On July 4, twelve of the top BizSpark startup founders in Europe will gather in Berlin to talk shop and demonstrate their startup business models in front of a cast of leading investors and innovators from around the EU.

There will also be a moment set aside for the People's Choice Award, an award that goes to the startup that captures the hearts of fellow founders and anyone who follows the scene.

Currently, three startups are vying for the top spot.

Screemo has come up from its fourth place spot and is now firmly in the lead. 

We have not linked to those startups here, but you should visit our voting page to get complete information about the startups so that you can vote.

 Voting continues until July 4, so if you want to see your startup favorite win the BizSpark European Summit People's Choice Award, make sure to vote and to tell your supporters to vote. 

This blog post is written by Mark Voermans, Audience Marketing Manager for Microsoft in The Netherlands.

One of the best things about my role here at Microsoft is mentoring some of the best start-ups in Europe.  I get to see them at all parts of their journey, from the very early days when they’ve had a great idea but are still trying to work out what to do with it, through to their ‘wow’ moments.  So, this week, I’m delighted to report that 7Write has just closed a seed financing round of $250,000, with a group of investors including Peter Davison (if the name’s familiar, he was a seed investor in PayPal).  This Dutch company is also one of the start-ups taking part in the latest Startupbootcamp programme (the acceleration programme for startups (of which I’m a mentor).

So what’s so attractive about 7write?  Well, like all the best start-ups, it appeals to something we all love and is a brilliantly simple but clever idea. 

The  7write  ‘writers  studio’  allows  users  to  easily  write  their  book  anywhere,  anytime, online  or  offline  on  any  device.  Using  the  7write  ‘Authors  Centre’  writers  can  self-­publish their  work  with  a  single  click.  Let’s put some perspective on that:  this is a market with an estimated 416 billion value by 2016 (source: PWC Media & Entertainment Outlook 2013-2017)

First in its Startupbootcamp class to raise capital, Dutch start-up 7write launched its closed beta just recently and has already started publishing books.  One of its early adopters has already been featured in the Amazon top 30 best-selling short stories authors barely a week after publication.  (And I can’t resist mentioning the fact that 7write have built their tool entirely on the Microsoft stack, including Windows 8, Windows Phone and Windows Azure).  

If you’re in the Amsterdam area on Friday 28^th June, see if you can get an invite to Startupbootcamp’s Demo Day: not only will 7write be releasing the latest version of its book platform, it will be a chance to meet some of the other startups taking part in the programme, plus we’ll have a couple of VIPs visiting us:  Vice  President  of  the  European  Commission  Neelie Kroes  and  Queen  Máxima  of  The  Netherlands  will  be  guests  of  honour  at  the  event.

And, if you’re a start-up who wants to follow in 7write’s impressive footsteps, don’t forget that the deadline for the next Startupbootcamp (Copenhagen, focusing on mobile) is on June 30^th!

PS: Interested in charting the course of European Startups of the future? Take time to vote now for the best BizSpark startup in Europe.

Every year, we take the ten to twelve hottest startups in the BizSpark program from Europe and vote on what the market thinks is the absolute hottest startup. We've created a list of the twelve finalists for this year's Microsoft BizSpark Euro Summit, which will be held in Berlin July 4. You can now vote on your choice.

Please read through these companies. Click on the Vote Now link under the one you like. The scores will be tallied after voting closes on July 4. 

Booklikes 
Country: Poland
www.booklikes.com

BookLikes is a global blogging platform designed for book lovers that lets its users create a personal webpage with a blog, virtual bookshelf and reading timeline. It’s a mix of a Tumblr-like blog platform, book cataloguing site and social network. BookLikes is a service designed particularly for people interested in books with functions dedicated to book readers.

Book lovers can share book reviews and other book-related content, follow interesting blogs, read reviews and texts by other popular users or simply collect and organize books on virtual bookshelf. BookLikes is available in three language versions and gives insight into 12 book databases from 30 international booksellers.

 Vote Now

BugSense Inc

Country: Greece
www.bugsense.com

BugSense is on a mission to set the quality standard for mobile apps. Analyzing 5 billion metrics each month across various platforms, BugSense provides more than 20,000 developers globally - including Fortune 500 companies - with app performance reports that help developers identify issues and create better mobile app experiences.

BugSense solution has the largest distribution in the industry (3rd most used SDK after Google Analytics and Flurry).

VOTE NOW

Omegawave

Country: Finland                               

www.omegawave.com

Based on research in sports science and space medicine, Omegawave provides leading methods for monitoring an athlete’s functional condition. Omegawave delivers instantly relevant advice on the optimum amount of intensity and volumes of training. By identifying an athlete’s physiologically limiting factors and providing guidelines to eliminate them, Omegawave helps to improve performance, prevent overtraining, decrease injuries and improve fitness and overall health.

