Liam Boogar
Amazon & Netflix will fight it out for the French Market in 2013
This week, during a meeting with the Competition Authority, Canal+ President Bertrand Meheu fought off claims that his company had exclusivity on the VoD and SvoD market by suggesting that Netflix would be launching early in 2013. The investigation into the monopoly comes from the fact that, in addition to Canal+ offering the only VoD & SVoD […]
Client E-relation leader iAdvize raises €1M from Alven Capital
iAdvize announced yesterday that it has closed a round of funding of €1 Million from Alven Capital in order to accelerate its international development. Previously funded by Xavier Niel’s Kima Ventures & business angels to the tune of €100K, iAdvize was founded by Julien Hervouet and Jonathan Gueron in 2010. The company currently helps 800+ […]
Zilok Auto snags €1.5M from Jaina & the new Ecomobilité Ventures
ZIlok Auto announced yesterday a new round of funding from Marc Simoncini’s Jaina Capital & Ecomobilité Ventures, a Joint Venture fund by SNCF, Total & Orange. Zilok Auto is a peer-to-peer car rental service which hopes to help you monetize the 90% of the time you don’t use your car in order to subsidize the €6,000/year […]
Paris Capitale Startup is a Huge Mistake by Pellerin
While a battle rages on between entrepreneurs & investors against the government’s proposed laws, dubbed The Pigeon Movement, Minister of the Digital Economy Fleur Pellerin has announced today her intention to build a tech hub for Paris. According to La Tribune, Fleur Pellerin has been inspired by London’s £10 Billion project “UK Tech City,” which […]
High Speed Internet falls short in 1.7 Million User Test
Recently, the magazine 60 Millions de Consommateurs(“60 Million Consumers”) released a study on high speed Internet, testing the connection speed for over 1.7 million consumers in France between January 2011 and May 2012. As reported by Numerama[FR], the study showed that, while most operators advertise high-speed internet as 10Mb/s, 50Mb/s, or even 100Mb/s, the reality is […]
3 Changes in France the #geonpi Have Not Prevented (yet)
French tech news has been pretty shook up this past week with readers and journalists trying to keep up to date with the ever changing announcements of how the new tax laws will affect entrepreneurs and investors – the globally known Pigeon movement has achieved a lot of amazing things in such a short time, […]
Capitaine Train leaves the Beta-station – All Aboard!
Capitaine Train announced today on their blog that they are officially leaving their invite-only beta mode into a publicly available service. The beta mode, which allowed travelers to purchase tickets from French companies SNCF & iDTGV as well as Germany company Deutsche Bahn, had over 22,000 signups. In their blog post, the company also announced […]
Rejoignez Une Startup – Feedback from Recruiting Startups
Two weekends ago was held the 1st edition of Rejoignez Une Startup (“Join a Startup”), a startup recruiting event which aimed to attract top-level engineering talent to interest them in working for startups. More than 40 startups – including Capitaine Train (just raised $1.4M), VoitureLib (just raised $2M – here’s an interview with the founder on […]
Deezer raises €100M from Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik
Deezer has finalized a round of €100 million by Russian-American billionaire Len Blavatnik via his investment fund Access Industries, with 75 million euros injected into the company, and 25 million euros to buy out previous shareholders. The announcement, originally reported by Le Figaro, indicates that while French investor Idinvest has maintained its stake in the company, Dotcorp […]
The #Geonpi Movement – A victory for French Entrepreneurs
As the story begins to wrap up, much like the eve of an election night in the US, pundits are racing to declare the #geonpi movement a success. Having managed to get a meeting yesterday afternoon with two French ministers, entrepreneurs and investors spoke their peace about the adverse impact that the proposed law changes […]