Nicolas Julia

A must read for every founder (and investor) in B2B marketplaces. ⤵️ All credits to Fabrice Grinda + FJ Labs 👏🏽 https://lnkd.in/eB7uGzyH #firstdegree #founders #investors #whyrelationshipsmatter
#alwaysbelearning #sharingknowledge

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💟 This is the kind of news that makes you love Venture Capital! 🦄🇫🇷 Some will only remember the €1.5 billion exit for a French company. It's not a UNICORN valuation, it's a real EXIT! 3️⃣ 6️⃣ Some will only remember the x36 multiple on investment. 💥 Some will only remember the €175 million proceeds returned to the funds with a single operation. 👑What I'll remember, is Denis Ladegaillerie's passion, vision, and ambition. These are the keys to success. Excited to share this fantastic news for Believe, for Ventech, but also for the entire Tech ecosystem! 🚀 #VentureCapital #SuccessStory cc France Digitale

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Tomorrow I’m lucky to be hosting a panel with three exceptional founders: - Gilles Gaillard - Co-founder of Animaj, raised 100m EUR (in equity and debt) in 2023 to build an AI-powered animation studio that counts 𝗮 stunning 15 billion (!) YouTube views per year. Animaj acquires animation and cartoon franchises to turn them into digital-first content and amplifies their distribution using AI. - Baptiste Jamin - Co-founder of Crisp IM, 42 alumni, also can be called the “King of Bootstrap”. He started building chatbots in 2015, 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗼𝗹. Crisp centralises all customer interactions through live chat, chatbots, and a shared inbox. Today Crisp serves over 600,000 companies without raising any funds. - Vincent SIMON - Co-founder of Relationchips and founder of Simundia. Vincent is a serial entrepreneur & investor who founded a coaching platform that raised over 15m EUR & is currently working on a no-code sales workflow platform. What do they have in common? They started their career as freelancers and worked their way up to become highly successful entrepreneurs. 👉 Join us at Le Wagon tomorrow at 7pm to hear their story. We’ll also host a networking session for you to meet people from our community who are working on projects that might interest you. 🔗Link to register in the comments.

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French politics shake the tech landscape 🇫🇷 while... Mistral AI: Paris-based AI startup Mistral has secured €600m in new funding at a €5.8bn valuation. The round was co-led by DST Global and General Catalyst. ZELIQ: Paris-based sales engagement platform Zeliq raised $10m in seed funding. The round was led by Exor Ventures with participation from Resonance. kelvin: Paris-based kelvin, specializing in home energy renovation software, raised €5m. The round was led by Racine, with Seedcamp, Kima Ventures, and Motier Ventures also participating. Macron's tenure saw significant growth in the tech sector with increased funding and support for startups. However, the RN’s policies focus on digital sovereignty and protectionism, potentially impacting global talent and investment flows. 💥 There's a debate on whether the RN's approach can maintain the current momentum and ambition in the French and European tech landscape. Additionally, other countries like Germany and Austria have seen similar election results, indicating that this might not only be the case in France but across Europe, which has already been leaning towards a protectionist stance. #FrenchTech #Startups #AI #Investment #Politics #Innovation #Mistral #LaFrenchTech

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How to build a sports tech Startup and conquer a $240B industry right after your studies? I got to meet Victorien Tixier, Co-founder of ScorePlay for the HEC Start-up circle Podcast! ScorePlay is the first all-in-one AI-powered media operating system for sports. Right after graduating, Victorien broke into this secretive industry, realized the chaos of media management in sports, and built a platform that now works across over 30 different sports. More than 120 sports organizations and 10,000 athletes (including Lionel Messi, Alex Morgan, Joao Felix) receive their content automatically through the ScorePlay Athlete App, to build their own brands like never before. Last year, ScorePlay raised a $5M seed round, led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian Sr.’s Seven Seven Six, bringing their total funding to $6.5M. Investing alongside 776 are Renaud Visage, Alexandre Yazdi, Michael Philippe, Robin Sabban, Thibaud Elziere, Quentin Nickmans, Amaury Sepulchre The link to the podcast is in the comments, enjoy ❤️

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This is interesting! Do keep working on it Naza Metghalchi! In our experience, we often see the desire to use existing tools (e.g. CoPilot) for individual activities that are actually enterprise processes in disguise. For example, drafting a policy or job description. Sure, one person could draft a JD, but in practice it involves a hiring manager's expertise, an HR leader (for org chart), a recruiter, and often other stakeholders. An AI equipped to help the initial author often fails to automate enough of the workflow to be considered valuable. Then, teams revert back to previous workflows. I'm curious to see where users draw the line between high/low complexity and individual/enterprise processes. And if this is a gradient, where along each axises will we find the most value addition?

