How IBM plans to lay off 13% of its workforce in France by the end of 2014
Yet another blow for French president François Hollande today as IBM announces it will lay off 689 employees by the end of 2013, and a total of 1,226 by the end of 2014, 12.6% percent of its 9,730 staff in France. The president, who ran on a campaign of lowering the unemployment rate, has been […]
With $1.5M raised, Carnet de Mode Founder Arbia Smiti discusses past, present & future
International fashion marketplace Carnet de Mode has announced a $1.5M round of funding led by Elaia Partners. In addition, the fashion startup made public for the first time their seed investors – Pascal Chevalier & Marie-Christine Levet. Founded in 2011 by Arbia Smiti, Carnet de Mode works today with over 200 designer stores and 6000 exclusive […]
With 3.1M€ lead by Ventech, find out how StickyAdsTV became a Top 10 video property in France overnight
Comscore released their monthly report on web traffic and video property traffic from April 2013, and it seems that there is quite a bit of fluctuation in the video traffic space. Dailymotion’s month got even more rough – fresh off a severe rejection by Yahoo who in-turn acquired Tumblr (rebound acquisition much?) – the French […]
With Yahoo in the rear-view, Dailymotion’s got plenty of new suitors. All of them French.
From this side of the Atlantic, you can almost see what could have been a huge win for French startups – Tumblr’s been purchased for $1.1 Billion and, while no one’s sure whether Yahoo! will make a Flickr out of Tumblr, or a Tumblr out of Flickr, the fact remains that Dailymotion has been left […]
Grenoble startup Bonitasoft raises another $13M proving that there is a market for Open Source
Grenoble-based Bonitasoft announced last week that it has raised $13M from FSN PME, Ventech, Auriga Partners, and Serena Capital in order to continue the growth of its Open Source Business Process Management (BPM) solution for enterprises. As TechCrunch reports, the company has offices in Paris as well as San Francsico – it has raised $28 […]
IDInvest drops another $3 Million into Weemo for their WebRTC API – do they see something I don’t?
Founded by Thomas Cottereau, video collaboration solution for businesses Weemo has raised $3 Million from IDInvest, according to Venturebeat. Founded in 2007, Weemo allows businesses to plug video conferencing directly into their applications with a few lines of code, and thus is pitting itself directly against competitors like Vidyo, Avaya, Cisco and Microsoft, as VB points […]
With the Sharing Economy booming in France, La Belle Assiette brings professional cooks to your kitchen
The sharing economy has been on the top of the tech agenda in recent years. With sharing giants such as Airbnb, ZipCar, Blablacar, etc as well as various events centered on it, including Le Web London in June and the recent Ouisharefest.com, this continues to be a growing area that’s still ripe for innovation. As […]
On Zombie VC funds in France
Exactly ten days ago the yearly ritual of ‘Woodstock for Capitalists’ took place. Also known as the annual shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, this may well represent the only public company’s shareholders meeting whose promise of attendance can be the sole reason for investors to purchase a share of its stock. Of course, another reason […]
ICANN announces .paris & .bzh among 6 French gTLDs coming this year
Last week the ICANN announced a suite of new gTLDs (generic top-level domains) which will usher in a new era of domain extensions – I’m still holding out for .rude, but it looks like that will be awhile. The domain extensions that have passed ICANN’s rigorous examination include .PARIS, whose application was submitted by the City […]
Rude VC: Euronext’s SME Marketplace
Last week NYSE Euronext announced the imminent launch of an “SME Marketplace.” Managed by a dedicated subsidiary set up in France, it will have its own brand, operating budget and team. It is hard to understand exactly what this means. Judging from the Euronext press release, the initiative appears to represent more of a hierarchical […]