Archive for February 2012
I hope you weren't planning on getting grants from OSEO this year
[Update: some of the details in the article were originally inaccurate, and have been modified accordingly.] While VC money is not always the most reliable way for startups to fund themselves in early stages, one of France’s unique selling points for startups is the subventions or “grants” that the government will give to startups to do […]
Are larger French companies stealing ideas from startups?
It’s no mystery that as a company, innovation gets all the more challenging the bigger you get. “Startup” is more or less synonymous with “innovative,” whereas “company” starts to make you think of “hierarchy,” “bureaucracy,” and the likes. There are many examples of where larger companies struggle to implement even the smallest of changes. Which […]
Rude VC: Taxing times in French asset management
This article was originally posted on Mark Bivens’ personal blog. Capital Finance (part the Les Echos Groupe) features an article today on the discombobulations affecting the country’s tax-incentivized fund structures: FCPIs and FIPs. I’ve written in the past on the perverse effects that these taxpayer-funded structures can have on the venture capital sector. And for […]
For or Against: The CopyCat Debate
Copycats kill European innovation “Copycats kill European innovation”: those were the words that Loic Le Meur (@loic) put up in front of an audience of French entrepreneurs who came together at the TechCrunch France Remix event in November 2010 to hear about success stories and for networking with other Internet entrepreneurs. Loic is very well […]
Videdressing co-founder reveals the benefit of being a US entrepreneur in France
Everyone seems to have an opinion on doing business in France. Simply bring up the topic and you won’t be able to escape the stereotypes of strikes, long-vacations and the 35-hour work week. Even the French are not always positive when it comes to discussing their experiences in their own country. But despite the fact […]
The truth about Jimmy Fairly: why copying is not always copying
Last May, when our own Roxanne broke the news in Techcruch of French eyewear e-tailer Jimmy Fairly’s €200K initial fundraising, more than a few people were more than a little upset. The comments section teemed with disapproval of their ample similarities to American startup Warby Parker — “What Jimmy Fairly did lies somewhere between extremely poor form and actual IP infringement,” […]
HumanCoders launches as a 100% Human Developer Community
Today Camille Roux and Matthieu Segret launched their company, HumanCoders, along with a facebook page and twitter account. The goal of Human Coders, to bring the “human side” back to the development.The duo are known heavily in the Ruby On Rails development community with their news site RubyLive & as the organizers of a Ruby Meetup […]
Pearltrees: 3 years and €8.5 million later, there's finally talk of a business model
In Europe, as many of you may already know, people tend to talk about business models much earlier in the game than they do in the US. In fact, it’s a widely-held belief that European investors don’t tend to invest in companies that aren’t generating cash (which many believe explains the French VCs’ love for […]
Interview with Hypeed's Nicolas Metzke: sometimes an exit is just an exit
From Apple to Ciao.com to Hypeed.com, Nicolas Metzke has certainly seen his fair share of the startup world. Having recently sold his startup, I wanted to take the chance to talk about his experiences, his lessons learned, and to catch a quick preview of what we can expect in the future. While most startupers think […]
eYeka secures €2.5 million after 80% growth
eYeka announced this past weekend that they seured a venture loan through Generis Capital Partners, allowing them to raise up to €2.5 Million in debt. The company saw sales orders raise more than 80% in 2011, and the company hopes to continue that growth by using the loan to expand into new markets, such as Brazil, […]