Omegawave technology has been used by multiple Olympic Federations, premier soccer teams such as FC Barcelona, teams from the NFL, MLS, and NHL, and various other leading sports organizations. The company’s global headquarters are in Espoo, Finland.

VOTE NOW

RapidApe

Country: Germany
www.rapidape.com

Tracking of TV ads is mostly guessing. Existing tracking tools are barely able to deliver accurate performance measurement promptly.

RapidApe is the first BI tool combining TV tracking and monitoring in one solution, giving clients full insights in the performance of their TV campaigns.

RapidApe generates data for the performance of a TV ad regarding the campaign's goals and connects TV tracking with data that makes sense.

VOTE NOW

Schutzklick (Simple Insurance)

Country: Germany
www.schutzklick.de

simplesurance GmbH, operating under the name Schutzklick, is a provider of sales channels in eCommerce Shops for insurance products. The company offers various technical integration types to automate the closing and administration of insurance products. The insurance product portfolio covers all eCommerce relevant insurance product types.

 VOTE NOW

SCREEMO

Country: Israel
www.screemo.com

SCREEMO enables creation of real life interactive experiences between smartphones and digital screens.

SCREEMO is the world’s first cloud based SaaS platform allowing the fast, simple, and low cost creation and measurement of interactive experiences and abilities never available before to the mass market.

SCREEMO's patent pending solutions are up and running almost immediately at any location which is pre-deployed with digital screens, with no integration needed.

VOTE NOW

ScreenHits 

Country: UK

www.screenhits.tv

ScreenHits is a B2B and B2C online marketplace for the buying and selling of television and film content. It replaces the existing model of TV channels sending their teams to trade shows around the world to acquire content for their network. This new model aggregates content from the leading producers and distributors worldwide and filters it based on the needs of its buyers. ScreenHits provides instant viewing access of all the shows, which allows buyers to make quicker and more cost effective purchasing choices in a reasonable timeframe. In addition, with its highly intelligent search engine, buyers can search for content based on price, available territories, genre, rights, etc. It also provides helpful insight by engaging the viewing public to vote on the shows they want to see on TV.

VOTE NOW

FidMe / Snapp 

Country: France

www.snapp.fr

With 8 years of existence in mobile app development, FidMe - Snapp’, is Europe's leading mobile wallet application, allowing users to gather free loyalty cards of retailers and other businesses in one single place

VOTE NOW

Spreaker

Country: Italy

www.spreaker.com

Spreaker is a platform for creating and sharing audio, both live and pre-recorded. It allows people to capture live audio streams (interviews, music, comedy shows), edit them in real time by adding music and sound effects and share them everywhere.

VOTE NOW

Stonewash

Country: UK

www.stonewash.co.uk

Stonewash create magazine frameworks for smartphones and tablets. This enables magazine and catalogue publishers to turn offline content into visually compelling online content quickly on multiple platforms, enabling new revenue sources without disrupting their existing workflow. They also collate vast amounts of data on reading habits through reader profiles and subscriptions, which they provide to the publisher. Stonewash is the first app to provide detailed in-app analytics, and was the first app approved by Microsoft for Windows 8.

 VOTE NOW

Wantr

Country: Denmark

www.wantr.com

Wantr is a shopping tool that lets you collect all your favourite online stores in a single place, and updates you on their latest arrivals and sales. With an increasing need for a better overview in the online shopping space, Wantr provides a solution for people who want to stay updated on the latest styles and products in a fun and interesting way - without the hassle of checking multiple websites.

VOTE NOW

W.S.C Sports

Country: Israel

www.wscouting.com

W.S.C Sports Technologies helps broadcasters and media rights owners to exploit and monetize their digital sports rights with an automatic video generation platform that creates customized and personalized videos according to fans' preferences and editorial content. Using the platform, broadcasters and media rights owners generate new revenue streams from their video assets with increased inventory, number of video views and fan engagement. 

VOTE NOW

Inspiration for start-ups can come from all kinds of sources, but often, the start-up’s founder can remember a ‘lightbulb’ moment when they had the big idea.  Tiago Fernandes, a student entrepreneur from Portugal can recall that exact point of time when the lightbulb went off for Taggeo:  “I was talking to one of my professors at Porto University and he was saying how he loved to ride his bike in the mountain, take photos and then share those with other people.  It made me think that there had to be a way to share that experience even further.”

Sounds like FourSquare, right?  While it shares some of the same features, Tiago’s start-up, Taggeo, takes the whole concept one step further and makes sharing event-based information a rich experience.  Taggeo is an application that allows you to leave your tag (text and/or images) on a given place, making it visible to the whole world or just to your friends. Taggeo gives you the power to leave your mark anywhere: almost as if you were able to leave sticky notes, to hang pictures or just to write, pretty much everywhere.

