Sending large files around the web has gotten increasingly easy in the last few years, as start-ups work on providing a platform for media professionals and others to send files to one another without the use of E-mail. According to SoundCloud co-founder Alexander Ljung “SoundCloud lets users move music fast and easy via the web. The platform takes the daily hassle out of receiving, sending and distributing music for artists, record labels and other music professionals” But while other sites aim to attract those wanting to send video files, SoundCloud is aimed at those in the music industry, with a focus on collaboration and sharing of tracks (think social-networking features), the ability for the receiver to use an in-built player in the system (meaning there’s no need to download the track) and the chance for the uploader to track how many times the song has been played once uploaded.

Started by Swedes Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud, says Ljung, is different from the current batch of sites that allow big files to be uploaded, due to less focus on the actual ‘file’. “These kinds of services focus everything on ‘the file’ that's sent between desktops – we want people to think less of files and more of the actual music so we try to avoid any unnecessary steps in between. If somebody sends you a track your first reaction should be to press play not press a few ads, wait 60 seconds, download a 50mb file and so forth.”

Despite the Swedish core, the company is based in Berlin. “Berlin has a great creative scene and low living costs, there's a booming web start-up scene and plenty of great music around”, says Ljung. “The choice was easy for us to move here!” The pair had been involved in the running of a couple of smaller businesses (while Wahlforss was CIO with the 24 Hour dotcom project), but describe SoundCloud as their first ‘full-on’ start-up.

With 6 full time staff and the use of a freemium model (free for those who don’t use so frequently, and a charge for those who do), the company has been able to get off the ground using the investment provided by a large group of angels.

UPDATE [14/4/09]: SoundCloud has raised an additional €2.5m in a funding round led by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. The site now claims to have 100,000 registered users. Doughty Hanson's Stefan Tirtey has joined the board as part of the deal.

“We’re a social software application that enables like-minded people to meet through their media and links.” We’ve said if before on these pages, but there are a lot of social networks out there; certainly too many for all of them to be successful. Yet FileRide is different, says co-founder Patrik Hedmalm: “Most social-networks focus on friends that you already know, along the lines of pushing updates and links to those friends. We focus on finding friends in a totally new way – through media, and not just through people.”

So, while social-networks lead people to socialise online, Hedmalm is probably quite right that for the most part, that socialising is done with people that you're already acquanited with. FileRide requires an application to be installed on your PC (Mac and Linux to follow in coming months), before you drag in the files you want to work around. “When you drag something into the FileRide app, we scan it generating a unique key, without giving away the contents. For a song, for example, we generate an acoustic fingerprint so it doesn’t matter what the file type or encoding is.” So, drag in some Sex Pistols MP3s, your full (and of course legally downloaded) series of The Apprentice, and your web browser’s bookmarks linking you to cmypitch.com Info Centre, then whatever else, and like-minded folk from around the world will be able to see what gets you going. The next move is yours.

Although only in beta stage for the last month, the four Stockholm-based developers and designers are already squarely focused on the next stage of funding. “We’ve been bootstrapping between us, but we’re looking for funding from discussions with VCs in Sweden”, says Hedmalm.

As for revenue, affiliate links to places such as Amazon are important, but Hedmalm sees other areas as key “We’ve recently launched contextual and highly targeted advertising”, he says. To keep the service free, that targeted advertising will need to come off. But by offering a unique alternative to the swarms of social networks that don’t make it really easy to meet new people, for whatever purpose, and by having a unique way of doing so, the coming year might just be a good one for FileRide.

The growth in online video seems to know no bounds. It’s becoming increasingly clear how useful it can be as a tool (or is that unclear?), and one idea exploiting this new tool is Virtual Presenter, an offshoot of Corby’s Run Visual.

Founder Steve Smith has a background in video production, and saw the chance for a living, breathing TV-style presenter to guide internet users through a client’s homepage: “We were putting stuff on the web 4 or 5 years ago, but broadband was so poor at the time. It wasn’t a good user experience, but that all changed around 2 years ago.” With more broadband connectivity, better video-compression techniques, and a local EMDA grant, the gap in the market presented itself.

Launched as Run Media in 1999, the company switched to Run Visual in 2003, working on a range of products and services from marketing and communications, to print or web content production. But Virtual Presenter might just be their killer idea. “Rather than adding just text and photos someone can help add a unique selling point, adding value to the website”, says Smith. “We can’t help people get to your site, but it’s what you actually do with people once they’re on it. If you can say something in the first 10 or 15 seconds then you’re halfway there...It’s a call to action.”

And the selection process is simple. As Smith says “You just go to the website, and choose a presenter. They’re all pros who can work quickly, and you just pick one that suites the project your trying to offer.” Clients don’t have to sit in on the production, so it’s mostly it’s independent of the geography. And with some early feedback showing the simple addition of a pretty face can triple response rates on click-through parts of the site, the concept could get traction very quickly.

Yerzies is a US brand which has come to our attention due to the growing trend for personalization and bespoke products. Launched this year, it’s a lot more than an online clothes store. In the words of founder Scott Killian, “It’s a place to create, share your ideas and profit from your creations. We give users the power to create their own products using our advanced configurator... When they're done, they can buy as little as one piece or sell their creations to other users and keep the profits.”

