Yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to Jouko Ahvenainen, co-founder of Grow VC. They want to make it easier for web and mobile start-ups to get funding. People who have not been investing in start-ups before are also encouraged to try. With Grow VC it doesn’t matter where you reside. It is a global community. You can sign up for free, but to be able to seek an investment, invest or offer your services you pay a minimum fee of US$20 per month. Not bad. At the time of writing, investors have indicated that they have as much as US$13,698,500 available for investments.

TechCrunch: “Grow VC launches, aiming to become the Kiva for tech startups”
BBC News: “the first global crowdfunding tool for web and mobile start-ups”

A report by Taige Zhang on the European Web Startup Environment.

This presentation analyzes and ranks 32 EU countries based on three factors that make a country great for web startups: being tech-oriented, having an entrepreneurial culture, and possessing sufficient resources. The best places to start up in Europe are the following countries: Finland, France, Germany, Netherland, Sweden, and UK.

You can find it here: http://intelligentshare.com/2009/04/defragmenting-eus-web-startup.html