NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 10 December
10-12-2009
by Deirdre McArdle
RedMere in successful funding round | Panasonic takes control of Sanyo
Irish online accounting platform accountsIQ has announced that it has completed a EUR3.5 million funding round. Data Electronics Investments (DEI), the investment arm of Data Electronic Services (DES), led the round with support from existing investors Enterprise Equity, AIB Seed Capital Fund and industry veteran Gerry McKeown. AccountsIQ will use the money to aid its continued international expansion and product development plans. Launched in 2007, accountsIQ has developed an online accountancy platform that allows accountants and businesses with multiple locations to access their accounts and business records via the internet in real time.
In more news of funding, mobile services firm Zamano is to raise EUR2.5 million through a share placing. The funds are being raised through the placing of 13,888,889 new shares with The Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund at a price of EUR0.18. The Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund is a EUR75 million fund managed by NCB Ventures that invests in Irish SMEs across a range of sectors and all stages of development. Zamano will use the funds to accelerate its growth plans. Specifically, it aims to focus on the increased demand for smartphone applications and mobile advertising.
In yet more news of fundraising, Irish firm RedMere, which supplies 'smart active' cable solutions, has secured USD5.6 million in a funding round led by Celtic House Venture Partners, Toronto. EdgeStone Capital Partners (Toronto) and Enterprise Equity (Dublin) also participated in the funding round. RedMere's flagship technology is the EyeWire chipset, which has been adopted into home theatre and camera cable applications. "This funding round will be used primarily to expand our penetration into the camera and mobile handset (smartphone) markets," said Peter Smyth, CEO RedMere. "These cables are ultra thin, about 2mm in diameter, perfect for carrying with these portable applications."
Irish novelist Anna McPartlin is combining the world of traditional books with Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook and blogging. In her novel 'So What If I'm Broken', McPartlin has created virtual online lives for the main characters, and readers will be able to interact with them via blogs, Twitter and Facebook. On the book's website, www.sowhatifimbroken.com, the main character Jane Moore has a blog that sets up the story which the book's other characters act out over Facebook and Twitter. "What is really exciting is that readers might actually change the story through their own interactions with the character. So while it will return to the universe of the book by the end, it can go for a user led meander through the public’s contributions," said McPartlin.
Japanese electronics firm Panasonic has acquired a controlling stake in its smaller rival Sanyo Electric in a USD4.6 billion takeover. Panasonic bought a stake of just over 50 percent in Sanyo. The deal comes at a time when Japanese electronics firms are struggling to cut costs amid a severe downturn in the sector. Sanyo will become a subsidiary of Panasonic, creating Japan's second biggest electronics maker behind Hitachi.
European citizens, businesses and organisations can now register dot-eu domain names using characters from all 23 official languages of the European Union. "Many internet users will come from countries where most languages are not based on the 'a to z' Latin script... the launch of international domain names under .eu will respond even better to the needs of a multilingual and multicultural Europe," said EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding. Internationalised Domain Names (IDN) are internet domain names that contain other characters in addition to the 26 characters of the Latin alphabet, digits "0" to "9" and "-". Until Thursday, those registering domain names under dot-eu could only use this limited set of characters. This follows ICANN's approval of IDNs at the end of October.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 