Archive for February 2013
Salesforce.com acquires & kills the French ECM Entropysoft
This week, Salesforce.com acquired Entropysoft, a French Enterprise Content Management(ECM) system that was being used by IBM, Symanetc, IDS Sheer & over 25 US Vendors, according to Venturebeat’s Christina Farr, who broke the story. Since the announcement broke, the only evidence of which at the time was an updated LinkedIn profile, Salesforce.com has shut down […]
State of the (Venture Capital) Union in France: Bleak
Last summer I wrote a piece about how France’s Retail VC funds were facing bleak prospects (Retail VCs: Pivot or Perish). With the jury now in from 2012’s fundraising cycle for these vehicles, it unfortunately appears that my August piece proved ominously prescient. By way of refresher, Retail VCs are the venture capital firms whose […]
Loic & Geraldine announce the LeWeb London theme: The Digital Hippies & The Sharing Economy
Via a new video posted to the LeWeb YouTube account yesterday, Loic & Geraldine Le Meur have announced the theme for LeWeb London: The Digital Hippies & The Sharing Economy. The event, set to take place on June 5th & 6th in central London, will be their second event in London, after last year’s “Faster than […]
Leeaarn hosts master class featuring Gilles Babinet…chance to win a free slot!
Leeaarn, France’s answer to the online collaborative learning and university phenomenon, will be hosting a master class featuring well-known entrepreneur and investor Gilles Babinet February 18th from 20h-22h at Loft 50 Partners. The session will look to discuss in detail where digital technology is heading as well as examine its current and future impact on our […]
Today I’m pitching the European Commission for 80 Billion Euros for my startup, Europe.
This afternoon I’m making my way north from Paris to Brussels, the capital of the European Union and home of the European Commission. There I’ll be giving a workshop to Neelie Kroes, the very outspoken Vice President of the European Commission who has spoken about Europe’s need to build startups that stay in Europe. “Start […]
Delayed Renault Zoe to launch in Spring without universal electric car charger
Renault announced recently that their flagship electric car Zoe, which has been late coming out, will be launching in Spring, but is not allowed to plug into the standard electric car charger. There is no explanation as to why Zoe will not be adaptable to standard electric car chargers, which can easily be installed in […]
Startups: The best way to help your local ecosystem is to make $1 Billion
It’s always great when you go to a tech event and see that local and global tech companies are sponsoring it – Google & Microsoft are no stranger to this, but in France Orange, Bouygues, BNP Paribas and even SNCF have contributed sizeable amounts of money to the French ecosystem. It’s great: from an external […]
L’Oreal Paris to begin direct sales from its own e-commerce site in March
Starting in March, L’Oreal Paris will launch their own online store[fr] where they will make their entire product line available for purchase. While most luxury cosmetic brands in France have widely been available online for some time, many mass market cosmetic brands have avoided setting up their own on-line shops so as to not upset their […]
Google settles with French press: will create 60 Million € “press fund”
Today Google’s Eric Schmidt met with French President François Hollande to announce an agreement after a battle that has gone on for months between Google and the French press/government. The press, who were hoping to propose a law requiring Google to pay royalties each time they cite their article headlines/descriptions in Google News, will have […]
Ebuzzing sees big revenue jump in 2012; announces US expansion
Ebuzzing, the leading European platform for video advertising distribution, has just announced very strong results for 2012, having achieved $52 million in revenues which is a 79% increase over 2011. This strong performance also helped them, 5-years after their founding, break-even for the first time. Ebuzzing’s differentiated approach to video advertising distribution vis-a-vis their competitors […]