Google Ventures – Why U No Invest In Europe?
Earlier this month, Google Ventures announced that they would now be investing $300 million a year (up from $200 million). According to Reuters, this puts them in the same ranks as more establish corporate venture funds, like Intel Capital, who invests $300-$500 million a year. To put it in context, travel-tech giant Concur (TripIt) recently […]
SFR closes its chic concept store 'Le Studio'
SFR and its partner SFD (the company managing Le Studio) have announced that they will be closing their concept store, “Le Studio”, located in Paris’ upscale 8th arrondissement. Le Studio opened is doors in 2008 and was, above all, about offering their customers an unsurpassed ‘luxury’ service experience. It was unique in the sense that […]
Here are 5 French VCs you must follow on Twitter
Twitter for me has always been a great way to keep tabs on what’s going on in the startup community. Some of the accounts I follow are blogs, like This French Life or WhiteboardMag, some are companies & startups, and some are people – each is chosen not based on my support or friendship for […]
Strasbourg startup Pulpfingers acquired by 500px
500px, the photo-sharing site taking on the likes of Flickr and Google’s Picasa, announced this week that it has acquired the two-man French startup Pulpfingers in an all-stock acquisition. Reported by Techcrunch, the Pulpfingers team have been developing slick iOS apps in the photography space for sometime, including an app for viewing 500px photos on […]
Actiplay (ConcoursMania Group) acquires leading French game publisher Telaxo
NYSE listed and French online games specialist Actiplay (ConcoursManiaGroup), announced this week that they acquired game publisher Telaxo. Telaxo is France’s #1 games publisher and one of the top 10 global games publisher on Facebook. This acquisition was rooted in Actiplay’s strategy to establish a significant business on social media. Increasing their presence on Facebook will help […]
Mandala Games adds real-money mobile gambling through Betable
The two biggest challenges for any web app are user acquisition and user monetization. The game industry is no exception, and with the rise of freemium models, user acquisition is more competitive than ever, and monetization needs a bit more thinking than the traditional retail model. French studio Mandala Games, based in Nantes, has partenered […]
Jobs: Collateral Damage of Investment
The following is a guest post by Business Angel Jerome Camblain, who runs Camblain Advisors. He previous wrote about how startups in France need to worry of a funding gap between angel and VC funding. The collateral effect of a investing in a startup aiming at a capital gain is accidental and unintended but almost […]
Oracle S. Europe CEO joins i-Dispo as investor in $1M+ round
Earlier this week, reported[FR] that i-Dispo, a French startup working on virtual personal assistant Sara, had raised a round of funding of “more than $1 Million,” with new investors including the CEO of Oracle France, Annie Eyt. Rude Baguette has now confirmed the fund raising with i-Dispo founder Ismaël Nzouetom, who says the funding will be used […]
Forget Google – France just hit Amazon with $252M in back taxes
These days in France, all we read about in France is the French government’s ongoing pursuit of the coffers of Google, who pay as little as 2% taxes on the revenue generated by French customers; however, Reuters shifted the attention towards another tax-optimized giant, Amazon, who has been hit with back taxes to the tune […]
Etalab & The future of Open Data in France
In this week’s newsletter, we discussed the government’s apparent decision to reorganize and potentially put the breaks on Etalab, France’s Open Data project. After about week of confusion about what really was going on with Etalab, it seems that project is not ending, but transforming into something else that is not yet completely defined. According to their […]