Archive for June 2014
After Just Eat, Zendesk, King & Criteo, Index Ventures announces new €400 Million fund
Index Ventures has closed €400 Million fund, which it plans to use to invest in “more of the same” – which for Index Ventures, means global leaders in the industries of FinTech, Mobile, Big Data, Security & Marketplaces. In conjunction with its announcement to invest in Europe, the US & Israel, Index Ventures has doubled […]
FinTech to take center stage at this year’s ICT Spring on 3-4 July
ICT Spring Europe, one of Europe’s longest running and largest tech events, will be kicking off on July 3rd at the new Conference Center Kirchberg in Luxembourg. This year’s event will take a finance oriented turn, titled “INNOVATING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE; FinTech: disrupt or be disrupted”. As such, it will explore the innovative business models, cutting edge technology […]
The VC world in France needs more transparency. I’ll start.
Having waxed extensively about the opacity of France’s venture capital industry, I’ve decided it’s time that I practice what I preach. The venture capital sector in France operates in a fog of complexity, with limited accountability, and in some cases deliberate secrecy. I believe this is wrong. I believe that a VC fund’s investors, portfolio […]
Textmaster raises another €1 Million for their content marketplace
Paris-based startup Textmaster has raised another €1 Million from its traditional investors (Alven Capital, Fabrice Grinda, eFounders, Geoffroy Bragadir), and has added Webedia co-founder Cédric Siré to the board. Textmaster provides a variety of content services – translation, content generation, writing, etc. – and provides a “qualified crowdsourced” marketplace, as co-founder Thibault Lougnon called it in an […]
1800 attendees descend upon Nantes for Web2Day, France’s largest extra-Parisian startup conference.
I spent most of last week in Nantes, where Web2Day was hosting its 6th edition – easily the biggest one yet. Organized by Atlantic 2.0, a non-profit association which provides co-working and event space for startups, Web2Day has become my go-to “outside of Paris” French conference: it brings out hundreds of Parisians for 3 days, […]
With Version 1.0, Docker sets stage for next big wave of innovation in the cloud
Yesterday at DockerCon in San Francisco, French-born company Docker Inc, released the long awaited 1.0 version of its open source container-based virtualization software. Docker also announced several complementary services which provide insight into how Docker, Inc, the commercial entity behind the open source project, plan to monetize the massive community that has grown up around […]
Recommend raises 800k euros to fuel their product and marketing development
After raising 450k following on their strong showing at the ’12 Le Web startup competition, Recommend has raised an new € 800k round with Xavier Niel (Kima Ventures), Charles Beigbeder (Gravitation), Carlos Da Silva (Go Voyages/Odigeo founder) and Guillaume Victor-Thomas (Ecotour founder and CEO). Recommend officially launched just 6 months ago on the Apple store. Although the concept […]
“Digital Sovereignty” can’t be about an OS “made in France”
The phrase “digital sovereignty” has been all the rage in France since Skyrock CEO Pierre Bellanger first introduced it in 2011: “digital sovereignty is the mastery of our present and our fate as expressed in the use of tech and computer networks”. “No national sovereignty is possible without digital sovereignty. The Internet is a global network entirely […]
La Maison du Bitcoin hosts the first French bitcoin hackathon
La Maison du Bitcoin is hosting the very first French bitcoin hackathon. It will take place on June 13-14-15th in the brand new coworking space, 35 rue du Caire, 2nd arrondissement of Paris. Many entrepreneurs are thinking about working on bitcoin projects in France, but so far only a dozen startups have been launched. The […]
Aldebaran and Japan’s SoftBank to launch the first emotionally-aware robot ‘Pepper’
Aldebaran has been making quite a bit of news lately in the world of robotics and are, increasingly looking the the leader in their field. They’ve long had ambitions to not only bring humanoid robots to the masses, but also to do so on a global scale. After having raised $20 million by 2011, in […]