Erika Brown, from the Silicon Valley Bureau of Forbes Magazine published a great story on the recent Innovate Europe event and the Venture Capital and entrepreneur scene in Europe.

Smaato was mentioned in her report “Everything ventured“:

” … In addition to a handful of location-based services, Smaato was one of the interesting mobile businesses. The company, dual-based in Hamburg and San Mateo, Calif., offers a way for small companies that make cellphone software to make money from selling ads that appear as banners at the top of a screen. Co-founder Harald Neidhardt says he thinks mobile-phone advertising has the potential to reach $1.5 billion. “There are more smartphones sold than PCs or laptops, and there are more than 50,000 application developers for those devices,” he says. …”

SVASE Announces Most Promising Demonstrators of Launch: Silicon Valley 2007

Smaato, d.light design, Data Robotics, Eyejot, Jaxtr, Nuvora and LogSavvy are selected by Attendees from 29 Companies vying for distinctions

The Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs (SVASE) announced June 6th the Most Likely to Succeed at Launch: Silicon Valley 2007, the recently completed event for emerging technology companies.To culminate the June 5 event, held at the Microsoft Campus here, audience-judged awards were presented for best-in-class to companies in each of the six presenting categories. The companies singled out by the audience in each of the categories included:

1· Application Services : LogSavvy http://www.logsavvy.com
2· Business (Group I): Data Robotics http://www.datarobotics.com
3· Business (Group II): Smaato http://www.smaato.com
4· Digital Media: Eyejot http://www.eyejot.com
5· Energy: d.light design http://www.dlightdesign.com
6· Next Generation Internet: Jaxtr http://www.jaxtr.com
7· Life Sciences: Nuvora http://www.nuvorainc.com

“We are extremely pleased to pave the way for some excellent new companies and products entering the marketplace. Although we had to narrow down our salutations to just a few, there was tremendous talent as well as enthusiasm for the entrepreneurial spirit unearthed at this event,” said Chris Gill, President and CEO of SVASE.

More than 160 companies from across the globe applied for presentation spots at Launch: Silicon Valley and were narrowed down to 29 presenters by the event’s prestigious board of venture advisors. Each presenting company made a 10-minute onstage presentations to a voting audience of 300-plus in attendance at yesterday’s event.

The advisory board for Launch: Silicon Valley 2007 included Bill Reichert, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures; Allan May, Founder & Chairman, Life Science Angels; Warren Packard, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Ian Sobieski, Managing Director, Band of Angels; John Occhipinti, Managing Director, Woodside Fund, and Nancy Pfund, Managing Director, Bay Area Equity Fund, and JPMorgan.

The event was co-hosted by Garage Technology Ventures, and was joined by a number of high-profile sponsors.