Mark Bivens
Japan to Europe: Game on ! (act 2)
Fasten your seatbelts, because the European mobile games market is about to become a lot more interesting. Not that the market has been dormant. I can’t think of a recent ride on the Paris metro or London tube without witnessing someone playing Candy Crush or Clash of Clans. And now Candy Crush maker King.com is […]
Rude VC: How the 2013 Ironman championship relates to entrepreneurship
Frederik Van Lierde won the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii this past Sunday. The Belgian broke the 6-time winning streak held by Australians in the swim/bike/run grand-daddy (that’s 3.9km/180km/42.1km for each segment, respectively). These pro triathletes are in my opinion the most elite athletes in the world. Merely having an opportunity to compete at […]
Rude VC: a mESS in the diaper
Regular readers of this column know that I generally don’t do politics. I prefer to spend my waking hours helping my portfolio companies, and by extension, the French startup ecosystem in general. It is in this latter category that when I detect legislation that could seriously imperil our ecosystem, I feel an obligation to openly […]
Rude VC: Those silly fees
My earlier piece about the French government’s newly-announced PEA-PME initiative led to a broader discussion about transparency and investment performance. [By way of recap, I had written that I’m hopeful the PEA-PME could offer indirect benefits to small tech startups that trickle back by helping capitalize downstream companies that are larger and already listed, thus […]
Intro’s, investment sweetspots, NDAs (or not): How to pitch me
I consider myself really fortunate to work as a VC. It feeds my ego to think I’m smart, but the truth is that my smarts come mainly from exposure in high volumes to truly smart people, i.e. you, the entrepreneurs. My purported wisdom derives mainly from the catbird seat my job affords me to witness […]
Do what you say: the art of following through.
Ok, I’ll admit it: ever since I naturalized to French citizenship I’ve become somewhat more critical of my adopted country. I don’t view this as betrayal; on the contrary, I’ve developed an affinity for France so strong that it pains me to witness habits that in my opinion are destructive to the future of this […]
Rude VC on the PEA-PME and tax optimization game
Last week’s post on finance minister Pierre Moscovici’s newly announced measure of a PEA for SMEs in France prompted some feedback that caught me off guard. Beyond the customary reactions wavering between praise and consternation (usually tilting toward the latter), I found myself in the unusual position of being solicited for tax planning advice. “Should […]
Rude VC: France’s new PEA-PME
For tech startups in France, the September rentrée from summer holidays often seems to hold regulatory and fiscal surprises, certainly from the current government administration. This year is no exception, although the rumors are promisingly less detrimental than last year’s bombshell, when the new fiscal budget announced a debilitating capital gains tax regime. The flagship […]
Rude VC: Europe’s leading VC countries, part två
Last month I superimposed the data for VC investment in 2012 onto a map of Europe (see here). The feedback was overwhelming, and some excellent suggestions arose along the lines of indexing the investment to each country’s respective size. In absolute terms, out of the total 3.5 B€ invested by VCs in Europe in 2012, […]
Rude VC’s Summer reading list 2013
Last year’s summer reading list proved so popular that I’ve decided to renew it. The guiding criteria for books to fit this list are merely: i) to have some connection to startups, technology, VC, or Europe; and ii) to not be too heavy or intensely intellectual. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, […]