French Tech News with Chris O'Brien and Ethan Pierse

Join us for a passionate discussion with Pascal Cagni, Founding Partner at C4 Ventures and Chairman at Business France, previously GM & VP, Apple EMEIA, and GM Europe, Packard Bell.

1. Intro and background 0:28
2. Pascal's journey at Apple 4:50
3. C4 Ventures' focus and interests 7:12
4. C4's investment themes and thesis 12:35
5. France is back and French Tech's growth 15:02
6. From French Tech startups to European scaleups 22:36
...

The French Tech News visited Ynsect's mealworm farm in Dole, France, and spent some time with CEO Antoine Hubert learning more about Ynsect's journey, their mission, their science, and where they go from here. 

1. Intro and acquisition of US mealworm factory, Jord Producers: 00:48 

2. Vertical insect farm factory description: 1:57

3. Behind the Engineering, Data, and Biology of farming insects (mealworm beetles, Tene...

Discussing reducing carbon emissions in your business and value chain with CEO and Co-Founder of Sweep, Rachel Delacour.

1. Description and history of Sweep: 1:49
2. Climate change startup investment landscape 3:52
3. Doing good can also be good business 5:14
4. Sweep's $5m seed fundraising 6:47
5. Optimism and the COP26 Experience 7:14
6. Will technology save the planet? 11:47
7. Founding BIME Analytics and the Zendesk acquisition 16:...

Founder & Managing Director of eFounders, Quentin Nickmans, takes us back to the beginning of their startup studio to share the journey of building a portfolio of 29 companies and raising more than $400 million.

• 1:15 Intro to eFounders
• 4:25 Spinning out one SaaS startup after another
• 9:11 Solve the problems you have yourself. Build the solutions you need.
• 11:53 Discovering founders and matching them to ideas
• 16:38 ...

Barbara Belvisi, Founder and CEO of Interstellar Lab, shares their mission to create sustainable plant cultivation both in space and here on Earth.

Be sure to subscribe to and share the podcast on your preferred podcast platform and check out the video version on our YouTube channel.

---

The French Tech News is a newsletter, podcast, and video media highlighting important stories, in English, in the world of France’s startups,...

Stephen Leguillon, CEO of Seyna, shares their journey on creating a regulatory-compliant, all-in-one platform enabling insurance brokers to build and operate digitally native insurance programs.

• 0:48 The journey from Appetise to La Belle Assiette to ezCater to Seyna
• 2:50 Becoming an Insurtech entrepreneur
• 5:31 Joining an existing team to build the next insurance scaleup
• 9:27 Innovating the technology and processes of ins...

Join Chris and Ethan for a fascinating discussion with CEO Jeronimo Folgueira on Deezer's continuing mission as an independent music streaming platform:

• 1:01 Intro to Deezer and Jeronimo's background
• 2:55 Deezer's place in the music industry
• 4:30 Deezer's unique value proposition as a music streaming service
• 10:24 The Home of Podcasting or Music?
• 12:13 and speaking of Spotify, let's talk about Joe Rogan
• 17:13 Music E...

Chris and Ethan had the pleasure to sit down and discuss Front's mission to build an authentic, relationship-based customer communication hub with Co-Founder and CEO, Mathilde Collin.

• 1:20 Intro to Front
• 2:50 eFounders and the origin story of Front
• 8:07 Onward to Y Combinator
• 11:03 Raising a $66M Series B in 2018
• 14:22 More fundraising and pandemic-powered growth
• 18:00 Building in San Francisco for French entrepreneu...

A fascinating chat with Franck Lebouchard, CEO of Devialet, on their mission to elevate sound to its rightful place in our lives through an exacting attention to engineering and design:

• 1:28 A short history of Devialet
• 4:07 Being different about sound and design
• 8:50 People want better sound as streaming and video quality massively improve
• 11:46 3D and immersive audio are coming
• 13:53 Devialet's explosive growth and cont...

