4 ms·

Other than blablacar, EVERYTHING in that list is about either entertainment or solving non-existing issues for privilaged class (like organizing URLs), can we A

by fijal 12y ago

Other than blablacar, EVERYTHING in that list is about either entertainment or solving non-existing issues for privilaged class (like organizing URLs), can we ACTUALLY go ahead and solve real problems or does that not attract VC funding? EDIT: The above statement is based on an assumption that the list in the article is legit, I don't know anything about French startups to reflect on the entire scene

eloisant 12y ago
I agree, the only that deserves to be there is probably blablacar. It's a startup, it's innovative, it's getting real traction. Other than that, it's a mix between established companies that are no longer a startup: Dailymotion (older than Youtube), Gameloft (built on the Guillemot/Ubisoft empire) Vente Privée (15 years old) and unoriginal companies that probably won't be there in a couple years.
david927 12y ago
It's less about funding and more about what Business Insider wants to cover. Remember, the French government is essentially an angel investor if you're trying to solve hard problems. For an example of what BI missed, Brodlist is a French startup that is a new query language on a new type of database: simpler than SQL but with NoSQL scaling and performance.
lloeki 12y ago
Most of those aren't startups anymore by anyone's metrics. France has both a culture and systemic problem towards startups. It's been made abundantly clear to me when having a chat with UK and US people at conferences such as dot[0] that the environment here is quite hostile and successfully launching requires either solid government backing or a great amount of courage. Probably why everytime some news outlet here wants to talk about startups, each one of them hover way above ~5M€ turnover and 30+ employees. Here's[1] what I consider being one of the genuine french startups that recently launched and tries to be useful (although aimed at the tech crowd). [0]: http://www.dotconferences.eu http://www.dotconferences.eu [1]: https://scalingo.com https://scalingo.com
- fijal 12y ago
  Well, dropbox, uber etc. are called startups too. Maybe there is a massive word abuse, but it's not only about france :-)
contingencies 12y ago
http://www.chauffeur-prive.com/ http://www.chauffeur-prive.com/ looks good also, basically blablacar/uber with a professionalism USP: sounds good to me, but I'm concerned about range! I fly to Paris from China tomorrow evening with wife and daughter, and don't want to deal with maybe-late-sorry-phonetag ride-sharing. We want to go long distance between towns semi-frequently, and are happy to pre-book and pay a slight premium. If they had English and a map showing coverage across the country they'd more likely get our business. The first hit on a test search on blabla car was a 27 year old single male with an overpriced/overpowered car giving away free rides ... not the right image.
corford 12y ago
http://www.capitainetrain.com http://www.capitainetrain.com is a French startup (IIRC?) that does something more substantial than organising URLs
vmarsy 12y ago
I think that French startup is worth mentioning: http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/sigfox-raises-115m-to-take-its-internet-of-things-network-global/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/sigfox-raises-115m-to-take-... It's a low power high range network for IoT, when in place it could help a lot of people

by fijal 12y ago

eloisant 12y ago

I agree, the only that deserves to be there is probably blablacar. It's a startup, it's innovative, it's getting real traction. Other than that, it's a mix between established companies that are no longer a startup: Dailymotion (older than Youtube), Gameloft (built on the Guillemot/Ubisoft empire) Vente Privée (15 years old) and unoriginal companies that probably won't be there in a couple years.

david927 12y ago

It's less about funding and more about what Business Insider wants to cover. Remember, the French government is essentially an angel investor if you're trying to solve hard problems. For an example of what BI missed, Brodlist is a French startup that is a new query language on a new type of database: simpler than SQL but with NoSQL scaling and performance.

lloeki 12y ago

Most of those aren't startups anymore by anyone's metrics. France has both a culture and systemic problem towards startups. It's been made abundantly clear to me when having a chat with UK and US people at conferences such as dot[0] that the environment here is quite hostile and successfully launching requires either solid government backing or a great amount of courage. Probably why everytime some news outlet here wants to talk about startups, each one of them hover way above ~5M€ turnover and 30+ employees. Here's[1] what I consider being one of the genuine french startups that recently launched and tries to be useful (although aimed at the tech crowd). [0]: http://www.dotconferences.eu http://www.dotconferences.eu [1]: https://scalingo.com https://scalingo.com

fijal 12y ago
Well, dropbox, uber etc. are called startups too. Maybe there is a massive word abuse, but it's not only about france :-)

contingencies 12y ago

http://www.chauffeur-prive.com/ http://www.chauffeur-prive.com/ looks good also, basically blablacar/uber with a professionalism USP: sounds good to me, but I'm concerned about range! I fly to Paris from China tomorrow evening with wife and daughter, and don't want to deal with maybe-late-sorry-phonetag ride-sharing. We want to go long distance between towns semi-frequently, and are happy to pre-book and pay a slight premium. If they had English and a map showing coverage across the country they'd more likely get our business. The first hit on a test search on blabla car was a 27 year old single male with an overpriced/overpowered car giving away free rides ... not the right image.

corford 12y ago

http://www.capitainetrain.com http://www.capitainetrain.com is a French startup (IIRC?) that does something more substantial than organising URLs

vmarsy 12y ago

I think that French startup is worth mentioning: http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/sigfox-raises-115m-to-take-its-internet-of-things-network-global/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/sigfox-raises-115m-to-take-... It's a low power high range network for IoT, when in place it could help a lot of people