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Discover the next messaging giant at Disrupt Berlin

Published November 14, 2018

Truecaller may already be a familiar name, but many of you probably don’t know that it’s slowly becoming a significant messaging app. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Truecaller co-founder and CEO Alan Mamedi will join us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin.

Truecaller first started as a call screening app. Some countries are more affected than others. But it’s clear that text and call spam is the most intrusive form of spam.

The Swedish company then leveraged this user base to quietly turn the app into a full-fledged messaging app with one focus in particular — India.

With the acquisition of Chillr, the company shows that it wants to recreate a sort of WeChat for India. The company launched payment features — Truecaller Pay lets you pay other Truecaller users as well as pay your bills.

Eventually, Truecaller wants to open up its platform to third-party services. Back in April, the company reported that it had 100 million daily active users.

If you’re impressed by Truecaller’s growth strategy, you should buy your ticket to Disrupt Berlin to listen to this discussion and many others. The conference will take place on November 29-30.

In addition to fireside chats and panels, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield Europe to win the highly coveted Battlefield cup.

Alan Mamedi

CEO & Co-founder, Truecaller

Alan Mamedi is the CEO and Co-founder of Truecaller. Truecaller is one of the leading communication apps in the world with services in messaging, payment, caller ID, spam detection, dialer functionalities, and has more than 300 million users globally. In this position, Alan focuses on product development and innovation, and charting the strategic roadmap for the company’s success. To date, Truecaller has raised 80 million USD from Sequoia Capital, Atomico, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Robby Stein to talk about Instagram beyond Systrom at Disrupt Berlin

Published October 29, 2018

Last month, Instagram co-founders CEO Kevin Systrom and CTO Mike Krieger announced that they would be leaving Instagram and Facebook. All eyes are now on Instagram to figure out what’s going to happen to the photo and video app. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Instagram Product Director Robby Stein is joining us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin.

Instagram is Facebook’s next big bet. Facebook’s growth has slowed down, which puts even more pressure on Instagram. Compared to Facebook, Instagram is still a relatively young platform. More and more people are joining Instagram and stories are boosting engagement.

Facebook currently has 2.23 billion monthly users while Instagram has 1 billion users. Many people have an active account on both platforms. But does Instagram have what it takes to reach Facebook’s scale?

When it comes to product, Instagram has relentlessly released new features over the past few years. Stories have become a creative playground, stars can share longer videos on IGTV and you can now start group video chats from the app.

It’s impressive to see that such a big platform keeps releasing radical changes that will affect over a billion users. Instagram has been moving incredibly fast. And it’s been key when it comes to fostering growth.

Stein will tell us more about Instagram’s product design strategy and what’s coming up. It’s always interesting to hear the perspective of an insider to analyze product decisions and discuss them.

Before joining Instagram, he was the co-founder and CEO of Stamped, which was acquired by Yahoo back in 2012. Stein started his career at Google. In a short period of time, he managed to work for Google, Facebook and Yahoo, and he also founded his own startup. Quite an impressive resume.

And if you want to hear what it feels like to work for Instagram at a pivotal moment, you should come to Disrupt Berlin. The conference will take place on November 29-30 and you can buy your ticket right now.

In addition to fireside chats and panels, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield Europe to win the highly coveted Battlefield cup.

Robby Stein

Product Director, Instagram

Robby Stein is Product Director at Instagram, where he leads the consumer product team for sharing, which includes Stories, Feed, Live and Direct Messaging. Previously he was the Co-Founder and CEO of Stamped, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2012. At Yahoo, Robby led mobile video products focused around recommended content. He started his career at Google, where he worked to bring new features to market for Gmail and Ad Exchange. He has been recognized on the Forbes 30 under 30 and graduated summa cum laude from Northwestern University.

Hear how Threads makes fashion social at Disrupt Berlin

Published October 24, 2018

TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin is right around the corner, and I’m excited to announce that we invited Threads founder Sophie Hill to talk about her innovative vision of luxury shopping.

Threads is like nothing out there. It isn’t an e-commerce website with warehouses and suppliers. It isn’t a marketplace website for second-hand luxury goods. It isn’t a marketplace website for other brands. In fact, it’s not a website at all.

The startup combines a strong editorial strategy with a distribution method that is quite novel. You get recommendations through your favorite chat app on your phone. It works on services like WeChat, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram and iMessage.

On the other end of the conversation, you interact with human shopping assistants. This is what makes the experience so great. You don’t receive a newsletter, you don’t have to download an app. It integrates directly with apps that you were already using.

This way, if you feel overwhelmed and think you’re falling behind on the fashion front, Threads is much more efficient. Chances are you often browse your conversation list anyway. Accessing Threads is just a tap away.