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What you need to know this week in 🇫🇷 French Tech Updates: 🤦‍♂️ My thoughts on this tweet and the reactions it sparked 🤴 Why San Francisco is the Iron Throne of the startup world 🤖 Mistral reportedly raising again at a $5b valuation 💶 5 French startups who raised €22.75M Get the whole update here! https://lnkd.in/eaYbFT94 #startups #venturecapital #frenchtech #ai

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📣 Major Update for French Founders and VC Firms! 🚀 Versible eu We have built a full database of all the private funds investing in #Seed, #SeriesA, and #SeriesB across nearly every sector in the #French ecosystem. As part of our mission, we are developing the next generation of venture capital management software. Our goal is to streamline the fundraising process and enhance investor relations for founders and investors throughout Europe. Each of our initiatives aims to shine a spotlight on the hardworking individuals who are shaping the future of the world. Stay tuned for Monday 27th. #Venturecapital #Seed #Lafrenchtech #LegalTech #Agriculture #Mobility #Deeptech #FoodTech #InsurTech #BioTech #HealthTech #Realestate #Web3

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€25M, to build the one finance platform to rule them all. Proud to be partner of Pauline Glikman and Joseph A. from Day 0! When we first invested in Payflows, there were many other FinTech SaaS startups focusing on individual pain points felt by CFOs and their teams. Some of these companies try to improve accounts payable or procurement. Others tackle cash management or try to modernize the payment stack. Payflows stands apart by offering this and more as modules within an automated platform bigger than the sum of its parts. Each module can be purchased and deployed independently, but the offering becomes much more powerful when all the pieces of the puzzle are combined.   We partnered with Payflows team on their €5M Seed round, together with Ribbit Capital - all thanks to an intro from my friend Salomon Aiach, GP at Origins Fund. Their product quickly turned out to be such a customer hit that they never had time to announce the round. Fast forward one year. Customers include both public enterprise companies as well as growth-stage tech companies like Ornikar, Spendesk, and Swile and Podimo. Welcome Balderton Capital in today’s combined €25M funding round! In the comments, the story on Les Echos and an in-depth piece on why we invested. Can't wait to continue seeing the ultimate financial automation platform come together! (Photo by Samuel Sotto)

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From missing payroll 27 times to making over 500 investments! Meet Fabrice Grinda, named No. 1 Angel Investor by Forbes, who has made over $300 million in exits from over 700 investments! Fabrice began his entrepreneurial journey in 1998 by co-founding Aucland in France. In 1999, he raised $18M from Bernard Arnault, a venture fund luxury-goods magnate in exchange for 51% of the company. Later in 2000, Fabrice sold the rest to his fund. Fabrice founded Zingy in 2001, a mobile media startup. Despite facing early struggles and missing payroll 27 times, he finally succeeded when the company’s revenue scaled to $200M in 2004. Later, he sold Zingy for $80M to a Japanese media conglomerate ForSide. In 2006, Fabrice co-founded OLX with Alec Oxenford, which became one of the largest classified sites in the world with over 200 million monthly unique visitors. In 2010, the South African group Naspers Limited acquired it. Soon, Fabrice found a yearning for angel investing and building startups. He partnered with Jose Marin to jointly evaluate angel investment opportunities, and launched FJ Labs, a VC firm, to further pool the startup investment activities. Earlier, when they made around 178 investments, they received a 5.5x average return on 31 profitable exits. Among his angel investments are: Airbnb Alibaba Group Dropbox Palantir Technologies viagogo Wikimarket Uber Parking Panda To date, Fabrice, through FJ Labs, has made over 1000 startup investments and over 300 exits with an impressive realized 39-40% IRR. Fabrice’s portfolio allocation is 20% cash, 70% early-stage tech startups, and 10% real estate. As a serial angel investor, Fabrice and his team analyze over 100 companies weekly and make new investments every 15 days. His investment ticket size remains around $10k to $300k. He decides whether to invest or not based on four criteria: -The team -The pitch (market size & business model) -The product -The commercials Would you allocate 70% of your assets to startups? TDV Partners #angelinvesting #finance #investing #wealthcreation #ujwalsutaria #tdvpartners

