Liam Boogar
Rude List launches into Public Beta – France’s Startup scene at your fingertips
Yesterday night in front of the sold out Paris Founders Event, I sat down following 5 Amazing Demo’s and announced that Rude List – France’s Startup Database – was launching into public beta. Starting today, users can sign up, create their own profile, suggest new companies and claim their company’s profile in order to manage the […]
Sketchfab crosses 150K uploads, adds Genius-like 3D Annotations
Sketchfab now counts over 150,000 3D images uploaded to its site. Its popularity has grown since raising $2 Million last December, after which they announced integration with Adobe Photoshop (Sculpteo also recently announced similar integration), and have been quick at integrating with hardware as they get announced. Their Kickstarter integration has allowed campaigns to render a […]
Is there still a difference between the US & European Startup Ecosystem?
The ongoing question. A complex, if you will. As an American (nay, a Californian) working in the startup ecosystem in Paris, it’s an inevitable discussion: “You know that so many people would rather go from Europe to California, right?” “Did you come to Europe to launch a company?” And yet, one by one, it seems […]
MedTech to begin commercialization of its Spinal Surgery Robot in Europe
Toulouse-based Medical Device company MedTech announced today that it has been given the “CE” approval it needed in order to start selling ROSA Spine, the spinal surgery robot that it has been working on. This will be the second robotic device that MedTech has brought to market, following the commercialization of their famed ROSA neurosurgery robot. […]
Viadeo sets Euronext IPO terms; valued at €170 Million
Professional social network Viadeo announced last week that it would set its initial public offering at the low-end of its previously announced IPO range, 17.10 to 20.90 euros. Shares are set to start trading this week on the Paris Euronext, where Viadeo is set to be one of the largest IPO’s since real-estate website SeLoger.com IPO […]
I refuse to embrace France’s longest living business stereotype
photo courtesy of Pret à Voyager July is in full swing, and I am already getting pushback on meetings scheduled between July 15th-August 15th, a period so infamously dead for business, that local bakeries have to coordinate with each other to make sure they don’t all close at the same time (seriously – it’s happened). […]
Update: Looks like we jumped the gun on the new Samsung R&D Office
Update: Well, folks, it looks like we jumped the gun on this one. Samsung does indeed have an office on the Champs Elysées; however, it will be for investment, and is not active just yet. As for the R&D side, while we had been hearing that it was a Go, Samsung has informed us to […]
Appnexus acquisition of Alenty leads to new R&D offices in France
During La French Touch Conference last week, Appnexus President Michael Rubenstein revealed that Appnexus had made an acquisition in France in the weeks prior, namely Alenty, a Paris-based viewability firm. The news had already been announced, although under-covered, and is an investment by Appnexus into a rapidly growing part of the Advertising space, viewability. http://youtu.be/wbV7JVNLoIk?t=34m […]
European Ridesharing Blablacar raises $100M led by Index Ventures
Paris-based Blablacar has raised a monster round of $100 Million led by Index Ventures, with participation by Lead Edge Capital as well as existing investors Accel Partners & ISAI. The round, which is record-setting in France, next to Deezer’s previous €100 Million round from Access Industries, will allow Blablacar to scale up from 12 countries across Europe […]
Algolia’s Quest to (re)Build the Search Layer of the Internet
Back in 2012, I sat down with two former Exalead engineers and they looked me square in the eyes and said they had built a search engine that was faster on mobile than anything that existed – Elastic or otherwise – and that they wanted to be for databases what Google was for web pages. […]