And it’s working. The company recently raised a $20 million round and people spend $3,000 on average per shopping session. Big fashion houses, such as Dior, Fendi and Chopard started working with the startup.

By adopting a WeChat-first approach, the company managed to attract quite a few Chinese customers in particular. But Threads currently has customers in over 100 countries.

If you think you knew everything about e-commerce, come to Disrupt Berlin to listen to Hill’s novel strategy.

The conference will take place on November 29-30 and you can buy your ticket right now.

In addition to fireside chats and panels, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield Europe to win the highly coveted Battlefield cup.

Sophie Hill

Founder, Threads

Sophie is founder and CEO of Threads, with a mission to pioneer the best luxury shopping experience in the world. By leveraging social media and messaging platforms, Sophie has built a £multimillion global fashion tech business, and is setting the rules for a new form of consumer buying, called chat commerce. Threads joined Future Fifty in 2017 and is now in Tech Track 100 as owner of one of the UK’s fastest growing tech growth companies. In between doubling the size of the company in 2018, Sophie is also figuring out how to sell the first $1m diamond through whatsapp.

Funderbeam CEO to talk about disrupting startup funding at Disrupt Berlin

Published October 19, 2018

Startup funding hasn’t changed much in the past decade. Funderbeam is an interesting company trying to turn everything upside down using a marketplace approach, a modern syndication system and a blockchain-based platform. I’m excited to announce that Funderbeam founder and CEO Kaidi Ruusalepp will come to TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin.

The first boom of venture capital of the 1980s changed everything in the tech industry. Countless of tech startups managed to get funding, grow and make money down the road. Without venture capital firms, some of the biggest tech firms out there just wouldn’t be around.

Arguably, convertible notes and accelerators turned startups into a mainstream phenomenon. It became much easier to get seed funding and some sort of mentorship.

But it hasn’t changed much since then. Funderbeam has some ambitious goals as the company wants to change everything by adding more transparency and liquidity into private funding.

Funderbeam combines multiple products into one. As a startup, you can use Funderbeam to raise your next funding round. Funderbeam acts as a funding and trading platform so that angel investors can invest in your startup. Founders can choose their investors on the platform.

As an investor, you can invest in a startup and take advantage of Funderbeam’s liquidity. You’ll be able to cash out on your own terms as the startup is also building a secondary market so that early investors in a company can sell shares to newer investors. And Funderbeam also compiles all its data on startups to create a database of financial information on startups.

Buy your ticket to Disrupt Berlin to listen to this discussion and many others. The conference will take place on November 29-30.

In addition to fireside chats and panels, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield Europe to win the highly coveted Battlefield cup.

Kaidi Ruusalepp

Founder & CEO, Funderbeam

Founder and CEO of Funderbeam, the global funding and trading platform of private companies built on blockchain. Funderbeam combines three stages of investor journey into one: startup analytics, investing, and trading on the secondary market. Powered by blockchain technology, the marketplace delivers capital to growth companies and on-demand liquidity to investors worldwide.

Member of Startup Europe Advisory Board at European Commission. Kaidi is a former CEO of Nasdaq Tallinn Stock Exchange and of the Central Securities Depository. Co-Founder of Estonian Service Industry Association. The first IT lawyer in Estonia, she co-author of the Estonian Digital Signatures Act of 2000 — landmark legislation that enables secure digital identities and, in turn, the country’s booming electronic economy.

Kaidi was named as an Entrepreneur of a Year in 2018 by the Playmakers Technology Award and as a Person of a Year in 2016 by the Estonian IT and Telecommunication Association. Co-author of #Foundership Playbook and mentor of various girls and women in tech initiatives.

Babbel CEOs to talk about language and startup lessons at Disrupt Berlin

Published October 1, 2018

The slow and steady rise of Babbel has been impressive on many fronts. The company is now managing the top-grossing language learning app in the world. That’s why I’m excited to announce that we’ll have founder and CEO Markus Witte as well as CEO U.S. Julie Hansen at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin.

Babbel has been around for over a decade. The company started with a web-based language learning service. It was based on Adobe Flash and HTML. Now, most Babbel users interact with the service using the company’s mobile app.

And Babbel also represents a European success story. Thanks to the European Union, many people live, work and travel all around Europe. It creates a unique market opportunity as the continent is a highly fragmented market when it comes to languages — there are dozens of different languages. That’s why building a language learning startup in Berlin is the perfect fit.

Babbel operates with a freemium, subscription-based model. Downloading the app is free, but you need to pay a subscription to unlock all the features.

More recently, Babbel has been betting on the U.S. as its next market opportunity. Many Europeans want to learn English, and it’s also true in the U.S. Immigrants want to improve their knowledge of English.

