Here at Beige, those of us who used to work on the left coast of the US miss our daily dose of Silicon Valley entrepreneurial, boot-strapped spirit and enthusiasm. So we are thrilled that TechCrunch has an outpost here in London and that they decided, yesterday evening, to hold the first London CrunchUp meet-up since 2008. Long overdue, guys!

With amazing sunny weather on the terrace of the South Bank, lots of folks in polo shirts and khakis talking apps, start-ups, APIs and venture capital, we almost felt like we were back in Palo Alto for a minute. Still, the laid-back community vibe was there and we talked to many interesting and brilliant people, all working on the kind of inspiring projects that have put London’s Silicon Roundabout on the map.

Great conversation, an intelligent, inspiring crowd and microbrews on a roof terrace – what more can you ask for? If you missed this one, you can find out more here and hopefully we’ll see you at the next one.

Thanks to @mikebutcher for putting on a great community event and a big shout-out to the CrunchUp sponsors:

• NHS.info – @dawson, Founder of Cambridge Healthcare

 • Viadeo.com – @viadeo thanks to @waynegibbins

• Peoplebrowsr.com @peoplebrowsr “social analytics with 1,000 days of tweets”

 • Corkbin.com – @corkbin, “your pocket wine memory”

Sasha Szczepanski

Beige