Archive for October 2014
Career guidance solution Talentoday announces $1.4 million seed round
On the back of their very successful launch earlier this year, psychometric and social career guidance solution Talentoday has just announced raising a $1.4 million seed round with multiple investors including Nicolas Draca, Head of Global Marketing Operations at LinkedIn; Herve Goguely, former Chairman and CEO of Netcentrex; as well as angels from HP, Visa, and Oracle. Cofounded by Pierre-François Verley and Martin […]
In Paris, Uber fined €100K as advertising for UberPop declared illegal
A court decision ruled this week that advertising UberPop – Uber’s low cost peer to peer transport solution in Europe – fining the company €100,000. The case, which is independent of Uber’s ongoing negotiations with Taxi authorities, was brought forth by the anti-competition & fraud commission of the French Ministry of Economy, and Uber currently plans to appeal the […]
Here’s how KEECKER’s HomePod is breaking new ground on KickStarter
After appearing at CES earlier this year, KEECKER has launched its HomePod on KickStarter, looking to achieve a $100,000 goal. Founded by Pierre Lebeau, a former Googler, KEECKER is a new take on the idea of ConnectedHome, replacing all your TV Screens by a fully autonomous, smartphone-controlled robot. Speaking with Lebeau about KEECKER earlier this month, he told me […]
Honoring the best of the European Web, the 4th Annual Lovie Award Winners Announced
The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS) have just announced the winners of the 4th annual Lovie Awards. While the winners hail from a wide range of sectors (i.e. TV, fashion, music, publishing, retail etc), several of tech’s startups of reference including Soundcloud, Shazam, and Swiftkey, had a strong showing this year. France also […]
Wit.ai raises $3 Million led by A16Z to make everything voice-controlled
Natural Language Processing startup Wit.ai has raised a $3 Million seed round, led by Andreessen Horowitz (Chris Dixon), with participation from Ignition Partners, NEA, A-Grade, SVAngel, Eric Hahn, Alven Capital, and TenOneTen. The startup, co-founded by Alex Lebrun, Willy Blandin & Laurent Landowski, went through Y-Combinator previous, and also announced LISTEN Conference, taking place on November 6th in San Francisco. As a product, […]
Mobile payments in the West, a primer
Last week Square raised a new $150m in equity financing led by the Singapore government fund, valuing Jack Dorsey’s mobile payments juggernaut at a rumored $6 billion. Also recently, Amazon launched a Square competitor, Tim Cook announced the iPhone 6 and Apple Pay, and Paypal reclaimed its independence from eBay. And that is just in America. […]
Xavier Niel throws in the towel on his bid to purchase T-Mobile US
After a last-minute bid threw him into the spotlight earlier this year, Iliad CEO & founder Xavier Niel spent the last 3 months looking for backers in order to increase its bid. As stock prices continued to drop (nearly 25% since July), Iliad had announced they would only pursue an acquisition until mid October – it seems that, […]
Prizm – Nest for your home speaker system – launches on KickStarter
Context-aware music startup Prizm has launched their KickStarter Campaign this week, bringing in $30,000 in the first 12 hours of their campaign. The Paris-based startup, composed of Pierre Gochgarian, Olivier Roberdet, Pierre Verdu & Arthur Eberhardt, has spent the last 18 months working on R&D, and, after DEMO-ing the product exclusively on stage during Paris Founders Event last week (photos […]
Meet My Designer to introduce meltyFashion’s readers to talented, up-and-coming designers
Meet My Designer (MMD) is fast becoming a great site for discovering new up-and-coming designers. As a crowdfunding platform for fashion’s burgeoning talent, MMD is not only a place to help designers overcome the financial challenges of bringing their new collections to market, but also a way to build a following with fashion enthusiasts. meltyFashion, […]
Paris Founders Events – New Products, Big News & Great Networking
400 startupers, tech enthusiasts and journalists came out last night to check out the hottest new startups and innovations Paris has to offer. As an added bonus those who joined also got to hear from several big names in France’s tech ecosystem who continue to disrupt the status quo and work to put France squarely on […]