
Hottest tech startups in France - carlchenet
http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech-startups-in-france-2015-4?op=1
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fijal
Other than blablacar, EVERYTHING in that list is about either entertainment or
solving non-existing issues for privilaged class (like organizing URLs), can
we ACTUALLY go ahead and solve real problems or does that not attract VC
funding?

EDIT: The above statement is based on an assumption that the list in the
article is legit, I don't know anything about French startups to reflect on
the entire scene

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lloeki
Most of those aren't startups anymore by anyone's metrics. France has both a
culture and systemic problem towards startups. It's been made abundantly clear
to me when having a chat with UK and US people at conferences such as dot[0]
that the environment here is quite hostile and successfully launching requires
either solid government backing or a great amount of courage. Probably why
everytime some news outlet here wants to talk about startups, each one of them
hover way above ~5M€ turnover and 30+ employees.

Here's[1] what I consider being one of the genuine french startups that
recently launched and tries to be useful (although aimed at the tech crowd).

[0]: [http://www.dotconferences.eu](http://www.dotconferences.eu)

[1]: [https://scalingo.com](https://scalingo.com)

~~~
fijal
Well, dropbox, uber etc. are called startups too. Maybe there is a massive
word abuse, but it's not only about france :-)

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bru
1-page article: [http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech-
startups-i...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech-startups-in-
france-2015-4?op=1)

~~~
dang
Thanks, changed from [http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech-
startups-i...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-17-hottest-tech-startups-in-
france-2015-4).

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hpenedones
I would have included algolia. They do site search and query auto-completion
algorithms, with a very clean API.

~~~
nicolasp
Interestingly the search on HN is powered by algolia :)

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ekianjo
What?? Quantic Dreams, Gameloft, Deezer are not startups anymore, and have not
been for a LONG time. And I would not qualify Quantic Dream as "tech startup"
in the first place, it's a video game company, which falls in a very different
category. And if you start including Quantic Dreams, why not include Nadeo,
Arkane Studios, etc... most of which are not startups either anymore.

~~~
S4M
Same for Vente Privee (founded in 2001).

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S4M
> If you've ever organised a gift for someone in the office, you know how
> tricky it is to get everyone to pay up. Leetchi solves that problem by
> allowing users to create a money pot. Friends and coworkers can use Leetchi
> to contribute to the pot through an app on their smartphones.

Wow, and they raised $7.9 millions for that! WTF?

~~~
Monkeyget
They run Mangopay, a payment processor.

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kriro
I hope BlaBlaCar insisted on getting their funding in pounds... """The company
raised $100 million (£683 million) in new funding in July 2014"""

:D

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onion2k
On Leetchi: _If you 've ever organised a gift for someone in the office, you
know how tricky it is to get everyone to pay up._

I can think of a very easy solution - don't force anyone to pay. Buy a gift to
the value of the money that people volunteer to put in. If you work in an
business of 30 people, and everyone has to chip in $5 every time there's a
birthday, that's effectively garnishing everyone's wages to the tune of
$150/year. That should be a choice. If it isn't then your company is likely a
horrible place to work.

Alternatively, just have the CEO organise the collection and watch everyone
pay up immediately.

Either way, you don't need an app.

~~~
icebraining
Why are you assuming it's a top-down thing from the organization? It certainly
isn't with us.

And the problem isn't forcing everyone to pay, it's getting everyone _who
agreed to pay_ to follow up with it after the thing has actually been bought.

That said, I'm not sure we need an app either.

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BenderV
I would have included Drivy, which has recently raise $8.6m and acquired
Buzzcar (a concurrent). [Peer to peer car sharing]

Other than that I would be curious to know how that list compare to other
country/state.

Edit : and also capitainetrain, which have raise $6.3m. [Buy train ticket]

~~~
pcrh
_Concurrent_ \--> competitor

~~~
BenderV
Thanks.

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phacks
Such a shame that Capitaine Train is not present in this list. They have an
excellent product (with an amazing UX), solving a real problem (ordering train
tickets online used to be a pain in the arse) and with a vision (unifying the
European railway).

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zak_mc_kracken
A lot of these companies are old, some were founded in 2007, 1999 and one is
even from 1994.

Start ups, really?

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ripberge
I am surprised [http://www.bimeanalytics.com/](http://www.bimeanalytics.com/)
is not on there. After doing a lot of research and seeing a lot of demos in
self serve BI it seems like one of the best products out there. Their pricing
is also a game changer.

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jobigoud
TIL Withings is french and realize the name comes from Wi-Fi and Things… And I
still don't know if it should be pronounced Wee-things (Because, you know, we
call it Wee-Fee here), or Why-things…

~~~
smcl
To me "Withings" sounded like an English surname featuring "wi" as in "with"
and a voiced dental fricative "th" (like in "though"). Like "Witherspoon" or
similar. It didn't even cross my mind it could by "wy-things" or "wee-things".

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hartator
OVH?

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icebraining
A 16-year-old company with 17 datacenters and 800+ employees is hardly a
startup anymore.

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blumkvist
Yeah, include bookmarking website (lol) and other junk, and don't include real
businesses like AT Internet and Viadeo.

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LunaSea
Wouldn't really consider Viadeo as a startup anymore.

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ovi256
Well, then neither are most of the companies included. Parrot was founded in
'94\. Even their drone division is 8 years old.

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failedstartup2
Tech startups in France are hard. A friend had one that delivered soap and
shower gel. Not one customer!