Today our guest is Denis Ladegaillerie, Founder and CEO of Believe, to discuss how they enable independent musicians to build and engage with their community and fans:

• 1:23 The mission of Believe
• 2:04 Believe's history and the evolution of the music industry
• 6:25 Tunecore, helping independent artists build their career through premium and automated solutions.
• 8:57 Scaling your music's visibility and reach through platfor...

Our interview with Benoist Grossmann, Co-President of France Digitale and CEO of Eurazeo (formerly Idinvest), at France Digitale Day.

 – Idinvest becomes Eurazeo 
 – A little history of Idinvest 
 – About yesterday's announcement of $1.5B invested into Sorare, Mirakl, and Vestiaire Collective 
 – 'Values' and Sustainability at France Digitale Day 
 – Sustainability, green...

Our interview with Yann Lechelle, CEO of Scaleway, at France Digitale Day.

 – Scaleway's view on datacenter environmental impact and sustainability 
 – Energy and water-efficient datacenters 
 – Datacenter optimization vs legacy infrastructure 
 – Sustainability as a business decision 
 – Greentech and sustainability as a competitive advantage 

Be sure to subscribe to an...

Our interview with Audrey Soussan, Partner at Ventech Capital, at France Digitale Day.

1. The mission and thesis of Ventech Capital 
2. Early-stage valuation trends and VC competition 
3. What might IPO/acquisition exits look like for these higher valuation early-stage investments? 
4. Does the IPO location matter? 
5. Does private equity growth investment create liquidity or do you wait for an exit? 
6. Any spe...

Our interview with former Digital Economy Minister of France and Korelya Capital CEO, Fleur Pellerin, at France Digitale Day.

1. Intro to Korelya Capital 
2. Asian opportunities for European entrepreneurs 
3. Cultural and business considerations on entering Asian markets 
4. Growth capital (finally) comes to Europe 
5. Is private equity a rival or partner to venture capital 
6. $1.5B of investments in Mirakl, ...

Ynsect CEO, Antoine Hubert, explains their mission to develop sustainable nutrition for both animals and humans using insect protein:

• 1:41 10 years of progress
• 4:29 Building an industrial agricultural company
• 9:20 Technical challenges, commercial challenges, then the regulatory challenge
• 13:09 Why do we want to feed the world with insects?
• 19:55 Feeding animals, great...but feeding people? Creating ingredients for spor...

Our interview with Thomas Courtois, President of Nickel, at Vivatechnology in Paris.

– 

Be sure to subscribe to and share the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, and check out the video version on our YouTube channel.

---

The French Tech News is a newsletter, podcast, and video media highlighting important stories, in English, in the world of France’s startups, its entrepreneurs, investors, and ecosy...

Today our guest is Jeremy Prince, CEO of Sigfox, to discuss their mission to build the largest IoT ecosystem in the world.

• 3:20 Transitioning to a new CEO
• 5:22 What drew you to Sigfox in 2018? 
• 12:26 2020, a difficult year
• 20:33 IoT Mass Adoption – 3 drivers: transforming customers' businesses, regulatory compliance, and new, disruptive business models leveraging IoT
• 26:25 The growth of IoT's different segments an...

On today’s live podcast on Clubhouse, we'll cover great stories about:

1:02 Ledger, the leading manufacturer of cryptocurrency cold storage hardware wallets, raises a $380M Series C at a $1.5B unicorn valuation, making them France's 15th unicorn and 5th so far in 2021,

11:45 Pasqal quantum computing raises €25M Series A from France's Defense Innovation Fund for their programmable atomic arrays,

18:50 C12 Quantum Electronics raises ...

Today our guest is Nicolas Brusson, Co-Founder and CEO at BlaBlaCar, the world’s leading intercity ridesharing service. We’ll be discussing carpooling in the pandemic / post-pandemic world, lessons in international growth especially of BlaBlaCar’s bus service in markets like Mexico, India, Russia, and Brazil, the road to becoming the intercity transportation super app, and building a culture of entrepreneurship and legacy through t...