France Newsletter
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Inside Station F, the startup megacampus that just opened in Paris
Station F is the world’s biggest startup campus. Thousands of entrepreneurs are currently moving into the new building here in Paris. But if you’re still wondering what it actually looks like, we visited Station F and interviewed the two persons behind it — Roxanne Varza and Xavier Niel. Station F is a massive building that has been completely renovated and now features… Read More
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Side raises $5.7 million to match students with companies for short-term jobs
French startup Side raised another $5.7 million with Xavier Niel leading the round. As the name suggests, Side lets students make some money on the side by working for companies for a few days or weeks. It’s a marketplace that helps you scale your workforce for a product launch, peak season and more. Aglaé Ventures, Jacques-Antoine Granjon and others are also participating in… Read More
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Qonto launches its digital bank accounts for small companies
French startup Qonto has raised another $11.3 million (€10 million) from existing investors Valar Ventures and Alven Capital. The company is now also open for business. You can now create a French business bank account on the company’s website. Qonto wants to become the N26 of business accounts. While retail banking hasn’t changed quickly enough over the past few years, it feels… Read More
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A walk around Station F with Emmanuel Macron
“We called this building Station F, like Station France, Station Femmes [ed. note: women in French], Station Founders or Station Freyssinet because Freyssinet was a great architect and a great entrepreneur,” French billionaire and Iliad founder Xavier Niel told Macron. While Station F was originally built in the 1920s by Eugène Freyssinet, it was supposed to be destroyed in 2011.… Read More
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Reverso now lets you translate words using your voice
Dictionary app Reverso is getting a major update with a focus on voice features. In particular, you can now say a phrase to translate it. This might be particularly useful if you can’t spell a word or when you don’t know anything about a language and you can ask the other person to repeat a phrase to get a translation. Conversely, when you press the tiny speaker icon, the… Read More
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Shadow raises $57 million for its cloud computing service for gamers
French startup Shadow, also known as Blade, just raised a Series A round of $57.1 million (€51 million). Shadow thinks your next computer is going to be in a data center. Your existing phones, laptops and Shadow’s own device (pictured above) act as a thin client, a window into your virtual machine running on a beefy server in a data center near you. Shadow had already raised $14.6… Read More
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Algolia raises $53 million for its search engine API
French startup Algolia just raised a $53 million Series B round led by Accel, a couple of years after raising $18.3 million with… Accel also leading the round. So it looks like it’s a love story between the VC firm and the software-as-a-service startup. BlaBlaCar unveils BlaBlaLines, a new app for daily commutes
French startup BlaBlaCar is launching a brand new app and service today. Named BlaBlaLines, this new app is all about short distance carpooling and daily commutes so that you can leave your car at home. BlaBlaCar is going to launch this new service progressively. The app will only be available on Android at first, and it’ll only work between a handful of French cities — between… Read More
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Tempow turns your dumb Bluetooth speakers into a connected sound system
Meet Tempow, a French startup that can make your Bluetooth speakers more versatile. The company has been working on a new implementation of the Bluetooth protocol in order to let you play music from your phone on multiple speakers and headphones at once. Bluetooth speakers have become a common gift and a hit item in consumer electronics stores. Most people now have multiple Bluetooth speakers… Read More
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BNP Paribas acquires Compte Nickel
French fintech startup Compte Nickel was acquired by French bank BNP Paribas yesterday. I couldn’t nail down the price but I’ve heard that it was quite significant. Compte Nickel was one of the leading fintech startups in France. You can open the equivalent of a current bank account in thousands of tobacco shops in just a few minutes. Compte Nickel gives you an IBAN and a… Read More
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