Berlin’s a busy town at the moment – we’ve put together a news round up from the past 24 hours.
The Scout24 group’s startup incubator You Is Now has added to the growing list of accelerators in Berlin with a new program featuring three teams. Warmmiete24, a platform identifying the extra costs of renting a place to live such as heating, event venue portal meinelocation.com and CleanBerlin, which allows direct booking of cleaners, will all take part in the three-month pilot project at You Is Now’s Berlin offices.
They will receive financial support and office space as well as access to mentors and the expertise and infrastructure of Immobilienscout24.
You Is Now’s Dr. Torsten Oelke said: “We are pleased to now also give founding teams the opportunity to develop their ideas and test their user and functionality concepts over a short and intensive period.”
——–
Language-learning platform Babbel has seen its apps top the 10 million download mark. English, Spanish and French are the most popular languages, with apps available on iOS, Android, Amazon and Windows 8.
In addition, the company says its products top the education charts in 35 countries, and CEO Markus Witte said the trend towards mobile would continue: “We’re enormously proud that so many people worldwide have elected for our apps. From the very beginning, Babbel was intended as a cross-platform learning system, and now, after six years, the time is ripe for this. The number of Babbel’s mobile users will soon surpass that of web users. This is a general trend that ties in perfectly with our product concept.”
——–
Uber has made Munich its second Germany city with Wednesday’s launch in the Bavarian city. Just as previously in Berlin, the luxury car ride firm has had ‘secret Ubers’ on the streets for some time to get the service off the ground.
——–
Following from an initial link up in 2012, DeliveryHero has now invested a further €5 million into its Indian partner TastyKhana. The food delivery platform has been keen to expand internationally in the face of strong competition, and the mobile market in India is especially attractive – TastyKhana, based in the city of Pune, has seen a 40 percent increase in sales in recent months.
DeliveryHero CEO Niklas Oestberg said: “The strength in our core markets allows us to invest in smaller, innovative companies like TastyKhana to accompany them with technological know-how and financial resources on their way to the top.”
——–
The first cook app built using appetico, the Vegan Nom Noms Cook App, has been launched in the App Store and Google Play. It was created by American food blogger Nicole Abramowski, who like appetico is based in Berlin.
Appetico is publishing software which enables independent authors and publishers of food and drink content to monetise their work by creating interactive and unique without any custom programming.
——–
The latest startup to come out of Neukölln, Quarterland, will join forces with a local arts festival to launch the beta version of its app. The app will feature the festival guide to 48 Stunden Neukölln, including a live map highlighting activities and details as they happen.
Quarterland founder Torsten Fischer said: “”We share a common cause with 48 Stunden Neukölln. The festival empowers a community by operating this platform for expression to anyone that has something to say. It fills a real need for purpose and connection amongst people. No wonder, it has grown to be one of largest arts festival in Berlin.”