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Great news from Brands4Friends: The leading Online-Shopping-Club in Germany just raised another 10 Mio. Euro in Venture Capital. Partech International joined the investors round, Holtzbrinck Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners participated again in the Series B. The company was founded in 2007 by Lukasz, Oliver Jung, Kolja, Ehssan, the management around Constantin Bisanz and Christian Heitmeyer as well as a lot of other supporters -  mainly from Lukasz` network. Thanks to his invite I was also able to participate in the seed funding round. I did not regret it

Only 15 month after launch the revenue already exceeds 30 Mio Euro a year and still growths fast. I am curious whether brands4friends and other shopping clubs will be able to profit from the economic downturn. Consumers should spend less money for expensive brands. This could lead to increasing overstock for manufacturers and full-price resellers (good for sourcing) and consumers looking for bargains…

Last weekend we were on an amazing short trip to Ibiza. Thekla, Oli, Kolja, Steffen and I went on friday, Katja and Lukasz followed on Saturday. Our Hotel was immediately at the “Bora Bora”-Beach. We spent the days at the sunny beach - warming up for the closing-parties… Friday night we went to “Pacha Ibiza” - one of the most famous clubs in the world since it opened more than 30 years ago. Saturday we had a long night at “Amnesia”, another famous ibiza house club. Finally on Sunday it was time for the “Space Closing”: Ibiza is known as the worlds best party spot, and the “Space Closing”-Party is seen as the highlight of Ibiza… The party was incredible: A beautiful location with lots of open air space, thousands of happy people, and a sensational DJ-Lineup including Jonathan Ulysses, Tom Novy, Fedde Le Grand and 30+ other world class DJs…

Some “censored” impressions:

Wheater was sunny and still between 20 and 25 degrees…

Warm up before Pacha… We invited the whole bar crowd for several drinks.     (OK there were only our 5 people and the barkeeper.)

 Steffen and I  same bar - some drink later…

Dancing at Pacha…

Pre-Party for Amnesia at our hotel balcony…

Thekla and Kolja on the move into Space…

Some bottles later inside…

Late inside “Space”…

Do I really look a little bit tired the last morning?

 View on Ibiza from our plane back to Berlin…

To be continued… IBIZA 09 we are coming!

Since Tuesday I am in London where Oliver invited me as mentor to Seedcamp. Seedcamp is an event where 20+ start-up companies from all across europe compete to get seed-funding (50k € each). It was great fun for both the start-up teams and mentors and also a good opportunity to connect with entrepreneurs and investors from Europe and the U.S.. Between the mentoring sessions I took some time for sightseeing…

Yesterday we have been at the Techcrunch Party in the aqua river brasserie near the Thames. Marc Lewis, a creative entrepreneur from the UK, joined the party on his Segway. It was totally fun to drive, especially since it was already a little bit later that evening…

Now it is already a little bit later on friday evening and London nightlife is calling me intensely…

After several months of planning today Lukasz  announced the official launch of Team Europe Ventures:

 ”The internet conglomerate ‘Team Europe Ventures‘ holds interests (usually minority stakes) in more than 50 internet companies.

The investment focus thereby lies in the field of consumer-orientated internet companies and the following stages:

• co-foundation of companies
• seed stage investments as co-investor or lead investor
• so called Series A or Series B investment rounds (mainly co-investments)

Geographically, the activities of Team Europe Ventures include Europe as well as North America. Core markets are Germany, Poland, France, United States and United Kingdom.

Depending on the form of an investment (lead or co-investment), Team Europe Ventures supports its portfolio companies actively or passively. Active support thereby can be far reaching, mainly including the fields of strategy, distribution, human resources as well as finance. US-companies can be actively supported in entering the European market.

The goal of Team Europe Ventures is to become one of the leading internet companies in Europe. Furthermore, the company wants to contribute to a stronger entrepreneurship culture in Europe.

Team Europe Ventures has been founded by Lukasz Gadowski who is the founder Spreadshirt, co-founder of StudiVZ and an active business angel.”

I strongly believe in the team and vision of Team Europe Ventures and will support Lukasz as “Entrepreneur in Residence”.