Rude VC: Copying Silicon Valley
A couple weeks ago I provided a very succinct recap of the Silicon Valley narrative. For a more in-depth review, A History of Silicon Valley by Piero Scaruffi and Arun Rao might well be the most comprehensive, and Robert Cringely’s Accidental Empires focuses on the pc industry empire-building during the pre-web era. Understanding the Silicon […]
LinkedIn France gets a visit from the taxman
The French tax authority is definitely earning its money this year! Hot on the heels of the tax reclamations from pretty much every other big US tech player in France (Ebay/Paypal, Facebook, Amazon,Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo), now comes news of another; This time its LinkedIn. The news of a visit by the French taxman to LinkedIn’s Paris […]
After DocTrackr, LeCamping’s qunb accepted into TechStars Boston
Techstars Boston announced last week the 14 companies who have been accepted into the Spring edition of Techstars Boston, among them French startup qunb. The data visualzation company recently won Best French startup at The Europas as well as the LeWeb Paris startup competition – they’ve really been on fire since they launched last year. […]
Google France Country Manager leaves to found e-learning startup
Google France announced this morning that their country manager Jean-Marc Tassetto has left the company to pursue “an entrepreneurial project around e-Learning.” In its announcement, Google France lauded Tassetto as a great asset to the company, having notably worked on its commercial growth since his arrival in July 2010, according to Gizmodo France. Google has […]
After France’s “success”, German press seeks remuneration from News snippets
It seems that Google just can’t past this whole “stop pirating our bylines” thing these days: the German lower parliament approved a bill requiring Google (and other search engines) to pay a licensing fee for re-publishing bylines of news stories. This comes just months after the French press industry settled its similar disputes with Google, […]
Bouygues Telecom offering free unlimited Skype calls
Bouygues Telecom announced last Thursday at MWC in Barcelona that they are partnering with Skype to allow all of their customers (including those of their B&You brand, whether they have a price plan or not) to use the VoIP service for free on their phones. Now this is interesting news to me because, when I was living […]
Twilio partners with 500 Startups to bring the Twilio Fund to European startups
This afternoon at the London Web Summit, Twilio announced the opening of Twilio Fund Europe, a micro fund which, partnered with 500 startups, will invest in startups using Twilio’s SaaS Telephonie services. This will be the third fund, the first two of which were restricted to US startups – this time, CEO Jess Dawson said, […]
Planning growth in France, Eventbrite puts out report on events in France
This week, Eventbrite welcomed journalists, clients, users, and enthusiasts to a special session with CTO Renaud Visage, as well as members of the London & SF office, including VP of Marketing Tamara Mendelsohn, during which Eventbrite discusses its progress so far as a company, and its future in France and across the world. The company, […]
LeCamping welcomes 12 new startups to its 4th Season of acceleration
Yesterday evening, LeCamping kicked off its 4th season at Google’s Paris office, announcing 12 new startups. As with previous seasons, the startups will go through a 6 month program, during which they will shape their business model, put out a minimum viable product, and master their startup pitch. Startups receive 4500€ (without giving up any […]
Sunrise: Ex-Foursquare UX Designers look to replace the last remaining default iPhone App: the Calendar.
Each new iPhone comes with a few in-house apps – mail, clock, weather, ,maps, etc. – and one-by-one, these apps have been outdone by competitor who devote their energy towards making these things easier. Sparrow killed the ‘mail’ app (and then Google all-but-killed Sparrow), Google killed Apple Maps, and the weather app has been replaced […]