Trista Bridges
Syntec Numerique launches campaign to attract French youth to tech careers
Syntec Numerique, France’s largest professional organization representing the tech sector, will launch on January 17th a wide-reaching campaign to attract French youth to tech careers. The primary target of the campaign will be 15-18 year-olds and will center around a 6 video web-series on You Tube called “Les S’Nums”, a prehistoric group evolving in a world mixing the […]
Feb. 6-8, LIFT will be transforming ideas into innovation in Geneva
Over the last few years, the LIFT conference which takes places every winter in Geneva, has been rapidly rising in stature as one of the don’t miss tech conferences in Europe. LIFT, which will take place 6 – 8 of February, has been featured on Techcrunch’s Best Startup Events, attracts well over 1k people from […]
Is Virgin Megastore going bust?
As confirmed Friday on France Inter, Virgin Stores will submit a request today to declare themselves insolvent. As in the US with Chapter 11 status, there tends to be two possible outcomes of this: 1) restructuring or 2) full-out liquidation/bankruptcy. Given how things have been going for Butler Capital owned Virgin Megastores in recent years, […]
In France, NYE SMS sees decline as MMS and new platforms rise
Although sending a SMS is still the prefered way to say ‘Happy New Year’ in France, things are starting to change. According to early estimates published in Les Echos, at least 600 million SMS were sent in France as 2013 descended upon us. SFR alone logged 280 million between 21h on the 31st and 9h the […]
QualyCloud: solving the ‘where’ issue for Europe’s Cloud Storage
Cloud computing was definitely a hot subject in France and across Europe in 2012. From the debates around the relevance of Andromede and the response of the global cloud giants, to the EU’s prioritization of cloud computing and hope that it will be a substantive driver of economic growth across Europe, there’s been a lot of […]
Google's Motorola Mobility may close its Toulouse facility
After going through what seems like endless rounds of restructuring, divestitures, and layoffs, the Motorola Toulouse facility looks like it will be hit with more. As reported by La Depeche du Midi and AFP, employees of Motorola Mobility, now a Google operation, were informed by management just before Christmas that the Toulouse facility may be closed by […]
Visiting Ubisoft, Pellerin announces €14M 'Mango' fund for Games R&D
If the government were ever to clearly define which sectors would be most strategic for them to invest in and develop for the future, the video game industry would undoubtedly be on the short-list. With a strong history in game development and distribution, a deep bench of highly-skilled technical and creative talent, a number 2 position […]
SumUp brings mobile payments to France – what about iZettle?
As announced today on TechCrunch, fast-growing Berlin-based and $20 million-backed SumUp, is expanding to France as well as Belguim and Portgual. This will bring the number of markets in which SumUp is operating to 10. Having launched only 4 months ago, this move enables them to leap frog Europe’s other two leading ‘Square-type’ startups, Norway-based […]
Ad Giant JC Decaux to sponsor connected cities startup incubator
Last week saw the kick-off of a new incubator focusing on the theme of ‘Connected Cities’, which is a joint effort by Paris Incubateurs and JC Deceaux. I’m sure the first thought springing to your head is probably ‘what another incubator? do we really need another one of those?’. Well, of course, there are loads of […]
B2B marketing specialist Touchvibes acquired by CCMBenchmark
CCMBenchmark group, one of France’s the top 10 online media conglomerates who also own such properties as Linternaute, Journal du Net, and Comment ça Marche, have decided to broaden their portfolio with this week’s announced purchase of Touchvibes. Although the purchase price hasn’t been announced, Les Echos speculate that it likely didn’t exceed €10 million. […]