The 23 Superb Speakers at SaaStock on Tour Paris
Brace yourselves for an insider-wisdom-packed SaaStock on Tour Paris on May 3rd. With 23 speakers from all corners of the SaaS world — from the founders and investors all the way to the marketing and sales operators, we promise we’ll keep your brains busy and your SaaS growing.
Some of the highlights include Christoph Janz + special guest, as well as keynotes from growth thought leader Kieran Flanagan, VP of Marketing at HubSpot, and Laurence Bret-Stern, CRO at Pipedrive.
Alongside those, you’ll learn the nitty-gritty details of designing a great product experience even in a boring industry, running a venture capital SaaS company and acing round after round, as well as ways automation and APIs can help drive growth.
Grab your early bird ticket before April 12th.
Christoph Janz, Managing Partner, Point Nine Capital
Christoph Janz is Managing Partner at Point Nine Capital and has a long and successful history of entrepreneurship and angel investments. Christoph and PointNine have been instrumental in the healthy growth of the European SaaS ecosystem since the firm was founded in 2011, both through their investments and follow up support, as well as the wealth of helpful information they have published through the years.
Talk: In the spirit of his SaaStock17 chat with Des Traynor, Christoph will invite a special guest for coffee and open the day with a fireside chat.
Rachel Delacour, VP, Zendesk for Startups
In France, the name Rachel Delacour is known as one of the most successful entrepreneurs. Her company, the business intelligence pioneer BIME, exited with a $45 million acquisition from Zendesk. For Rachel, however, there are no coincidences in this. She’s an impressive networker, and supporter of the French ecosystem. On the Paris stage, she will sit on a panel to share her experience of going from her parents bedroom to a scale-up with a successful exit.
Talk: Building Billion dollar businesses — Tips on getting your startup to scaleup to a unicorn SaaS company.
Romain Dillet, Senior Writer, TechCrunch
Romain Dillet describes himself as a “kid who lives on the internet.” He is one of the big dogs at TechCrunch, where he writes about tech achievements, AI, mobile apps, and SaaS. At SaaStock on Tour Paris, Romain will share his take on crafting impressive product experience — even in a field that may not seem exciting.
Talk: How to design a great product experience in a boring industry
Jean-Charles Samuelian, Co-founder and CEO, alan
Jean-Charles Samuelian started coding when has was 13. By age 23, he created Expliseat, which brought a revolution in economy-class aircraft seats by reducing their weight. Today, he is the CEO of alan, a leading digital health insurance provider in France and just raise a wooping €23 million Series A led by Index Ventures. On the SaaStock on Tour stage, Jean-Charles takes the seat across from Romain Dillet.
Talk: How to design a great product experience in a boring industry
Kieran Flanagan, VP Marketing, HubSpot
Kieran Flanagan is the VP of Marketing at HubSpot, helping SaaS companies of all venues and sizes boost their traffic and revenue. At his talk, he will share how businesses can find their product-channel fit, so that they can acquire users that stick around, how to make the most of existing platforms, and how to achieve the much sought after product virality.
Talk: How to create product-driven growth
Raffi Kamber, Partner, Alven Capital
Raffi Kamber has been in the VC space since 2008 when he joined European fund GIMV. In 2011, he became Partner at Alven Capital. The fund has invested in notable French SaaS companies such as Algolia, BIME, Dataiku, Mention, and PeopleDoc. One of Raffi’s main responsibilities is to help the portfolio companies in their exploration and expansion into the U.S. market.
Talk: Learning by Doing. Building a sales team in the US one step at a time
Florian Douetteau, CEO, Dataiku
Florian Douetteau first made a name for himself as Director of Exalead, a search engine tech business. In 2013, he founded Dataiku, a collaborative platform for data scientists. He made a bold leap early on and scaled the company, starting an office in New York and going through a few funding rounds there. Florian will join Raffi Kamber in the fireside chat on building a sales team in the U.S.
Talk: Learning by Doing. Building a sales team in the US one step at a time
Laurence Bret-Stern, CRO, Pipedrive
Laurence Bret-Stern has seven years of fueling growth at LinkedIn under her belt. In 2017, she joined Pipedrive, a prominent CRM provider, as its CRO. Since then, Laurence has poured her energy into boosting the growth, value creation and branding efforts of her new company. In Paris, she offers tactical knowledge on the journey of moving upmarket with Pipedrive.
