STATION F: 5 years, 5.015 startups and a lot more to come

On February 21, STATION F is welcoming all the main candidates in the French Presidential election to hear their economic & entrepreneurial proposals. We hope that innovation won’t be overlooked. As many of you already know, the French ecosystem is on fire. The target that France set for itself of…

It’s an exciting time for diversity in the French ecosystem. Yesterday, Les Echos announced that StartHer — the association that I cofounded with Mounia Rkha 10 years ago — would be joining Sista. Sista, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a recent organization that has led some really terrific projects…

This article initially appeared in Sifted on June 2, 2020. Over the last few years, we’ve seen a growing interest in angel or scout programmes on behalf of European funds. Atomico, Backed VC, Blossom Capital and Ada Ventures have been among the first Europe-based funds to venture into this territory…

This article initially appeared in Sifted on April 23, 2020. Fiascos always present new opportunities for entrepreneurs. The dotcom bubble — which happened exactly 20 years ago — killed off companies like Pets.com but strengthened the likes of Amazon and eBay. Airbnb, Spotify, Uber, Dropbox, Adyen, Evernote and more all grew out of the economic downturn of 2008 (as many a venture capitalist likes to mention).

We’ve already read about tons of startup layoffs. 1000 people at Yelp and another 1000 at Magic Leap, almost 1000 at Lyft, 45% of the workforce at Eventbrite, 30% at Bird. Layoffs Tracker has over 300 companies listed — including the likes of Houzz, Lending Club, MindBody, The Wing and…

This is a topic that has been on my mind since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis. In the first week or so, everyone moves into crisis-control in order to handle the immediate issues — which is a normal response. …

After several years (!) of near silence, I decided earlier this year that I would write a bit more often in 2020. However, I wasn’t quite sure what to write about for this post. Since the beginning of the year, quite a bit has happened, including: the announcement of the…

I cannot believe I’m saying this, but my silly blog Techbaguette recently turned 10 years old. Now, that probably isn’t saying much, because I haven’t actually published anything on the site since December 2016. But it’s kind of crazy to look back and realize how much has changed since I…

It’s crazy to think that it’s already been 2 years since our big fat launch event in June 2017 with President Macron. As you may have noticed, a *ton* has happened since we opened. Data — the good, the bad and the ugly. Last year we celebrated our 1st birthday with a WTF Conference and by revealing a lot…