Archive for December 2014
My five takeaways from LeWeb Conference
My five takeaways from LeWeb Conference 2014: The sharing economy is already impressive, and we ain’t seen nothing yet. Bitcoin has fallen out of favor, for now, and hence is probably a good contrarian play. Japan tech is the ultimate contrarian play. Expect the unexpected when a French politician takes the stage. Meditation is the […]
3DSecure failures cause big holiday headache for many French e-merchants
P The holiday season is often both a fruitful and trying time for many e-merchants trying to manage and fulfill the increasing number of online transaction. However, this season is likely to go down as an even more of a challenging one for many French e-merchants due to the repeated system failures of 3DSecure, a […]
OVH raises €267 million to take on the US cloud giants
OVH, France’s and Europe’s biggest cloud success, has raised €267 million from a bond issue and bank credit with one principal objective..to go toe-to-toe with the US cloud giants. During their recent annual conference this past October, OVH’s leadership made no secret their ambitious agenda to quickly expand abroad and move closer to the top of […]
European entrepreneurs: Beware the Silicon Valley travel trap
There seems be a growing trend in startup communities throughout continental Europe that I find a bit fatiguing. It has to do with the plethora of consultants offering to organize tailored travel packages for young tech companies to global tech hubs, usually Silicon Valley. Consultants are like ants: they usually show up when there’s a […]
SnapCar raises €2 million to further expand its Business Class focus
SnapCar is celebrating its 2nd year with big news, announcing that they’ve just closed an impressive €2 million round with a group of business angels, including top executives from the travel sector including, Charles Petruccelli,former CEO of American Express Travel and Bertrand Mabille, Carlson Wagonlit’s current DG for France. For SnapCar founders Dave Ashton and Yves Weisselberger, having such […]
At the heart of Paris’ thriving developer scene: Babyfoot.
Bearded, ponytailed, and dressed in swag, 100s of developers & startupers gather at the infamous developer school 42 – named after an iconic reference, opened by France’s geek billionaire Xavier Niel, and 100% free for all students. These developers aren’t here for a hackathon, they aren’t here for some new product unveiling, or for a conference: they’re […]
After Index, TheFamily welcomes WhiteStar and IDInvest into its club
TheFamily’s family of VC investors is growing – after Index announced it had entered into TheFamily’s capital in August of 2013, Paris’ largest non-accelerator, which counts 200+ startup members, has added two more hardhitting VCs to its list of investors: IDInvest & WhiteStar. In a blog post announcing the investment, TheFamily CEO & Co-founder said […]
Musings on VC internships in France
Last Friday at the office we held the pôt de départ (farewell party) of one of our interns. Although this young man was not working directly with me, I know that my colleague greatly appreciated this intern’s contribution for six months. This was my colleague’s first experience of recruiting a VC intern in France, and […]
Data Visualization startup qunb acquired by VE Interactive in “multi-million pound” deal
Data visualization startup qunb has been acquired by VE Interactive for a “a multi-million pound” amount, the later announced on their company website this week. qunb, once a self-described “YouTube of Data” is an alumni of both LeCamping & TechStars Boston, and had, since 2013, pivoted to push their Google Analytics data visualization. Earlier this month VE Interactive, […]
Following SFR and Virgin Mobile, Altice looks to acquire Portugal Telecom
Altice, led by telco mogul Patrick Drahi and owner of now SFR-Numericable, has their sights on Portugal Telecom (PT) for which it has made a reported 7.4 billion euro offer. As their offer proved to be more attractive than a rival 7.075 billion euros offer by Apax et Bain Capital, PT’s owner, Brazilian telco Oi, quickly advanced negotiations […]