Archive for January 2013
Interview with Waze – 34 million users and counting
Waze is a GPS mobile app that helps drivers navigate the globe in more efficient and adventurous ways depending on your destination. Concert, no address? Waze will take you there. The online Waze community has astronomical stats for any startup: doubling users in July 2012 from 10 to 20 million in 6 months! Apparently Waze […]
Here are the Top 5 most sought after Tech Freelancers in Europe
Berlin-based, freelance platform and cloud working expert Twago has a unique insight into which careers are hot at the moment Europe. Having grown by 40% in 2012 and now boasting of 180 000 freelancers offer their services on their platform, they now have the scale to be able to offer a view on how the job […]
The Five Must-Know people of Germany’s biggest startup city
I’ve had the fortune of spending the last two weeks in Germany, learning and exploring the startup scene, and I thought i’d share a little bit about what I’ve learned along the way. I know we normally cover the French tech scene, but as Germany is right next door, consider it a “know thy enemy” […]
It’s True. German startups officially received more funding than French in 2012
I’ve been quite confident thee past few weeks boasting France’s 93% increase in VC funding to French startups from 2011 to 2012 – I mean, 93% that’s amazing. And so, you can imagine my disappointment as I come across this VentureVillage article about investment in Germany to find the following quote: New figures, published yesterday, […]
In France, company creation is going up, but job creation is going down
In an effort to stave off unemployment, President Sarkozy created the ‘auto-entrepreneur’ status in 2008. Seen by some as a new wave of pro-business politics in France, by others as a simple way for Sarkozy to create a fasle dip in unemployment (auto-entrepreneurs are not technically unemployed, despite the fact that, as we know now, […]
‘Web-to-Store’ startup Pubeco raises 1.25 million euros from ISAI
Pubeco, who specialize in helping retailers digitalize all those annoying paper ads and catalogs they send potential customers, has just announced that they raised 1.25 million euros from French VC ISAI (Blablacar, Commerce Guys, Shopmium, & more). Since its founding in 2008 by Romain Sarels and Yannick Lalleau, Orchies-based (in Northern France) Pubeco has grown steadily to reach a solid […]
Social games start-up Pretty Simple Games hits gold
Back just over a month ago, Criminal Case was off to an impressive start, with nearly 100k DAUs. Fast forward, and this hit by Pretty Simple Games sees 1.5M daily players. The kicker(s)? Still almost no ads, organic growth being a staggering 97% of their total growth, and projected revenues for the game in 2013 […]
Rude VC: The importance of blogging for entrepreneurs
The entrepreneurs with whom I work closely are familiar with my repeated encouragement that they blog on a regular basis. Perhaps encouragement, as my portfolio companies might suggest, is too soft a word; unrelenting nagging is more like it. I’ve often felt like a lone voice in the wilderness on this topic, at least in […]
French Government looks timid on Twitter’s Transparency report, but not for long.
This past week, Twitter released their second Transparency Report, a public report about requests by governments concerning user information, content removal, etc. The report cited 1858 information request, 46 removal requests, and 6,646 Copyright Notices, and as Twitter continues to grow in France and abroad, this report will become more & more interesting. As of […]
What’s the deal with TheNextWeb’s Startup Awards?
I’m a pretty big fan of TNW. So much so that I’ve been syndicating RB Content on their site for the past few months, and they’re pretty much involved with everything cool going on in the European Startup Scene; however, for the past few weeks I’ve been scratching my head trying to figure our their […]