Talk: How to evolve your SaaS business toward higher revenues
Alex Delivet, Co-founder and CEO, Collect
Alex Delivet is a well-known name on the French startup scene. He started out with corporate jobs, but soon moved to founding his own initiatives, taking the positions of founder, COO, and CEO. His newest project is Collect, a tool for automatic collection of documents from clients, employees and business partners. With his extensive industry knowledge, he’ll join the panel on using automation for driving growth.
Talk: Unleashing the power of automation and APIs as drivers for growth
Frédérique Castagnac, Product Marketer, Zapier
Frédérique Castagnac launched her first business when she was 24. Today she is a product marketer at Zapier, the renowned app automation tool. She teaches marketing, growth and business development at Lion by The Family, the first French program for training startup professionals. Well-versed in the powers of automation, Frédérique will join the panel on using it for fueling growth.
Talk: Unleashing the power of automation and APIs as drivers for growth
Bjoern Zinssmeister, Co-founder and CEO, Templarbit
When you have started writing code at the age of ten, there’s a certain promise for an exciting life ahead. That’s the story of Bjoern Zinssmeister, co-founder and CEO of Templarbit, an app security platform targeted mainly at developers. He moved from Germany to the Silicon Valley in 2010, driven by his desire to join the up-and-bustling tech scene in the U.S. Bjoern will be one of the panelist who will share his insights into the power of automation.
Talk: Unleashing the power of automation and APIs as drivers for growth
Liam Boogar
Liam Boogar is a man of communication. He founded the annual Connected Conference, which aims to connect the industrial and internet sectors. Liam is also a co-founder and editor of Rude Baguette, the French startup blog. He served as Algolia first brand director and has appeared twice on the SaaStock stage to share his experience. This time around, Liam will share his insights in the power of APIs for business growth.
Talk: Unleashing the power of automation and APIs as drivers for growth
Pietro Bezza, Managing Partner, Connect Ventures
Pietro Bezza is one of those entrepreneurs who transition to investments with ease. He has more than 15 years of experience in tech, and co-founded and managed the mobile apps and content provider Neo Network, acquired by Zodiak Media in 2007. In 2011, Pietro founded the venture capital company Connect Ventures. In its investment portfolio are companies such as Citymapper, Typeform, and Marvel. In Paris, he will share his expertise in avoiding innovation stagnation and overcoming engineering challenges that come with growth.
Talk: How to avoid the innovation coffin corner (AKA how engineering challenges shift with scale)
Stanislas Polu, Software Engineer, Stripe, Co-founder, TOTEMS
With a Computer Science degree from Stanford, Stanislas Polu quickly moved from his job at Oracle to founding two tech startups. He started Bipsly, a mobile CRM platform for local companies, and later on TOTEMS, an Instagram marketing suite. Today he is applying his programming knowhow at the renowned business suite Stripe as a software engineer. In the SaaStock on Tour Paris panel, Stanislas will reveal his approach to going beyond engineering challenges for rapidly growing SaaS business.
Talk: How to avoid the innovation coffin corner (AKA how engineering challenges shift with scale)
Marie-Hortense Varin, Principal, Partech Ventures
On her way to the VC world, Marie-Hortense Varin passed through logistics, e-commerce, as well as consultancy for Bain & Company. Her knowhow in consulting gravitates around M&A, go-to-market strategy, and supply chain optimization. In 2015, Marie-Hortense joined Partech Ventures. When she is not taking care of portfolio companies, she teaches Business Model Innovation at the prestigious Sciences Po. At the stage in Paris, Marie will add her two cents on what it takes to go from startup to unicorn SaaS company.
Talk: Building Billion dollar businesses — Tips on getting your startup to scaleup to a unicorn SaaS company.
Samantha Jerusalmy, Partner, Elaia Partners
Samantha Jerusalmy’s fascination with tech companies began when she joined Clipperton Finance, a tech-focused corporate finance company. Since 2008, Samantha has managed investments for SaaS, e-commerce, marketplace, and digital media businesses at Elaia Partners. FretLink, Scoop.it! and SmartAngels are just a few of the companies under her supervision. It’s where Samantha has learned a lot about the journey through the stages of growth, which she will share on the Billion dollar panel.
