With growth in France, Spain & Belgium, last minute hotel reservation app VeryLastRoom raises €1.5 Million
Last minute hotel reservations startup VeryLastRoom has raised €1.5 Million from A Plus Finance, SIGMA & Extend AM, the startup announced this week. Launched in June of 2012, VeryLastRoom previously raised 400K€ from business angels, looking to provide its service in ‘every town in France’ – which they may very well have accomplished. The startup […]
“LaFrenchTech” to launch this week: the same bag of tricks or a real change in strategy?
This Thursday evening, ‘Startup Minister’ Fleur Pellerin will welcome members of the French tech community as she gives her voeux, a tradition in France akin to New Year’s Resolutions, during which she will talk about what she wishes for the French tech community in 2014. In addition to plaisanteries, Pellerin will officially announce La FrenchTech, an […]
French Senate holds a Bitcoin hearing to discuss risks & opportunities
This week the French Senate held a hearing to discuss the decentralized currency Bitcoin. As reported by Coindesk, the hearing, which was broadcasted live, featured high-profile French politicians as well as directors from the French Tresory, the Banque de France, the anti-trafficing authority TRACFN, the border-patrol authorities, and notably, Paymium co-founder Gonzague Grandval. Paymium runs Bitcoin Central, […]
Rude Baguette’s 2014 New Year’s Wishes for the French Startup Scene
In the spirit of France’s tradition of offering one’s hopes for what the New Year will bring, the Rude Baguette writing team figured we’d follow President Hollande’s lead and offer ours. However our wishes will, of course, focus squarely on France’s tech ecosystem. Feel free to offer yours as well in the comments section. Enjoy! […]
Servers crash, some parisians won’t get to vote in 2014
People living in Paris had up until the 31st of December to register on the electoral list in their respective administrative districts. Failing that, they would be unable to vote in the upcoming 2014 municipal elections. I won’t get into the absurdity of closing electoral lists months before the actual elections are held, when abstention […]
Modeled after YC’s SAFE, AIR is the first legal convertible note in France
The convertible note is a staple of any healthy startup ecosystem. It allows business angels to invest in seed startup companies without getting bogged down on the particularities of the valuation, by applying the equity exchange to the investment on the next round, with a declared discount (15-25%) applied to previous investors on a investor-by-investor […]
The Netflix French love affair: company executives fight against VOD monopolies
The love affair between Netflix and France has been fiddled with mistrust and a few bumps on the road. Fortunately – for consumers – the overly popular American video streaming service might be arriving to France very soon. Being present in 41 countries worldwide, it sounds strange that Netflix is not available in the French market. […]
The 4 pronged approach France is taking to Open Data
Back at the last G8 summit in June of this year, the G8 member states signed on to the Open Data Charter, whereby all of the member states pledged their commitment to “open economies, open societies and open governments as the basis of lasting growth and stability”. France has moved quite quickly to demonstrate their strong […]
The Gravediggers of Innovation
The following is a guest post by Nicolas Colin, a co-founder at TheFamily and co-author of a report commissioned by the French Government on taxation and the digital economy. The article was originally published in French on his personal blog; you can follow him on Twitter at @Nicolas_Colin It all starts as a sort of informative […]
What every CEO needs to know about data privacy in France
The following is a guest post by Sonia Hadjadj, a French business lawyer who works with expatriates women entrepreneurs and businesses owner. You can connect with her by email info@hso-avocat.fr & twitter @sonia_hdj Last month, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (the CNIL), the French data protection public agency, opened a procedure to impose sanctions to […]