It’s a different market that causes a different set of challenges. That’s why the company has named Julie Hansen as CEO of the U.S. division of Babbel.

If you want to hear both Hansen and Witte talk about Babbel’s past ten years and the company’s next ten years, you should come to Disrupt Berlin.

Buy your ticket to Disrupt Berlin to listen to this discussion and many others. The conference will take place on November 29-30.

In addition to fireside chats and panels, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield Europe to win the highly coveted Battlefield cup.

Markus Witte

Babbel Founder and CEO

Markus Witte is CEO and founder of Babbel , the world’s top-grossing language learning app. He describes Babbel as a learning company inside and out: “Heading a team in which each and every person, as well as the organization itself, is constantly learning new things is incredibly fulfilling.”

Markus began his career at NYU, and later lectured at Humboldt University in Berlin, where he discovered his passion for teaching. Following his time as an academic, he led the development of online marketing and web infrastructure and managed the online and systems teams at music software company Native Instruments. Coming back to learning and teaching, he founded Babbel with three others in 2007.

Julie Hansen

Babbel CEO U.S.

Julie Hansen is CEO U.S. at Babbel. Based in the company’s New York office she is leading the US expansion of the world’s top-grossing language learning app.

Before joining Babbel, Julie was the COO and President of Business Insider. Under her leadership the news site became the most visited business outlet on the internet. Prior to Business Insider, Hansen held top management roles at sports site NCAA.com, Condé Nast Publications, and Time Inc. Julie has over two decades of experience growing digital media companies, launching interactive web sites, deploying mobile apps, and leading online and offline marketing campaigns. She began her career at Penguin Books, publishing learning software for literature among other products.

Vinay Gupta to talk about Mattereum at Disrupt Berlin

Published September 27, 2018

Cryptocurrency speculation is over. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Vinay Gupta will join us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin to talk about cool use cases that could make blockchain projects useful, beyond financial services.

Gupta worked on the initial release of Ethereum back in 2015. He contributed when it comes to project management. He then worked with the Consensys team on other cryptocurrency projects.

But he’s now 100 percent focused on his own project — Mattereum. As the name suggests, it’s all about bringing physical objects to the blockchain.

For instance, if you buy an expensive painting, you want to make sure that you sign a contract with the previous owner that says that you now own this painting.

Mattereum helps you set up self-executing smart contracts to transfer digital assets (including tokens that could prove the ownership of a painting).

But if you want to combine smart contracts with good old legal contracts, Mattereum has also worked on Ricardian contracts so that those contracts have a legal value. Finally, Mattereum also worked on a decentralized dispute resolution platform that can be enforced in a national court.

If you want to listen to Gupta talk about Mattereum himself, then you should come to Disrupt Berlin.

Buy your ticket to Disrupt Berlin to listen to this discussion and many others. The conference will take place on November 29-30.

In addition to fireside chats and panels, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield Europe to win the highly coveted Battlefield cup.

Vinay Gupta

Founder, Mattereum Ltd.

Vinay Gupta is a technologist and policy analyst with a particular interest in how specific technologies can close or create new avenues for decision makers. This interest has taken him through cryptography, energy policy, defence, security, resilience and disaster management arenas.

He is the founder of Hexayurt.Capital, a fund which invests in creating the Internet of Agreements. Mattereum is the first Internet of Agreements infrastructure project, bringing legally-enforceable smart contracts, and enabling the sale, lease, and transfer of physical property and legal rights.

He is known for his work on the hexayurt, a public domain disaster relief shelter designed to be build from commonly-available materials, and with Ethereum, a distributed network designed to handle smart contracts.

The Accel team is coming to Disrupt Berlin

Published July 19, 2018

Every time Accel invests in a startup, it’s an instant positive sign in the startup community. The venture capital firm has a rich history with decades of investments in successful startups. That’s why we’re excited to have four partners at Accel on stage at Disrupt Berlin.

Philippe Botteri, Sonali De Rycker, Luciana Lixandru and Harry Nelis will all relocate their partner meeting to our stage.

Accel is a different VC firm for many reasons. First, while the firm started in Silicon Valley, the team bet early on the European startup scene, back in 2001. With an office in London, the team keeps an eye on the entire continent for investment opportunities.

The firm has invested in Deliveroo, BlaBlaCar, Supercell, Spotify and so many others. With such a good track record, it’s clear that some recent investments are also going to become massive companies — nobody has realized it just yet.

In November, we will have four Accel partners on stage to discuss the firm’s investment thesis, each partner’s current obsessions and their collective thoughts on the startup scene in Europe.

