Online lending service secures £22m investment - 10/06/2009

In this week's briefing:

Wonga closes £22m funding round

Wonga.com, an online alternative to short-term bank loans, has closed a £22.5m funding round, led by Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. The round was supported by existing investor Balderton Capital.
Launched in 2008, Wonga.com uses sophisticated risk and decision technology to provide instant approvals (or otherwise) to online applications for cash advances of up to £750. The service is proving popular with over 100,000 short-term loans approved over the last 11 months.
Wonga.com may be a convenient alternative to conventional personal loans or overdrafts, but it is not cheap. The loans are short-term, up to a maximum of 30 days, and high interest, with an APR generally over 2000 per cent.
Founders Errol Damelin and Jonty Hurwitz have attracted a strategic mix of investors; Accel have backed some of the biggest hyper-growth companies in recent years, Facebook being one, and Greylock tends to take a long-term approach to its investments.
Damelin said of the deal: " "We've built to scale and there is now huge scope for expansion and delivering even more value for our customers. Balderton Capital has backed us from concept and our two new investors show how game-changing the Wonga proposition is."
Laurel Bowden, Partner at Greylock, commented: "In this market, there are some excellent opportunities to build innovative financial services businesses. Wonga's management team has developed a very innovative and real-time credit offering, solving relatively small immediate cash needs, and the business has shown impressive traction in the market. This is a key deal for Greylock in Europe and we are pleased to have an opportunity to help Wonga expand both locally and globally."

Sony to take equity stake in Vevo

Sony Music Entertainment is to join Vevo, the music video joint venture developed by YouTube and Universal Music Group, reportedly taking an equity stake in the company in return for access to its music catalogue.
There are also reports that A2IM, an international consortium of 225 independent record labels, is in talks over joining the Vevo project. The remaining two major labels, Warner and EMI, are yet to agree a deal, but are said to be in negotiations to join up.
Designed in part to give partner labels more control and revenue than YouTube does currently, content will be available on YouTube through a newly created Vevo channel, on Vevo.com and through a Vevo embedded player. The service will also serve as a syndication platform for other sites.
Sony Music Entertainment CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holz said: “We share a common vision of offering music videos and other premium video content from some of the world's greatest artists in an attractive, clean and intuitive environment that appeals to fans and advertisers alike." He added that Vevo will attract some of the “most desirable demographics on the web and develop new and innovative ways to monetise music video.”
Universal will retain ownership of Vevo when it launches, with YouTube in a profit-sharing arrangement for providing the platform on which the service will operate.

Encouraging a new approach to entrepreneurial education

A groundbreaking report, Educating the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs, has been released by the Global Education Initiative and will form part of the discussion at the World Economic Forum's 2009 regional summits in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and India.
The report aims to consolidate existing global knowledge and good practices in entrepreneurship education around three focus areas that cover the lifelong learning process of an individual: Youth (with a focus on disadvantaged youth), Higher Education (focusing on high growth entrepreneurship) and Social Inclusion (with a focus on marginalized communities). The report also outlines specific approaches that are needed for each one of these areas, as well as opportunities, challenges and practical recommendations for key stakeholders.
This is the first time entrepreneurship education has been considered in such a comprehensive manner.
Commenting on the report, Dr. Shailendra Vyakarnam, Director, Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, University of Cambridge said: “Entrepreneurship has become and needs to be sustained as a social movement. To achieve this goal of empowerment we need new ways of thinking about education to support entrepreneurship for social inclusion. This report provides evidence, examples and urges action to advance entrepreneurship education globally.”
The full report and an executive summary are available to download at http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gei/EntrepreneurshipEducation/index.htm

Bing Bing! Microsoft steals Yahoo! market share

Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, has pushed Yahoo! Search into third place as the search engine of choice in it's first week of 'life'. According to figures from US web analysis firm StatCounter, Bing has become the second most used search engine in the world.
Microsoft is reportedly spending between $80m to $100m on a new ad campaign for its search engine in a bid to get people to “bing it” rather than “google it”. Through focus groups, Microsoft decided that the name Bing was short and easy to spell making it an unforgettable URL with potential to function well around the world. Apparently the word would remind people of the sound made "during the moment of discovery and decision making".
Formerly known as Live Search, Windows Live Search and MSN Search, Bing was officially unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the 28th May 2009.
So what does Bing really have to offer? According to Microsoft, Bing is a multimedia web search experience with new features that help you find what you’re looking for more quickly and easily. Plus, its eye-catching visual imagery and more intuitive layout make the search experience as a whole more enjoyable. Bing promises to find more relevant UK-focused results, and display them in intelligent ways to help users get the information they want faster.

Reboot Britain - can technology save the economy?

Reboot Britain, happening in London on Monday 6 July, will take a unique look at the challenges Britain is facing and the new possibilities that – uniquely – this generation has to overcome them. The event is organised by NESTA.
With a decimated economy, ever increasing demands on public services and trust in the political system at an all time low, Reboot Britain will examine how we can begin to punch through the gloom and take advantage of the radically networked digital world we now live in to help revive our economy, rebuild our democratic structures and improve public services. .
Reboot Britain is a day-long event running from 9:30 to 6pm with a two-track format

• a non-stop series of high-impact presentations by leading politicians, technologists, entrepreneurs and commentators
• participant-led sessions and practically-focussed workshops in response to the main presentation themes in real-time

The event will frame the challenges Britain faces and explore how digital technologies can help practically tackle these issues.
For more details, go to http://rebootbritain.eventbrite.com/