Archive for October 2014
Yelp acquires Cityvox to double down on French market
Review site Yelp has acquired its French equivalent, Cityvox, for an undisclosed sum, the company announced this week. Cityvox, founded in 1999, was purchased by telecom company Orange in 2008. As JournalduNet reports, the company counts 1.3 Million members and 300,000 reviews across various cities in France – staggeringly small compared to Yelp, Foursquare, or […]
Vente Privée’s failure in the US; former employees point to founder mismanagement and megalomania
The French company that coined “Flash sales,” a phenomenon that has been cloned around the world by the likes of Gilt Groupe and others, has announced it will discontinue activity in the United States just a few years after launching a joint venture with American Express. Vente Privée has built a powerful eCommerce business in France, where […]
Deezer acquires top talk & entertainment app Stitcher
Deezer has announced that it is acquiring Stitcher, the leading provider of personalized internet talk radio and award-winning mobile products. Presumably this will help Deezerapidly step up their presence in the highly competitive US market, which is a new and top priority market for them. With this move they can now offer consumers access to 35k radio shows […]
Still not shipped, Lima responds to critics 1 year after its KickStarter campaign
On September 8th, 2013, Lima completed its KickStarter campaign, raising $1,229,074 (well beyond its $69,000 goal, which it shattered in a matter of hours), despite having to change their name midway through the campaign. At the time the largest KickStarter campaign in France (they have since been leapfrogged by Giroptic), the company went on to raise another […]
Balderton poaches Xange’s Nicolas DeBock to doubledown on French investments
Balderton Capital announced this month that they will be bringing on board Nicolas Debock, of Xange, as a Principal. Debock will be based primarily in Paris, and will lead up Balderton’s investments in France. Balderton Capital already has a fellow Francophone Partner, Bernard Liautaud, who announced Debock’s arrival during a private get together last week in […]
Criteo ads reach nearly one billion users worldwide each month
A latest study by comScore has found that Criteo reaches nearly one billion Internet (precisely 994M) users each month with their customized ads, dynamically created in real-time. This finding underscores Criteo’s increasing dominance in the online ad space, with their global reach only second to Google’s Display Network. Criteo has sought to reach new internet users […]
Breaz.io opens up its Tech Talent Auctionhouse to Interns
Earlier this year I wrote about Breaz.io, an auction-house for Tech talent. Starting this past Summer, Breaz began hand-selecting 10 programmers/developers/graphic designers/sysAdmin’s – tech talent – and putting them up on the auction block for companies to bid for – those companies include Tinyclues, Algolia, PeopleDoc, Prestashop, and many more. On average candidates find employment just 2 weeks after […]
On-Demand Delivery heats up in Paris
Paris might not be reputed for customer service – in fact, it is hyperbolically, categorically difficult to get something in France at all. Grocery shopping on a Sunday or after 9PM? Don’t count on it. Ordered that café 30 minutes ago? It’ll get there. Waiting in line in front of multiple cash registers only to find […]
Adikteev raises €1.1 million for their ‘moment advertising’ ad platform
Paris adtech startup Adikteev, recently closed a €1.1 million round with ISAI. Ventech and a series of angels, including Laurent Asscher (investor in Webedia, Mailjet, Orolia and others), Cyril Vermeulen (ex-auFeminin.com), Philippe Besnard (Quantum advertising and ex-Specific Media) and Bastien Duclaux (Twenga), also joined the round. Founded in 2012, Adikteev is a premium ad platform that centers around what […]
Qucit launches world’s first bikeshare predictive API
Bordeaux-based big data startup Qucit released this month the world’s first bikeshare predictive API. It is tightly integrated in iPhone and Android app La Bonne Station (the new iPhone version was released yesterday). The app uses the API to power a visualization of predicted bike availability over 12 hours in the future, at any given […]