Liam Boogar
RIP French Super Angels: don't fall in the new funding trap
Jerome Camblain runs Camblain Advisory in London he also angel-invest in French and UK startups for over 15 years. You can follow him on twitter at @CamblainAdvisor. The French recent tax changes and its effects on the startups ecosystem have been commented a lot, and rightly so. The first money you raise, whether you call it “Love Money”, […]
France doesnt need more accelerators, it needs more mentors
This article is written specifically using my knowledge of the French ecosystem, but I think that this easily applies to any “emerging” ecosystem – every ecosystem outside of the Silicon Valley, New York & London can be seen as “emerging.” I’m often asked what I think is the best incubator, accelerator, co-working space or cafe […]
Gilles Babinet says 4 French Investment funds are leaving France
Earlier this week, a tweet from Captain Dash founder and France’s “Digital Champion” for the EU, Gilles Babinet, got a fair amount of attention. This may be perhaps because Babinet’s tweet claimed that he knew of four different French investment funds who will be leaving France directly because of the tax changes. Just days later, […]
Mixed Feelings about Pellerins SayOuiToFrance Speech
Yesterday at MIT’s EmTech, an annual conference focused on emerging technologies and their impact, Minister of the Digitale Economy Fleur Pellerin gave a speech entitled: France as an Incubator of Innovation. During the talk, Pellerin announced the launch of SayOuiToFrance-Innovation.com (yeah, I’m also shocked that domain was available), an English-language site which looks to encourage businesses to invest in […]
Flirtatious Labs – Making a game out of Flirting
Note: Serge Versille, founder of Flirtatious Labs, is a regular (and amazing) contributor to our blog, writing about the Games Sector. When I was first contacted by Serge, I almost sent his email directly to spam. “It’s a flirting game” the email boasted and I thought “oh god, another creepy dating site.” I essentially told […]
Mixed messages In French Innovation Ad in NYTimes
New Yorkers and readers around the world woke up Tuesday morning to find a full-page ad in the New York Times advertising France’s legal propensity for innovation and entrepreneurship. The ad, original pointed out by ISAI GM & #geonpi spokesperson Jean-David Chamboredon, received a fair amount of attention, perhaps because it came out on the […]
BlaBlaCar Rolls Out in Benelux, Portugal & Poland
BlaBlaCar announced this morning that they are rolling out their P2P ride-sharing marketplace in five new countries: Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands & Luxembourg), Portugal & Poland. In addition, In the announcement, BlaBlaCar said it has joined forces with Poland’s Superdojazd, a local car sharing network that was just about to launch, and they will be setting up an […]
Currency Cloud closes £1.2M from French investors
FX-MM reported this morning that French investor XAnge Private Equity has invested £1.2M into Currency Cloud, a currency exchange as-a-service platform that allows cross-border transactions. XAnge will join investors Atlas Ventures, Notion Capital, and Anthemis who invested a total of 4.5M in 2012 alone. The Currency Cloud enables transaction-based web companies, money transfer businesses and […]
Fed up with French Tax? MOVE Guides can move you to London!
The following is an approved guest post by Brynne Herbert Mon dieu! Much to the chagrin of France’s business and start-up community, Francois Hollande announced his foreboding tax changes this fall, including a disturbingly high 75% tax rate on incomes above £800,000 per year and 62.2% capital gains tax rate. The outcry of the business […]
Tigerlily expands from Facebook to Mobile
Social. Local. Mobile. We’ve all heard it before – but have we really? With iOS6’s release, integration with Facebook and Passbook have made it easier than ever to provide an experience on each app that is SoLoMo. This past week, French startup Tigerlily, which specializes in custom Facebook integrations for brands, released a video detailing […]