Archive for September 2015
France has its tech Unicorn. Next it needs its Unicorpse.
France allegedly crowned its first unicorn last week when BlaBlaCar raised a new funding round led by Insight Venture Partners of $160 million at a post-money valuation of $1.2 billion. Actually, there is some debate on whether BlaBlaCar represents France’s very first unicorn (some argue that Vente-Privée should hold that title, but that’s beside the […]
Azendoo raises $1.5 Million to bring their Slack-like tool to marketing teams
Bordeaux-based Azendoo announced they’d raised a $1.5 Million round of funding last week, building on top of what has been a winding road through the productivity tool landscape. The startup, which raised $1 Million initially to build their “get sh!t done” to-do list app, has grown to more than 300,000 users in the past 3 years. Its growth, which […]
Struggling, Viadeo seeks new life in the freelance market
Less than a year ago, I wrote that Viadeo’s market cap had dropped below the sum total of private equity money raised before its IPO – the company was struggling to produce revenue in the wake of LinkedIn’s global adoptions, and the only market it was seeing real adoption (China), wasn’t going to pay divends in the […]
WeMoms, the first application for moms, raises € 600k
Launched just six months, WeMoms, the first mobile application designed for moms, has raised € 600,000, counting on a solid network of 50,000 moms all over France. The application is revolutioninzing the relationship between women with pregnancy or maternity problem, allowing moms of every age to share their knowledge help each other. “Whatever time of day or […]
Mr Gabriel : from #ParisFounders to €591,000 funding!
French start-up VProject just raised € 591K to fund the growth of Mr Gabriel, the first security application designed specifically for Apple Watch. For those of you who weren’t at Paris Founders Event the past April, Mr Gabriel is the first security application designed specifically for Apple Watch. Using the data from the sensors connected watches and smartphones […]
"My Venereal Disease" (and other startup naming blunders)
{Note: This post is meant to provoke but is not intended to offend. Most of the startups I mention, and I’ve met a lot of them, have pretty good products. Moreover, I credit their founders for their creativity and daring in a language that is not their native tongue: important traits of successful entrepreneurs.} Over […]
France24 plans partnership with Mashable and raises questions of unfair competition
Recently, the news of a joint project to be realised between French public information channel France24 and US private digital media website Mashable has created a big buzz. Indeed, both companies plan to launch an online media website covering tech and international news in French. France24 is since 2008 wholly owned by the French government […]
The Golden Age of E-commerce in the US: How will EU startups take advantage of it?
The following is a guest post from Jason McDonald, Director of StringCan Interactive Paris, StringCan Interactive is an American based digital strategy, design and development agency that helps European startups gain access to the US market. You can follow StringCan on twitter at @StringCanEU. At StringCan, we believe that European companies have been presented with […]
Smartphone repair service Save raises €15 Million to repair all your broken gadgets
Smartphones. They break. What else is there to say? Just over two years ago, then student Damien Morin decided to change the way smartphone repair worked, and launched Save (formerly Savemysmartphone), a smartphone repair service that would bring transparency to the market. Previously, smartphone repair was done in shoddy locations, and the quality and trust was minimal. Save […]
Up 70% from 2014, 250 French startups pulled in €750 Million in H1 2015
EY has released their bi-annual report on France’s private equity market, and the numbers look promising. After ISAI’s Business Angel report showed that, finally, business angel activity in France is starting to pick up, it looks like VCs can boast the same activity. €759 Million was raised in the first half of the year, putting France […]