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🎉 The iOS app store Aptoide launching yesterday (as an invite-only beta) as a game-only distributor. And seems to be a very promising alternative to App Store. Here are 3️⃣ 3 key things to know: - Aptoide combines a freemium model with a rewards structure. For users, this means all the games will be free-to-play, but some will include in-app purchases. How this differs from the App Store is that Aptoide will give “bonuses” to people who regularly spend in-app, something that will work out to be a 5 to 10 percent discount on each purchase. - developers are charged 20% for organic in-app purchases generated by the Aptoide iOS marketplace and a 10% fee in all other cases — for example, when the developer advertises independently and drives downloads of the app. On the Android store, Aptoide charges 25% and 10%, respectively. Apple, on the other hand, charges a 30% fee across the board.  - Aptoide is paying developers between $1,000 and $2,000 to launch a game on its IOS platform, the higher amount going to those who include in-app purchases in their software. The company also handles the Core Technology Fee — a cost of 50 euro cents per annual marketplace install — from its cut of in-app purchases. The iOS side of things is in its infancy so clearly a lot can happen down the road - but def. something that should be on everyone's radar, especially for apps with global TAM. https://lnkd.in/dJT9K7FN #appmarketing #appstore #gamedevelopers

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What a week it was for Klarna 🤯 Here's 𝟲 𝗕𝗜𝗚 𝗡𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗨𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 from Klarna, and one quick question 😉: 1️⃣ Klarna is launching a 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗱 in the United States 🇺🇸, they told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview: “It was one of our most asked for products,” Read more: https://lnkd.in/efjqD7NR 2️⃣ ChatGPT parent company OpenAI shared that the Klarna’s adoption of the technology is estimated to yield a $𝟰𝟬 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 in the company’s profits this year. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eDzqhSE7 3️⃣ Klarna is selling Hero , the virtual shopping platform it acquired in 2021, to video commerce outfit Bambuser in a deal worth around EUR1.3 million. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eahY3BWh 4️⃣ Klarna scores 𝗺𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗨𝗯𝗲𝗿 ahead of hotly anticipated IPO. You can now use Klarna to pay for your Uber and Uber Eats in the US, Germany and Sweden. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eW5jhken 5️⃣ Klarna also announced the expansion of its 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 Group to the US 🇺🇸 market, enabling them to book flights and stays using its interest-free Pay Now or Pay in 4 options. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e3GNUhjB 6️⃣ Also last week, Karma unveiled a super-speedy-checkout flow for restaurants, using Karma x Klarna bringing the check our process down to 𝟭𝟭 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘀 (the average checkout time at a restaurant is 5m 25s!). Read more: https://lnkd.in/eEkKskuP Finally, now over to you: Did you notice Klarna's recent 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗵 (check out the picture below👇)? Which one do you think looks best❓ Let me know in the comments which logo you like most! 𝗕(efore) or 𝗔(fter) 😉 Find this helpful? [ 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 ] Anything to add about this subject? [ 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 ] Nice story, Marcel. Next! [ 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 ] Get the most important FinTech news and analysis in a 5 minute daily briefing you’ll actually look forward to reading. Sign up now: https://lnkd.in/eiQBxdTW

