Leveraging your VC’s network
Two weeks ago I wrote about a good way for entrepreneurs to ask one VC for a referral to another. This time let’s talk about one of the most effective ways to ask your VC for business referrals once you’re venture-backed. This also applies to entrepreneurs who are looking to derive the most from any […]
RudeVC: France’s “Paypal-killer” Paylib forgets to secure its dot-com
In the past I’ve written about the importance of owning the dot-com domain extension. Even my grandmother grasped this notion.. Paylib, unfortunately for them, did not heed my grandmother’s advice. . . France’s attempt to create a Paypal-killer, the Paylib payment solution created by a consortium of three of France’s largest banks — BNP Paribas, […]
RudeVC: Asking one VC for a referral to another
For entrepreneurs attempting to raise funds for their venture, an over-the-transom solicitation directly or via a fundraising intermediary is rarely as effective as an endorsed introduction from a portfolio company or from another VC. . If a member of one of my portfolio companies recommends I meet someone, I will most likely accept a meeting […]
Argus Labs raises $1.5 Million to bring Emotional Context to Mobile AdTech
Antwerp-based Argus Labs has raised $1.5 Million for their emotion- and context-aware precision technology, the company announced this week on their blog. The startup, which previously received a $380K grant from the University of Brussels, says it’s been hard at work building a “synthetic neocortex,” as CEO & co-founder Filip Maertens puts it, which they […]
Payments platform The Currency Cloud raises $10M from Atlas, Notion, Xange & more
London-based The Currency Cloud has raised a $10 Million Series B from existing investors Atlas, Anthemis & Notion Capital, along with new investor Xange, Frenchweb reported this afternoon, bringing the total fundraising to $17 Million. The Currency Cloud provides cloud-based currency transfer services, attacking the long-outdated wire-transfer market. Essentially, The Currency Cloud uses network effect […]
Should you take payments in Bitcoin?
Getting paid is always the most important part of keeping a business afloat and, if you are to believe the local companies, getting paid in France can be even more of a challenge given some companies’ lackluster payment practices. So it falls upon us to make payment as simple, and as frictionless as possible. The […]
RudeVC: Can eBay’s failure in China teach us something in Europe ?
Most of us in the West have never shopped on Tmall or Jingdong. Yet these two firms represent the leaders of the imminently largest e-commerce market in the world: China. Although JD.com (formerly 360Buy) is a distant second to Alibaba’s Tmall platform, the firm still served a cool $16 billion worth of goods to 140 […]
RudeVC: Five films filled with lessons for entrepreneurship
Apparently the Academy Awards took place last week. This annual distraction represents one of the primary conversation topics at watercoolers in American workplaces for a week each year (French workplaces treat the Oscars with a bit less ceremony; then again, fewer conversation topics are taboo around the office Nespresso machine). Even though I haven’t viewed […]
OpenDataSoft announces deal with French cloud provider Numergy
OpenDataSoft, a fast-growing startup in the area of publishing, visualizing and sharing OpenData online, has just announced a partnership with ‘French cloud’ provider Numergy. The partnership will make OpenDataSoft available on Numergy, aka France’s ‘sovereign cloud’, enabling both their public and private clients to put the information utilized in OpenDataSoft’s solution in a cloud environment that […]
Canal+ buys France’s #1 YouTube Channel – Studio Bagel
Just a few months back, Canal+ decided to change from its strategy of only diffusing its content line via their own player to developing a Canal+ ecosystem on YouTube by launching 16 of its own channels. Now they seem to have changed course yet again, announcing that they have bought a 60% stake in Studio […]