“Social network for businesses”
Status: Current
Sector: Social Networking
Geography: Spain
Contacts: Ricard Söderberg

ZYNCRO is a provider of a corporate social network focused on internal collaboration and knowledge management. These services include microblogging, file management, task management, people directory, ZyncroApps, work groups, segmented search and integrations, all in a single platform. Zyncro optimizes and reduces email use and the costs spent on information processing and document management. It integrates with almost any company software and can be accessed anywhere through any mobile device.

zyncro.com

“Human contact online”
Status: Current
Sector: Software
Geography: Spain
Contacts: Blair MacLaren

WHISBI TECHNOLOGIES S.L. is a company that has a patent pending technology to permit end-users to communicate via telephone whilst seeing a video of the call centre advisor on his browser in real time. It enables interactive sessions through voice, video, chat, and data interchange systems with no need for any download, plug-in or additional hardware. Their solutions are based on a worldwide patented technology, and humanise and simplify the process of selling services and products such as insurance, banking, telephones, telecommunications, etc.

whisbi.com

“Book a table online”
Status: Current
Sector: Online booking
Geography: Spain
Contacts: Blair MacLaren

RESERVAS DE RESTAURANTES SL is the owner of the website www.restalo.es. It is an internet based restaurant guide that allows users to make online reservations in real time for restaurants in the main Spanish cities and, to a lesser extent, other European cities. Users can find detailed information about each restaurant, including user reviews, on the website and take advantage of exclusive discounts of between 10% and 70% offered to Restalo’s users by the restaurants. The company also provides booking management systems and couponing to restaurants.

restalo.es

Restalo.es was founded in late 2008 in Barcelona and is led by four young entrepreneurs with extensive experience of the sector and of providing technology solutions designed for restaurants. Since then it has experienced rapid growth generating more than 500,000 bookings and almost €14 million of turnover for restauranteurs. Today Restalo is the reference portal for online restaurant reservations in Spain. The high quality of product offered to both diners and restaurants, as confirmed by their very positive feedback, sets them apart from their competitors.

The secret of its success is that it offers the user the ability to book a table in real time in thousands of restaurants, with immediate confirmation of the booking and discounts of up to 70%, which to date have allowed users to save more than €6 million. The site expects to have more than 5,000 restaurants bookable online, and approximately one million reservations processed, by the end of 2011.

The company also offers restaurants an innovative reservation management system to replace the antiquated paper reservation book.

The awards were presented on the 14th of April at the Casino of Madrid in a ceremony attended by more than 200 people from the venture capital and private equity industry, the banking sector and the Spanish finance industry in general. Fernando Ruiz, chairman of Deloitte, Maite Ballester, president of ASCRI, and Juan Roure, IESE Business School professor, handed the awards to the winners who were there in person to collect them and to thank the organisers. The jury responsible for selecting the winners was made up by Beatriz González (Head of Private Equity Investments in Telefónica Capital), Juan Roure (professor and member of the International Advisory Board of IESE Business School), Antonio Davila (Professor of Entrepreneurship at IESE) José Martí Pellon (professor of financial economics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and founder of Webcapitalriesgo) and Craig Williamson (partner of SL Capital Partners).

Active Venture Partners won the award for the best venture transaction in 2010.

“One product a day”
Status: Current
Sector: E-commerce
Geography: Spain
Contacts: Philipp Schroeder

OFERTON LIVESHOPPING SL is the owner of the website www.oooferton.com. It is the first Spanish portal for live-shopping, a new online retail concept – one unique product, on sale for one day and at an unbeatable price. This is an alternative to the more traditional online shops and the private sales sites, where the customer can benefit from highly discounted products for a period of 24 hours or until stock is depleted. Currently, three product categories are offered: electronics, leisure and fashion.

oooferton.com

After a year and a half of operation, the first Spanish Liveshopping platform is strengthening its position with more than 286,000 members and 88,000 registered buyers with a growth of between 6,000 and 7,000 new users per month.

Oooferton has become the industry reference platform among male online buyers in Spain, thanks to its commitment to selling high-end electronics, as well as fashion and leisure products.

The company which is based in Barcelona is expecting to close the year with 2.4 million euros in sales. Oooferton’s unstoppable growth is partly due to its highly interactive platform, according to its founder Luis Krug, who gets about 10% of its sales through Facebook where they have more than 37,000 fans. To share the success with its customers, Oooferton has revamped the image of its website, improving its functionality and offering even better deals.