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May 13 2024 - 10 Notable Articles To Read Article: French AI Startup Taking On Silicon Valley Is Set to Stuff Its War Chest Takeaway: Mistral AI is on the verge of securing $600M in funding, nearly 3x valuation to $6B, with investors such as General Catalyst and Lightspeed participating. Source: The Wall Street Journal Link: https://lnkd.in/dQRkCC63 Article: The Saks, Neiman Marcus Group Megadeal Is Getting Close, Sources Said Takeaway: Reports suggest that Reliance Retail and Zalando are part of a $3B deal aimed at consolidating Saks and Neiman Marcus under a single entity. Source: WWD Link: https://lnkd.in/dFmbsYaw Article: Bain Pursues Takeover of Education-Software Provider Takeaway: Bain Capital's acquisition might assess PowerSchool at approximately $6B, factoring debt. Source: The Wall Street Journal Link: https://lnkd.in/dd_k9gpM Article: Investcorp closes $570M fund for cybersecurity and fintech Takeaway: This fundraising effort builds on the achievements of their earlier $400M fund, while their total assets under management worldwide already stand at $52B. Source: Tech.eu Link: https://lnkd.in/dUHbeBTv Article: Alphabet Inc. Progressing in Talks to Buy HubSpot, Sources Say Takeaway: This prospective agreement could be one of the largest acquisitions of the year. Source: Bloomberg Link: https://lnkd.in/dBVZ7TX4 Article: The Fastest Growing Category of Venture Investment in 2024 Takeaway: The AI investing initiative is projected to reach $80B in 2024, marking a 2.6x increase from 2023, with $18.3B invested in the first four months of the year alone. Source: Tomasz Tunguz Link: https://lnkd.in/d4hUJ6TG Article: Todd Boehly’s investment house in advanced talks to buy private credit firm Takeaway: Eldridge Industries is pursuing the acquisition of Hayfin Capital Management LLP in a deal valued at over €1B. Source: Financial Times Link: https://lnkd.in/dkh66B3P Article: Mubadala’s $3B Fortress Investment Group deal clears crucial US regulatory hurdle Takeaway: The foreign investment committee has granted approval for the sale following concessions regarding data and day-to-day control, enabling the $300B assets under management fund to proceed with the agreement. Source: Financial Times Link: https://lnkd.in/drAi7cZH Article: UBS Mulls Bonus for Investment Bankers Who Lure Rich Clients Takeaway: UBS Group AG is contemplating implementing a reward program for investment bankers who direct clients to the company's wealth management division, mirroring an incentive scheme akin to what Credit Suisse provided to its dealmakers. Source: Bloomberg News Link: https://lnkd.in/dy3bt4zm Article: Bill Gates weighs in on new €1B German fund to back capital-intensive climate tech Takeaway: Europe’s first fund to focus primarily on solving the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) financing gap Source: Sifted Link: https://lnkd.in/ddKPYpWP #news #business #research

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IA funding is (still) surging. As uncertainty continues in the start-up ecosystem, IA is still trending. For example the amount raised by AI media generation deals doubles since Q4 2023. But one spot seem to be left on the side : AI tools for investors. VC are betting big on AI but aren’t using AI at all to make better bets. And the AI castle might crumble one day. The CEO of Hugging Face is already warning that dozens of founders are reaching out on a weekly basis to be acquired. So there might be a lot of losing bets still alive. So why so few start-ups are working to solve this issue? Is it because the market is to small? Is it because VCs don’t believe in a data-driven approach (I don’t believe in this one, VCs are too smart to not try something new)? Or simply nobody’s building in this ecosystem? A few start-ups are starting to try to tacle the problem. And we’re on this path to. Easing data collection on the start-up, the market and competitors. Carefully selecting the right metrics to make the right decision. And making it simple and super efficient so you don’t spend hours on it anymore. If you’re curious to see how it works, shoot me a DM 👀 #AI #VC #startup

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Bitcoin vs Memecoins : A traditional investor asked, "What makes Bitcoin different from the rest of all meme coins in crypto ?" A savvy fund manager responded: "Think of Bitcoin as the Louis Vuitton of crypto; rest all Memecoins is just a basic (un-know or less know) bag in crypto" What’s your take on this? Share your views as comments! #CryptoDebate #BitcoinVsMemeCoins #memecoins Coinbase Binance Kraken Digital Asset Exchange Uphold

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Cool convo with Naza Metghalchi last week when we discussed what are the types of automation that could be opportunities for challengers 🦸‍♀️🦸‍♂️ ( 👋 Qevlar AI | We're Hiring! Parloa ) vs incumbents 🐘 The key for me was to really think around what agents can actually do that was not possible in the past (and not just make easier something that we could somewhat do with effort already). Agents are changing the game if you think about a non sequence-friendly automation: like with potentially « infinite » branches and loops. This unlocks goal oriented automation when in the past we had « steps/actions flow » oriented automation. Exciting 🚀

