extension of a strategic partnership between the two launched last year.

All fine and well, but in a game of scale, where we are starting to see some very clear leaders, will Napster, despite its legendary, renegade brand, have what it takes to win over new users, keep margins and overall revenues strong, and maintain bargaining power with labels large and small? Right now the company says its catalogue totals some 32 million tracks, with about 80% of listening on its platform happening on mobile devices.

Photo: Flickr

Tuesday Tip! Join us Tuesday for #Blogchat Europe

Smallrivers for #blogchat Europe on Tuesday, October 8!

Whether your company has 2 or 2000 employees, blogging ranks as one of the most widely trusted and sure-fire way to build authority, grow relationships and generate new business leads. But how? Well, that's what #blogchat is all about!

Mack Collier's #blogchat is a Twitter power-house Tweetchat dedicated to helping YOU get the most out of blogging.

Whether you are a small business owner or a marketer working for a large mega-company, Mack and the #blogchat community provide great insight and help answer your blogging questions.

Because the North American version of #Blogchat is tough for us Europeans to make (it takes place at 3am, CET) Mack offers a European friendly version at 20h, every second Tuesday of the month.

Don't miss out! Pencil in the last three European #blogchats of 2013 into your calendar now:

Tuesday, October 8 - Blog Plug-ins that increase business networking and productivity
Tuesday, November 12 - tba (aka: something really cool)
Tuesday, December 10 - tba (aka: something really cool)

20h CET, 1pm Central.

Just because this chat is called '#Blogchat Europe' it doesn't mean it is for Europeans only. This just means it is held at a time that the European, North American, South American, African and Middle Eastern continents can manage. How cool is that? (Sorry Australasia, we'll have to work on that)

You'll find me there

Huawei continues push into Europe

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Chinese technology giant Huawei announced this week it has helped set up 18 Joint InnovationCentres (JIC) in Europe since its first venture with Vodafone in 2006.

In the same week the company announced the development of a