Talk: Building Billion dollar businesses — Tips on getting your startup to scaleup to a unicorn SaaS company.
Evgenia Plotnikova, Principal, Dawn Capital
Evgenia Plotnikova is one of the newest additions at Dawn Capital, which she recently joined as Principal. Prior to joining Dawn, Evgenia was responsible for sourcing, due diligence and execution of investments at Atomico, where she helped spearhead the firm’s efforts in France. Evgenia has lived in five countries and travelled to fifty five (and counting). In 2017, Evgenia was named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list of leading young entrepreneurs, innovators and game changers. She is another addition to the Building Billion dollar businesses, which is a must for companies of all sizes.
Talk: Building Billion dollar businesses — Tips on getting your startup to scaleup to a unicorn SaaS company.
Philippe Botteri, Partner, Accel
After a rich experience at Bessemer, Philippe Botteri joined Accel in 2011. The fund has backed present-day giants such as Facebook, Dropbox, and Atlassian, just to name a few. Under Philippe’s watch, Accel has made investments in DocuSign, Peopledoc, Qubit, Algolia, Blablacar, and Doctolib. You can check out his profound industry insights on his blog, Cracking the Code.
Talk: Dancing with giants without getting crushed: How to sell 7 figure deals out of the gate
Jeremy Jawish, Co-founder and CEO, Shift Technology
Jeremy Jawish is the kind of person who can tell you what are the odds of an insurance claim being fake. Having graduated Master of Science degrees in Financial Mathematics and in Probability and Finance, today he leads the machine-learning startup Shift Technology. Its focus is preventing insurance fraud through AI algorithms. The SaaS platform raised $10M in 2016.
Talk: Dancing with giants without getting crushed: How to sell 7 figure deals out of the gate
Alain Mevellec, CEO, Sellsy
Alain Mevellec is the founder and CEO of Sellsy, the innovative CRM and invoicing solution for SMBs. Before that he co-founded two other startups, Cleargay and Easybill. Sellsy started in 2009 with a €400,000 seed round. Since then, he has raised €1M Series A in 2011, and €8M Series B in January 2018. Alain will share his insights from leading a venture-funded SaaS through the intricacies of fundraising.
Talk: From seed, to A, to B: What we’ve learnt as venture capital SaaS
Jonathan Anguelov, Co-founder and COO, Aircall
What started out as a career in investment banking quickly turned into a successful entrepreneurial experience. Meet Jonathan Anguelov, co-founder and COO of Aircall, the cloud-based communication platform for corporations. In 2015, the startup received its first seed investment of $800,000. Another seed round followed in 2016, when Aircall raised $2.8M. A Series A round followed in 2016, with the impressive $8M. Jonathan will share fundraising experience in the panel on venture capital for SaaS businesses.
Talk: From seed, to A, to B: What we’ve learnt as venture capital SaaS
Jonathan Userovici, Investor, Idinvest
Jonathan Userovici is a tech VC investor at Idinvest, the most prominent — and largest — French venture capital company. Idinvest’s yearly investments gravitate around €150M in Series A and B funding. Jonathan helps Spanish, British, and French tech startups obtain the right investment from Idinvest. He will reveal the investor’s point of view in the panel on SaaS VC fundraising.
Talk: From seed, to A, to B: What we’ve learnt as venture capital SaaS
Yann Fleureau, Co-founder and CEO, Cardiologs
After completing a prestigious entrepreneurial program at the University of California at Berkeley, Yann Fleureau co-founded CardioLogs. It is a cardiological tool powered by machine-learning that aims to apply image recognition for the commonplace electrocardiogram (EKG) analysis. CardioLogs has proven a successful venture, raising a $1M seed round in 2015, and a $6.5M Series A round in 2017. He will share his experience with venture capital funding for his SaaS company.
Talk: From seed, to A, to B: What we’ve learnt as venture capital SaaS
Bringing the knowledge of these speakers to your doorstep is why we are going around the world, bringing SaaStock on Tour. Join us at the Paris stop on May 3rd and for the best deal, get your ticket before April 12th.
Want to learn more about the French SaaS landscape? Have a look at our list of the 24 hottest French companies.
