The Red Herring’s Top 100 Europe award, is a prestigious list honoring the year’s most promising private technology ventures from the European business region.

The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of hundreds from across Europe, the process started back in October 2012. The nominees are evaluated on 20 main quantitative and qualitative criterion: they include disruptive impact, market footprint, proof of concept, financial performance, technology innovation, social value, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.

This unique assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the actual track record and standing of a company, which allows Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list a valuable instrument for discovering and advocating the greatest business opportunities in the industry.

“This year was rewarding, beyond all expectations” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “The global economic situation has abated and there are many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products. We had a very difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists. Fantoo shows great promise and therefore deserves to be among the Finalists. We know that the 2013 crop will grow into some amazing companies that are sure to make an impact.”

Demo Day!

Europe’s first £Million Pound Accelerator Program came to a close, well the 13 weeks part of it, Really this is only just the beginning for all the teams. I thought I would write a brief inside view of how it all went for us at Fantoo, and this article reflects my personal view as the founder of 1 of 10 companies who got “Accelerated”.

You will see from our company blog, there are a number of weeks missing from an update, but that’s just an indication of how busy we got, so its going to end up being one of those story’s you hear about the end first, and then we go back to delve into the interesting bits which got us to where we are today!

Accelerator’s are few and far between as oppose to the companies which attempt to get into one, I think that’s a good thing because I quickly realized that the program was as much about my peers, and what we could each bring to the other than as much it was the experts, and mentors we were surrounded by.  Not to take anything away from them, they were very giving people, and supportive of our crazy ideas.  But, Entrepreneurs are an eccentric bunch, and bring the right number of them together into a melting pot where its drummed into everyone that we’re not here to compete with each other but support and grow, then great things happen. Looking back we all grew greater than the sum of our parts, and I’ve gained a respect for all my fellow alumni, and know that as we move onwards and upwards, many of us will continue to keep in touch and make the most of our unique coming together through ignite100.

I put a Montage together of our journey through the program and hope it will inspire other aspiring Entrepreneurs to make the most of any similar opportunity which may come their way, and the single best advice this Entrepreneur can give is: Make the most of the support, and sharp people around you. Most importantly hustle the process, and never forget that it is what you make of it.

Tribute Montage to the teams!

Jordan Fantaay (Founder – Fantoo.net)

Our friends at Beta Rocket, just covered the Dublin Web Summit, Europe’s biggest tech conference, where fantoo was representing disruption in the email space.

Email is finally hotting up again, no doubt thanks to the recent product announcements from the main web mail providers. Stay tuned for some product releases from fantoo, which some of you would have seen last week at the #WebSummit!

Check out the article here: Getting Noticed!

The #WEBSUMMIT was a resounding success, with over 3000 attendees, and the likes of Niklas Zennström founder of Skype and Mike McCue of Flipboard, needless to say the movers and shakers in the Digital tech space were in Dublin!

The Fantoo team were fortunate to meet a number of quality high profile investors from Europe and the U.S. and we look forward to building out the next phase in the company’s developments to scale the “future of email”. Our Pre series A round may have just opened up earlier than planned, we’re going beyond our accomplished 25% investment raise, and look to continue “interesting” discussions.

Thanks to all the partners and investors who spent time and invited us to meet with them, see you in a couple of weeks!

Alex was responsible for launching the brand “Virgin America” in the U.S. and then later responsible for the online  branding strategy for the Virgin Group Globally, suffice it to say we were grateful for his insights into how best to disrupt email and bring the “Campaign to Change Email” together.

Awesome guy, and great feedback on our user interface design!

Thanks Alex and see you in the beta.

This year is shaping up to be the largest and most attended event, with 3000+ people expected. START is the newest and most exclusive event for startups at the Dublin Web Summit. Bringing together 150 of the world’s most exciting and disruptive startups from every corner of the world, START is the sister event to the acclaimed f.ounders.

Fantoo will be taking a few days out of the Accelerator program to be a part of START, looking forward to meeting some awesome investors and partners! Future of Email is coming to Ireland!!

After weeks of interviews and talking to a number of Accelerator programs across the U.S. and Europe, including the likes of newcomers such as Techstars -The Microsoft Accelerator, the fantoo team accepted an offer to join Europe’s 1st Million Pound Accelerator in the U.K. with ignite100!
We’ve moved in, met our peers, some mentors and we’re amped to make the most of the process, stay tuned for more about the journey leading to, and through an accelerator program!

Singlehop our cloud services provider has just invited fantoo to join their “start-up program” whereby fantoo will receive services for free for a year! A big thanks to the team at Singlehop in helping us bring the future of email!

Thanks to everyone at Cambridge University Technology Ventures Conference 2012 for hosting us, a well organized event. Great insightful talks from Julie Meyer and David Rose. To all those who came to listen and sign up for our Exclusive Beta, you were a blast to talk to and some really good feedback on what’s about to be released from our Labs. Not bad for an afternoon we had 100 signup’s, keep in touch guys and Enjoy the Experience with your closest and dearest!!