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15 days left until the Founders x Investors dynamic network event 『MELT in NY』. Let me introduce 17 remarkable Founders / CEOs from Series A to Pre-seed stage ⚡️ ☞ CEO @ Iwin Inc Stage: Series A Ticketing and Backend financial services. ☞ CEO @ ROAR GAMES Stage: Series A PC/Console action game TENET OF THE SPARK ☞ CEO and Founder @ Tastry AI Stage: Series A Gen AI that is a virtual focus group for the alcoholic beverage market ☞ CEO @ Hedge Stage: Seed Hedge is a multiplayer financial institution building Fidelity for GenZ ☞ Founder + CEO @ Curie Stage: Seed Product-accurate Generative 3D for Commerce 🚀1st seed investment from Disney, 2 exits, $30M raised over 3 startups ☞ Founder | CEO @ Yoodlize Stage: Seed Yoodlize is a rental marketplace, helping people do more with less. ☞ Founder | CEO @ myworldvirtual Stage: Seed Launch ready Web-XR Product - Remote Collaboration in realistic 3D environments.... To build a Virtual World out of our actual world (AKA. The Matrix) ☞ Founder | COO @ Yoodlize Stage: Seed Yoodlize is a peer-to-peer rental marketplace allowing customers to consume less. ☞ Founder and CEO @ Carthage Capital Management Stage: Seed Carthage Capital employs a data-driven options trading strategy that aims to generate 2-3% profit each month for our investors (30-50% each year) ☞ Founding Product Manager @ Stealth Stage: Seed Payment management with AI ☞ CEO @ InvoiceLedger Stage: Pre-seed Visa/Mastercard type of network, but for invoices 🚀2x founder with 2 exits 1) HR tech startup Clockster com (founded as a CMO in 2017 and exited in 2021) - grew to 400 clients, raised $1.4m 2) B2B BNPL startup in Singapore - Bueno money, started in 2021 got absorbed by fintech PE fund in 2024 ☞ CEO @ Pairenthesis Stage: Pre-seed AI-driven platform for data extraction and verification. ☞ CEO @ Momo Project Stage: Pre-seed Dog Tinder for Playdates ☞ CEO @ Yorkseed Stage: Pre-seed Global venture capital community ☞ CEO @ NaviGuide Stage: Pre-seed Equitable AI guidance counselor ☞ CEO @ Mimrr Stage: Pre-seed Technical debt eliminator using AI to automate code documentation and analytics. ☞ CEO & Co-Founder @ Frida Stage: Pre-seed HR assistant with AI for high turnover industries 6/3 5:00pm Founders x Investors Dynamic Network 『MELT』in NY Event link 👇 https://lu.ma/ldbfgkez We have received 290 registrations. （🚀Update: 2024/05/19 16:21(PST)） ・64 VC and Angel Investors ・208 Founders/CEOs ・Other executives ...

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ummary: A French startup, FlexAI, has raised €28.5 million in seed funding to create a cloud service for AI training. The company aims to simplify the complex process of accessing and managing computational resources for AI development. Key takeaways: FlexAI's founders have impressive backgrounds in engineering and AI development. The company's goal is to make AI compute infrastructure as easy to use as general purpose cloud services. FlexAI's cloud service will allow developers to access virtual heterogeneous compute across multiple architectures on a usage basis. Counter arguments: Some may argue that there are already existing AI compute solutions in the market, such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. There may be concerns about data privacy and security when using a cloud service for AI development. ummary: A French startup, FlexAI, has raised €28.5 million in seed funding to create a cloud service for AI training. The company aims to simplify the complex process of accessing and managing computational resources for AI development. Key takeaways: FlexAI's founders have impressive backgrounds in engineering and AI development. The company's goal is to make AI compute infrastructure as easy to use as general purpose cloud services. FlexAI's cloud service will allow developers to access virtual heterogeneous compute across multiple architectures on a usage basis. Counter arguments: Some may argue that there are already existing AI compute solutions in the market, such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. There may be concerns about data privacy and security when using a cloud service for AI development. #venturecapital #vc #venture

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