And that’s where Yerzies takes the ‘make your own’ T-shirt idea and drives it forward; it’s about users being able to monetize their own creativity, while sharing ideas with those around them on the site. Killian is adamant that this method engages people far more than simply having an ‘E-shop’ set-up: “We want to make Yerzies a platform that encourages the creation and consumption of user-generated content so we're continuing to develop a robust set of tools that our users can leverage to profit from the sale of their work. This includes social networking tools like our blog forum and user profiles attached to products they've created, but it also includes sales and marketing tools like widgets for promoting your work on other sites, robust sales reporting, etc... We'll be announcing some interesting twists to this in the near future that will leverage the idea of ‘community’ far more than what's already there.”

Launched this year, Yerzies has the software and advisory business DemandMade as its parent-company. DemandMade, which has customization as a core-focus, was in turn launched in 2005 after Killian and co-founder Tim Brule’s sale of FanBuzz - the platform for online stories which ranged from broadcaster ESPN to the 2002 Winter Olympics. In Killian’s mind, this venture was crucial: “We quickly realized we had stumbled onto something that was even more valuable to our customers. When we offered them to opportunity interact with merchandise, mix and match attributes and even personalize the final product, it became an instant hit.”

Both DemandMade and Yerzies were self-funded by the founders, who also raised about $10 million in private equity for FanBuzz, before the exit to a well-known US shopping channel.

The ‘green tech’ sector is starting to get very serious traction, and according to chief executive of ecoConnect Robert Hokin, will soon be a multi-trillion pound industry. While the UK is a place brimming with green tech ideas, there’s a lack of meaningful places, online or offline, for the ‘community’ to gather. That’s where ecoConnect comes in.

It launched last week (October 2008), and Hokin says “It went exceptionally well, we were hugely oversubscribed – we could have had a venue twice the size”. Showcasing companies and ideas taking in a range of sectors, from renewable energy to clean IT, the idea behind ecoConnect is “to enable the faster adaption of green technology by providing information, connections and clarity...It’s about the business of green tech and how to make it more commonplace in business and commerce”, says Hokin.

ecoConnect will host events, including around a dozen already planned for 2009, while there are also plans in the pipeline for an eco-inspired TV channel on the site, as well the possibility of green tech start-up incubator.

Hokin says he’s started ecoConnect ‘out of frustration at accessing green technology’, but adds he’s ‘been an environmentalist since way back..’ And although a social enterprise, profit is of great importance. “Profit does matter. We’re a social enterprise so eligible for certain funding initiatives...but we’ll also provide value-added services for start-ups, and they’ll be chargeable.” On top of that, ecoConnect is currently in talks with other investors, as well as speaking with key sponsors keen to be associated with green-tech initiatives. As for the initial costs however, it’s money from Hokin’s own pocket.

Although originally from Chicago, Hokin says he’s ‘always been impressed at the UK’s innovation and activity’, but adds he’s often frustrated at the commercialisation of that technology. He says he’s been described as ‘eco in a suit’, but is quick to clarify this: “I’ve been involved in technology companies at the enterprise level for almost twenty years”, adding that he’s ‘been responsible for multi-million pound revenue streams’ – and is looking at the bottom line. And the ‘bottom line’ could be quite solid. With no serious competitors in the space ecoConnect has carved out, the likelihood that big-name partnerships will be forthcoming, and a huge growth industry as its focus, the future looks very bright indeed – or if not, at least a whole lot greener.

“The key word is personalisation”, insists entrepreneur Alex Meisl.”‘Everyone’s talking about it. Look at cars with their optional extras list, things like people having union jacks on their roofs.” With this argument, Meisl puts forward his case for skins4things, a company looking to exploit this desire for all things personal by creating personalised ‘skins’ or covers for devices ranging from laptops to mobile phones. A tight fitting skin or jacket of vinyl, the product adds a degree of scratch resistance and a visual personality to consumer digitals.

Meisl was co-founder of Sponge in 2002, a successful mobile application development agency; amongst other campaigns, Sponge got themselves noticed via an SMS-utilising Walkers Crisps campaign to deliver the prize of a iPod to consumers every 5 minutes, which, according to Meisl, saw an incredible 7% of the UK population take part. This followed his work with Legion Telephony, so it’s probably fair to say there is some deeper passion for mobile technologies at work in his mind. Is this what convinced him and co-founder Dan Parker that skins4things would take off? “Unfortunately we convinced ourselves there were synergies!”, he jokes . “Superficially there are, but where Sponge is software and digital, with Skins we’ve had to come down to earth, dealing with certain things like stock!”

Despite the modesty, the company has already established some key contracts with brands ranging from Amnesty International to Toshiba, who are going straight for the promo approach. “Why not have the name of you company on staff laptops?, Meisl muses.
Where funding is concerned, £250,000 of the founders’ own money has been put in: skin in the game, so to speak, although there was discussion about getting external finding. “Despite believing we knew what we were doing, it took twice as long as we thought”, Meisl says, adding that many third party offers were ‘unreasonable’, considering the stake in the company that was being requested.

With the market in covers for products such as iPods and mobiles to grow on the back of growth of the products themselves, cmypitch will be watching closely to see if skins4things becomes a start-up star.