All posts in Kima Ventures
La Belle Assiette raises $1.7m seed round to further accelerate their rapid growth
La Belle Assiette launched just last year and has already secured its position as the #1 marketplace for private chefs in Europe. The past 6 months were particularly robust ones in terms of their growth as they expanded throughout France and launched in Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the UK and have validated over 350 Chefs on their […]
Richard Branson, Peter Thiel, Nikolas Zennström and other big names back $100 million free money transfer campaign for startups
Taavet Hinrikus, part of the original team that built Skype, has launched a campaign to give 1000 EU startups $100k each of free international money transfers, using the technology he has developed for TransferWise, the only service that allows regular people to access the real, mid-market exchange rate. All startups participating in the campaign will receive […]
Fanzy raises $550K from KIMA Ventures to help Facebook pages engage with fans
Facebook marketing app Fanzy has raised another $550K from KIMA Ventures, OREFA (Jacques-Antoine Granjon’s fund) and Start Capital (a fund founded by Paolo Rubatto) to help brands on Facebook reward fans for their engagement. Co-founded by Tuhin Roy, who previously worked on the Digital Media Group, and Jeff Marois, who manages the teams development center in Paris, Fanzy […]
Festicket raises a $680K Seed Round to sell package deals for music festivals in Europe
Festicket announced today that they have raised a $680,000 seed-funding round in order to expand out their festival package deal site, which allows users to purchase ticket, accommodation, transport & extras all in one click. Reported originally by Steve O’hear of TechCrunch, Festicket launched in 2012, by Zack Sabban and Nathan Younes, as they encountered difficulties […]
Quandora raises a seed round from KIMA Ventures for its white label Q&A platform
Quandora announced today that they have raised a $150K seed round from KIMA Ventures in order to continue growth of their white label solution for Q&A Platforms. We profiled Quandora‘s “Quora for Enterprise” last July, and it seems the company has been growing quite well since then. The company, which offers a white-label private Q&A-based […]
After acquiring Boxcar last year, Kwaga sells its technology to ProcessOne
Paris-based Kwaga announced today that it has sold Boxcar, the US startup it purchased last year, to ProcessOne, a real-time messaging provider for popular mobile apps, such as Orange’s Libon, BBC Radio, Meetic, Atos & Major League Baseball (MLB). The company’s CEO Mickaël Rémond said that “We’ve been working in messaging for more than 10 years, delivering large […]
Storific shows off its Smart Ordering Companion in Dublin
Last week at Dublin Web Summit, there were plenty of French startups to see. Along with Allmyapps & Clever Cloud, Bordeaux-based Storific competed in DWS’ Spark of Genius startup competition, and made it as far as the semi-finals (top 16 out of 100 competing) before being knocked out by a iPhone-controlled vibrator and a Kickstarter […]
Client E-relation leader iAdvize raises €1M from Alven Capital
iAdvize announced yesterday that it has closed a round of funding of €1 Million from Alven Capital in order to accelerate its international development. Previously funded by Xavier Niel’s Kima Ventures & business angels to the tune of €100K, iAdvize was founded by Julien Hervouet and Jonathan Gueron in 2010. The company currently helps 800+ […]
IDInvest Parters, the most active VC in France
I love when entrepreneur tell me that "it is impossible to raise VC funding in France." Honestly, it has become one of my favorite phrases. I have come across numerous entrepreneurs - on both sides of the Atlantic - that have told me that VCs are risk-averse weirdos and that their capital is extremely limited and/or drying up. And while Chausson Finance did declare France's VC activity for the first half of 2011 as remarkably less than in 2010, this
French product recommendation of the week: SPARROW
This week's French product recommendation goes out to Sparrow, a fabulous mail client for Mac developed in France.