State of the (European) Union in VC
A couple years back I argued that the state of the union for VC in Europe was bleak. In particular, I was referring to the tax-advantaged retail fund sector — most prolific in France but not unheard of in some other European countries like in the form of the UK’s VCT vehicles. Today in contrast, […]
Lucky Cart raises €1.6 million to roll-out across Europe and launch SaaS solution
Lucky Cart, the specialist in Promogaming, announced today on Frenchweb that they’ve closed a 1.6 million euro round with five funds, namely Partech Ventures, Kima Ventures, Pléiade Venture, Fa Diese and Edenred. With this new round, Cyril Marchal is looking first of all to build out his commercial team in order to solidify their position in France […]
The Sharing Economy's top event OuiShare Fest is back on 20-22 May
This year, 1000+ leading innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders from collaborative economy space will descend on Paris the 20-22 May for the 3rd edition of OuiShare Fest. This year’s event, titled ‘Lost in Transition’, will tackle head-on the challenges the Sharing Economy sector has been facing of late as well as explore promising areas of opportunity; collaborative consumption, […]
Looking to shake-up the online classifieds space, mondebarras.fr raises €2.1 million
BonCoin has long been the one of the top leaders in France’s online classifieds and second-hand sales space. mondebarras.fr, which is owned by eMotion Map is looking to change all that with the announcement that they’ve closed a 3rd round of funding, this time at €2.1 million. BonCoin isn’t, of course, the only player in this […]
Looking to rival Viadeo and LinkedIn, Amplement raises €1 million
Many professional social networks have come and gone, but LinkedIn continues to remain on top of the heap. However, Viadeo, arguably LinkedIn’s biggest rival, continues to hold their own, particularly in China where they are the market leader. Is there room for yet another professional network in the market that would be able to […]
Sentiance (formerly Argus Labs) raises $2 Million to roll-out its contextual platform worldwide
Belgium-based Argus Labs, who’s founder Filip Maertens was a speaker at our Connected Conference last year, just announced that they’ve raised $2 million and rebranded themselves Sentiance. The round was led by Qbic Arkiv Fund and joined by Volta Ventures and angel investors Michel Akkermans (Clear2Pay) and Will Margiloff (IgnitionOne) Sentiance’s goal is to be a […]
Predictions on the State of VC in Europe 2015
Rather than merely spouting my own views on what’s in store for the VC sector in Europe this year, I decided to solicit the opinions of my more omniscient peers. Here are the thoughts from several top-tier European VCs: Marc Fournier, Serena Capital, France: 2015 should be another great year for technology and venture capital. […]
Digital ad spending in France to surpass $3 billion this year
According to study just released by eMarketer, digital ad spend in France has grown 7% in 2014 to surpass $3 billion, accounting for 20.2% of total media ad spend. While there continues to be a misalignment in terms of consumers offline vs online time and where advertisers allocate their spend, eMarketer’s findings illustrate that a […]
Archos to support France’s digital plan for its schools
As a part of President Francois Hollande’s digital plan for schools, he has set as a target for all middle school aged kids (‘5eme in France’) to be equipped with a tablet at the start of the 2015/2016 school year. This would equate to approximately 45k students who would use the tablet to “improve students’ […]
Atos to buy Xerox’s IT outsourcing unit for $1.05 billion
Atos announced yesterday that they’ve agreed to buy Xerox’s IT outsourcing unit for $1.05 billion, which was well received by the markets spurring Atos’ shares to jump up to 9.3%. The acquisition will be a cash deal, with Xerox potentially getting an additional $50 million depending on the condition of certain assets upon completion of […]