The only boundary is your imagination. This is what makes Taggeo so fun and such an effective way of sharing information, and, of course, of looking for it as well.  Say you want to get feedback on a restaurant, a shop, etc. Just look for public tags (or your friend's tags) left on that very same location. If you are there, you will get them through the Taggeo app. If you are anywhere else, you can view all those tags in your PC, phone or tablet browser, simply by visiting www.taggeo.org.

The business model is two-tiered: one, collaborative marketing projects with other partners (for example, a brand might use Taggeo to leave highly customised messages for users in a specific city).  Taggeo will receive a small fee if the user receives the message, then another slightly large fee if the user reads the message.  The second level of the business model is to offer Taggeo’s services for custom-building applications using the technology.

What made Tiago think he had the know-how? 

“I’m a computer engineering graduate and am in my third PhD year at Porto University.  I’ve also done work experience at the European Space Agency, where I began to realise the huge potential of geo-location applications.”

So how did Tiago turn his idea into a startup that by the end of March 2013, already had over 2000 users worldwide (and growing fast)?

Tiago explains: “As well as myself, I also have two colleagues – who like me are still studying – who are helping out on marketing, communications and business strategy.  Recently, we  were also awarded  25,000 Euros by winning a competition called  Arrisca C, organised by the University of Coimbra.  This is helping us to continue developing Taggeo and other app ideas across IoS, Android and Windows Phone.” 

“When I first looked at the Windows Phone platform, I was a bit concerned because it was new and I thought that might mean it would be unstable.  But it has been a great development platform for us: it is more flexible than the other environments.  I’ve been so impressed that I’m thinking about extending our use of the Microsoft stack to include Azure.”

“But more than that, the help we’ve had from Microsoft has been great.  Sure, access to free technology has been very useful, but Henrique Carreiro and the rest of the Microsoft team in Portugal have been amazing.  They’ve given us lots of support and introduced us to useful contacts.”

Tiago has also recently become a Microsoft Student Partner.  “I like the fact that Microsoft works closely with universities, providing help to students through initiatives like DreamSpark.  Microsoft works hard to create a good community for students, so I’m very happy to be a Microsoft Student Partner and share that knowledge with my peers.”

Finally, what does this year hold for Tiago and the Taggeo team?

“We’ve just launched a new version of Taggeo so we’ll be interested to see how that is received.  We also hope to create some games and other apps and make those available worldwide.”

“Sometimes it is tough balancing study against being a start-up, but I’ve got used to having little sleep!  Having our own company means that we can create our own jobs, rather than depending on the local job market.  It’s an exciting time to be a start-up, even in a country where the economic environment is tough.”

Sonal Mane, a Microsoft startup technologist in Chicago, provides us with the second chapter in a series on effective and efficient Windows 8 development. This series helps members in Microsoft BizSpark move quickly through the design of an app in Windows 8.

One of the key reasons for apps being rejected or sent back for fixes is Design. This is a five part series where I will cover five key highlights for each design principle that aims at helping developers build a high quality app.

Today's topic will be Pride in Craftsmanship

Literally translated, to take pride in the work you are doing, you will naturally want to focus on the details. Every pixel matters. Think through and iterate as you build out your design. The easiest way to accomplish high quality craftsmanship is to use a design language based on typography and the grid system. Let's dive a little bit into these two areas, the Grid and Typography.

1. Grid

The Grid is a simplified system of grouping user experience elements together and works for the web. It provides a rhythm to your app and makes it look structured and easy to navigate. Across various screen sizes and devices, the Grid makes it easy for your app to scale and look great at the same time.

Three things to keep in mind while designing with the Grid are,

*  Focus on cleanliness, readability and alignment.

* The grid is formed by the content itself and the space around it. There are no visible gridlines around the content. Use space to create groupings and communicate the sense of relationships and structure in your content.

* Use the power of the grid to design with size, proportion and position. Use proportions to create visual hierarchy that allows users to easily scan and see the structure of information.

2. Typography

Great typography is not only beautiful and readable, but it also conveys structure and information hierarchy.  Windows 8 designers looked at print and the web and applied the same principles to Windows Store apps. Windows is based on clean, beautiful typography which creates a sense of structure and rhythm. It also establishes information hierarchy while consistently using a small set of fonts, font sizes weights and colors.

Three things to keep in mind while designing with typography are,

1. Use the Segoe UI font as it is the most recognizable font.

2. Use only four font sizes to establish information hierarchy. The Windows UI is a great example to look at. The font sizes are 42 pt, 20 pt, 11 pt, 9pt.

3. For Chinese, Japanese and Korean, you can use the Meiryo UI.

Here's a screenshot that explains the typography using font sizes and weights. 

Here's an example of an app that uses the Grid template and enhances it to create a beautiful user experience while maintaining a clean, content-first and proportionate look and feel. 

At minimum, if you keep use these two things - Grid and Typography, you app design will be a lot cleaner and structured. Here’s a video that dives into the layout around grid and covers more details on typography.