Archive for October 2012
Gilles Babinet says 4 French Investment funds are leaving France
Earlier this week, a tweet from Captain Dash founder and France’s “Digital Champion” for the EU, Gilles Babinet, got a fair amount of attention. This may be perhaps because Babinet’s tweet claimed that he knew of four different French investment funds who will be leaving France directly because of the tax changes. Just days later, […]
Mixed Feelings about Pellerins SayOuiToFrance Speech
Yesterday at MIT’s EmTech, an annual conference focused on emerging technologies and their impact, Minister of the Digitale Economy Fleur Pellerin gave a speech entitled: France as an Incubator of Innovation. During the talk, Pellerin announced the launch of SayOuiToFrance-Innovation.com (yeah, I’m also shocked that domain was available), an English-language site which looks to encourage businesses to invest in […]
4 Time Myths Entrepreneurs Get Wrong
Entrepreneurs will get this wrong as Lance Armstrong did which is to finish quick and dirty. You can’t afford to work as hard as you do if you miss key concepts about time. What do you think your start-up needs more? A massive twitter following? Likes on Facebook? User acquisition due yesterday? How you value […]
Silicon Europe: the growing micro and Nanoelectronics Sector
This week saw the announcement of the formation of a new ‘cluster of clusters’ called (not surprisingly) Silicon Europe, which has as its goal to make Europe the leading center for energy efficient micro- and nanoelectronics and information and communications technology (ICT). The country specific clusters that have come together on this new initiative are […]
App Developer conference AppDays comes Nov. 9th to Paris
Yurplan, a Lyon-based startup around events, is organizing AppDays, a one-day event on November 9th in Paris, that, well, is all about apps – how to develop them, the different platforms and their evolution, and lots of nitty-gritty details on how to approach app development and how to market them. Keynote speaker Yann Lechelle is one […]
Flirtatious Labs – Making a game out of Flirting
Note: Serge Versille, founder of Flirtatious Labs, is a regular (and amazing) contributor to our blog, writing about the Games Sector. When I was first contacted by Serge, I almost sent his email directly to spam. “It’s a flirting game” the email boasted and I thought “oh god, another creepy dating site.” I essentially told […]
Mixed messages In French Innovation Ad in NYTimes
New Yorkers and readers around the world woke up Tuesday morning to find a full-page ad in the New York Times advertising France’s legal propensity for innovation and entrepreneurship. The ad, original pointed out by ISAI GM & #geonpi spokesperson Jean-David Chamboredon, received a fair amount of attention, perhaps because it came out on the […]
Inspiring leaders crack the agency problem
Of the multiple traits that distinguish inspiring leaders, I submit that the fundamental undercurrent relates to their ability to crack the agency problem. The theory of the agency problem, or more accurately, agency costs, represents the inherent misalignment in the relationship between an agent and a principal. Agency costs arise when a company’s employees (the […]
BlaBlaCar Rolls Out in Benelux, Portugal & Poland
BlaBlaCar announced this morning that they are rolling out their P2P ride-sharing marketplace in five new countries: Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands & Luxembourg), Portugal & Poland. In addition, In the announcement, BlaBlaCar said it has joined forces with Poland’s Superdojazd, a local car sharing network that was just about to launch, and they will be setting up an […]
Currency Cloud closes £1.2M from French investors
FX-MM reported this morning that French investor XAnge Private Equity has invested £1.2M into Currency Cloud, a currency exchange as-a-service platform that allows cross-border transactions. XAnge will join investors Atlas Ventures, Notion Capital, and Anthemis who invested a total of 4.5M in 2012 alone. The Currency Cloud enables transaction-based web companies, money transfer businesses and […]