According to Luis Krug, the success of Oooferton is based on “the great prices we offer for our high-end technology products, gadgets and trendy fashion products. We are affordable luxury in times of crisis.”

The business model of the Spanish company is inspired by a successful US platform, woot.com, a reference in online sales, recently acquired by the giant Amazon. Oooferton follows the trail of woot.com and its continuous progression confirms the recent statistics from the sector, that the average growth rate of e-commerce in Spain is 40% per annum.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire BuyVIP.com, a fashion and lifestyle online buying community with more than six million members in countries including Spain, Germany, and Italy. BuyVIP.com offers customers time-limited campaigns from top fashion and lifestyle brands at low prices.

“BuyVIP.com offers their members an exciting selection of top fashion and lifestyle products at extraordinarily low prices,” said Greg Greeley, vice president European Retail at Amazon. “BuyVIP.com is an excellent complement to Amazon’s European business and will provide another unique way for Amazon customers to find and discover unique and compelling products.”

“We are excited about joining the Amazon family and believe doing so will help us further grow our presence in Europe and allow us to offer our members an even broader selection of high-quality products,” said Gustavo Garcia Brusilovsky, chief executive officer of BuyVIP.com.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2010.

UserZoom, la compañía con la que opera en EEUU alcanzó unas ventas de 900.000 dólares -el triple que en 2008-y espera alcanzar los 2,3 millones de dólares en 2010. Este incremento será posible, según los fundadores de la compañía, gracias al mercado norteamericano y al británico, donde Xperience Consulting acaba de entrar con la apertura de una oficina en Londres.

Capital
“En el primer trimestre hemos facturado lo mismo que en todo 2009″, explica Javier Darriba, socio de Xperience Consulting junto con Xavier Mestres. Entre sus clientes norteamericanos se encuentran Google, IBM, PayPal y Wal-Mart.

Mestres y Darriba controlan la mayoría del capital de la tecnológica, que comercializa un software que permite analizar grandes muestras de usuarios de páginas web. En 2008, Molins Capital Inversión -participada por miembros de la familia propietaria de Cementos Molins- entró en el capital de la compañía a través de una inyección de 1,7 millones.

Xavier Mestres estudia ahora la apertura de una nueva ronda de financiación para el desarrollo de nuevas aplicaciones. A finales de año, la tecnológica con sede en Barcelona tiene previsto lanzar una nueva aplicación para evaluar la usabilidad de Internet en los teléfonos móviles.

La empresa cuenta con una plantilla de 35 personas, de las cuales 14 trabajan en Barcelona, 12 en las oficinas de Madrid, otras 8 en el parque tecnológico Plug & Play de Silicon Valley (California) y dos empleados en las oficinas de Londres.

En los últimos dos años, la compañía se ha concentrado en reorientar su actividad desde la consultoría hasta el desarrollo de software para medir el retorno de páginas web. El objetivo es que este software, que se comercializa como un servicio de alquiler con una cuota anual, represente este el 60% de la facturación de Xperience Consulting. Algunos de sus clientes en España son Telefónica, Banco Popular y Caja Madrid.

Inicio de la recuperación
Los fundadores de Xperience Consulting, Xavier Mestres y Javier Darriba, explican que, tras dos años en que las inversiones en páginas web se han paralizado, “las compañías españolas están volviendo a invertir”. Según Mestres, “algunas empresas estadounidenses están empezando a entender que el control de la usabilidad es el futuro”.

Por ello ha proliferado el número de competidoras en los últimos meses. El cofundador de la tecnológica señala que Xperience Consulting descarta adquisiciones a corto plazo.

(Expansión)

The Provincial Council of Guadalajara (Diputación Provincial de Guadalajara) has chosen the BPM Polymita platform to support the development and compliance of 11/2007 legislation for the electronic access by the citizens of the public services.
Within the e-Province project the Polymita solution will support the rationalization and standardization of the administrative procedures thanks to the automation and customization of the Guadalajara management processes.

The project represents an integrated technological solution which combines a case management approach, a content manager, and a document management system integrated within the citizens and employees portals.

It allows the control and monitoring of real-time indicators, simulation and process performance audit, as well as time analysis, detection of bottlenecks and offers different application and versioning scenarios.

Polymita, a world leader in software and BPM (Business Process Management) solutions has been selected for its complete business processes automation capabilities, its capabilities to integrate with existing systems in the Guadalajara Council and other technologies associated with the Case Management (electronic signature, portals based on other technologies, document managers, etc), and for its ease of use in the design, editing and targeted at non-technical users content approval workflow configuration.