It’s going to be a great way to hear the granularity of a team with strong beliefs. I’m sure they don’t always agree on everything, but somehow they manage to invest together as a firm.

TechCrunch is coming back to Berlin to talk with the best and brightest people in tech from Europe and the rest of the world. In addition to fireside chats and panels, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield Europe to win the coveted cup.

Grab your ticket to Disrupt Berlin before August 1st as prices will increase after that. The conference will take place on November 29-30.

Philippe Botteri, Partner, Accel

Philippe Botteri focuses on SaaS, enterprise and marketplace businesses.

Philippe led Accel’s investments in DocuSign (IPO), PeopleDoc, Qubit, Algolia, BlaBlaCar, Doctolib and Zenaton. He also works closely with the team at Fiverr and CrowdStrike. Prior to joining Accel, Philippe was with Bessemer, where he worked with the firm’s SaaS and Ad Tech investments including Cornerstone OnDemand (public), Eloqua (public) and Criteo (public).

Philippe is from Paris and graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, where he is a member of the Entrepreneurship Advisory Board, and Ecole des Mines.

Sonali De Rycker, Partner, Accel

Sonali De Rycker focuses on consumer, software and financial services businesses.

She led Accel’s investments in Avito (acquired by Naspers), Lyst, Spotify (IPO), Wallapop, KupiVIP, Calastone, Catawiki, JobToday, Shift Technology, SilverRail (acquired by Expedia), Kry and Soldo. Prior to Accel, Sonali was with Atlas Ventures.

Sonali grew up in Mumbai and graduated from Bryn Mawr College and Harvard Business School.

Luciana Lixandru, Partner, Accel

Luciana Lixandru focuses on consumer internet, software and marketplace businesses.

She helped lead Accel’s investments and ongoing work in UiPath, Deliveroo, Framer, Avito, Catawiki, Vinted and others. She is also an independent director of Showroomprive (public). Prior to Accel, Luciana was with Summit Partners.

Luciana is from Romania and graduated from Georgetown University.

Harry Nelis, Partner, Accel

Harry Nelis focuses on consumer internet, financial services and software companies.

He led Accel’s investments in CHECK24, Funding Circle, KAYAK (IPO; acquired by Priceline), Showroomprive (IPO), WorldRemit, Celonis, Callsign, Instana and others.

Harry started his career as an engineer at Hewlett-Packard before founding the venture-backed software company E-motion.

Harry is from the Netherlands and graduated from Delft University of Technology and Harvard Business School.

Starling CEO Anne Boden is coming to Disrupt Berlin

Published July 4, 2018

The European fintech wave can’t stop and won’t stop. That’s why I’m excited to announce that the founder and CEO of Starling Bank Anne Boden is joining us at Disrupt Berlin.

While it feels like everybody is talking about challenger banks, Boden started thinking about building a new bank back in 2014. She ditched a carrer in traditional banks to start her own thing.

Starling provides a current account specifically designed for your phone. You can open an account in just a few minutes using the company’s mobile app.

Whenever you use your card or send money, you can instantly see the transaction in the app — there’s no delay. You can also receive push notifications instantly. When it comes to your card, you can lock it when you can’t find it, and there’s no exchange fee when you use your card abroad. Starling supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Fitbit Pay and, yes, even Garmin Pay.

Starling is even better with multiple people. For instance, if your roommate or significant other also has a Starling account, you can create a joint account for shared bills. You can also send money instantly to other Starling accounts.

The startup has been building a marketplace to become the only banking app you need. There are already a handful of fintech companies leveraging the Starling API. You’ll find savings, investment and mortgage products. You can centralize your paper receipts and more from the Starling app.

The startup already has its own banking license and has been raising a funding round of more than $100 million.

Starling operates in a very competitive market, with well-funded startups such as Monzo, Revolut and N26 all iterating quite quickly. That’s why it’s going to be interesting to hear Boden’s take on challenger banks, the fintech industry and her experience with Starling.

Tickets to the show, which runs November 29-30, are available here.

Quick Insurance wins the Disrupt Berlin 2017 Hackathon Grand Prize

Published December 3, 2017

Hundreds of engineers and designers got together to come up with something cool, something neat, something awesome. The only condition was that they only had 24 hours to work on their projects. Some of them were participating in our event for the first time, while others were regulars. Some of them slept on the floor in a corner, while others drank too much Red Bull.
We could all feel the… Read More

Let’s talk about commercial drones at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin

Published November 23, 2017

Everyone loves drones, including companies with very specific needs. Drones once were the hot new thing and the perfect birthday gift. But drone makers are now realizing that there’s a bigger opportunity with commercial use cases, from farming to inspection. That’s why we’re excited to announce that three founders of three amazing companies in the drone industry will join us… Read More