Archive for March 2013
European Innovation in Online Payments rated the lowest in the World, yet again.
Today, global payments player Ixaris, and financial services investment and advisory group Anthemis released a report identifying global trends in payments innovation. The report, which compiles the results from the Global Innovation Jury – a panel of 25 leaders in the payments sector from 14 countries and 5 continents who meet every two years – discusses innovations in […]
Ykone wants to build the bridge of Social Fashion between France and the US
When Ykone sent me the announcement about the opening of their US office I first thought this was the dumbest idea I have heard this year. The use of social media by US brands is years ahead compared to France, in particular within Fashion and Luxury brands. I experienced this first hand when I participated […]
Spideo Brings its B2B Video Recommendation engine straight to the consumer with its new iPad App
A while back we wrote about Spideo, a startup with a powerful video recommendation engine, that is already being used by content publishers like Canal+ to power CanalPlay’s video recommendation. At the time when we first introduced them, they were on their way to New York for the Digital Tech Tour, where they might publishing […]
The Key Thing Entrepreneurs Need to Understand About Storytelling
The following post is a guest post by Alexis Niki, a Paris-based founder & CEO of StoryNova, which provides concept and story strategy and development support. You can follow her at @AlexisNiki. On Monday, I’m giving a talk on storytelling for entrepreneurs at a business school. As I prepare, it occurs to me that people are still not convinced […]
eBuzzing-owned Beezik to shut down – employees to join eBuzzing team
After having launched 2009 and grown to over 3 million subscribers last year, the music download service Beezik will be ceasing its operations. The owners of the Beezik platform, BeeAd, decided to voluntarily shut down Beezik principally because their model, which was based on advertising supported downloads, was deemed not to be viable outside of […]
Women in Tech get a big boost with the Girls in Tech European Lady Pitch Night
On April 4th, Girls in Tech Paris will host the European Lady Pitch Night, where 5 startups (with at least one female co-founder) will be brought out to Paris (all expenses paid) to compete in a pitch competition. For startups who are qualify – you must have your HQ in Europe, have at least one […]
French government reveals plans to build “world-class” incubator for 1,000 startups in Paris
In what seems to be a never-ending trickle of announcements from the government about their digital agenda, Fleur Pellerin announced in an interview this week with Liberation that she wants to create a ‘world-class’ incubator in Paris. The incubator would have space for 1k startups and would be located either in the Hall Freyssinet in the 13th […]
Alven Capital close to closing their 120 million euro fourth fund
Alven Capital announced this week on their blog that they are “very close to reaching their hard cap of 120M€,” and thus closing their 4th fund, Alven Capital IV. The firm, which has made investments in iAdvize, Drivy, Mailjet, Textmaster, Qosmos, Commerce Guys & more, has been pretty quiet lately, despite a few good exits in […]
The curious case of Laure Fabre, the Google Ventures France “employee” on LinkedIn
For me, each Social Network has its own rules, in terms of who I accept/follow. I’ve always been quite particular about who I follow with my personal account, and we tend to follow people we engage with and people who we write about with @RudeBaguette.LinkedIn, unfortunately, due to its business nature and the advantages that […]
Orange launches San Francisco-based accelerator Orange Fab | Applications open today!
French ISP and Mobile operator Orange announced today the launch of Orange Fab, a startup accelerator based in San Francisco intended to help startups with existing products grow their businesses. The accelerator is meant for US-based startups (sorry French startups), lasts for 12 weeks, and will feature a demo day in both the Silicon Valley […]