Roxanne Varza is the former Editor of TechCrunch France (2010-2011). She continues to contribute to TechCrunch from time to time along with other publications like The Kernel, Betakit and Business Insider.
She is also the co-founder of Girls in Tech Paris, the co-organizer of the Failcon Paris conference and the co-founder of RudeBaguette, France’s first English-language publication about the local tech startup scene.
Prior to TechCrunch, Roxanne worked for the French government’s foreign direct investment agency helping fast-growing startups develop their activities in France.
She has spoken, moderated, mentored and judged numerous startup events and programs throughout Europe and also helps European startups with content and communications.
Roxanne has an Bachelor’s degree from UCLA and Master’s degrees from Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics.
I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking: Huh? Wtf ? Why would any Americans in their right mind want to leave the happiest business place on earth to launch anything in France?! Maybe the wine?
Ok, maybe you’re not thinking that. But it doesn’t change the fact that 25-year-old American entrepreneurs Anton Bernstein and Joshua David hopped the Atlantic to launch Groupon clone Lookingo in France. → Read More
Is it just me, or is everyone and their mother talking about startup accelerators these days? I seriously feel like we’re in some kind of Paul Graham era. Y Combinator-made startups like Dropbox, Xobni, Loopt, AirBnB, WePay, etc. have gotten all kinds of attention and similar programs seem to be popping up all over the place, even in London.
When I asked Graham, he didn’t seem necessarily sure if the Y Combinator model would work outside of Silicon Valley, where there is a high density of active business angels and investors. Then again, progams like Seedcamp and TechStars - which behind the likes of Foodzie and Graphic.ly – may’ve proved that the model can work elsewhere; the program now operates in Bouler, New York, Boston and Seattle – and made took its first international step last year with Startupbootcamp. → Read More
One year ago, French startup Eyeka announced that it had raised €3 million ($4 million) to take its online alternative to the traditional focus group international. The company had raised €8 million to date and had already opened offices in Singapore. Last year, the 40-person company set-up shop in the UK and now it’s officially launching in the US, with offices in San Francisco and New York.
Eyeka was initially launched in 2006 by French serial entrepreneur, Gilles Babinet. The platfrom often gets compared to the likes of participative creative agencies (like Creads, who has also been eyeing the US market since last year) but is really more of a consumer engagement community. → Read More
In France, it seems January is always full of surprises. This time last year, new seed funds Kima Ventures and Jaina Capital were announcing their plans to fill a gaping void in the French investment landscape. And now the same French internet titans (more or less) are announcing the launch of the Ecole Européenne des Métiers de l’Internet (EEMI), a European internet startup school set to kick-off in fall 2011.
The news first broke in Paris Match (not traditionally known for tech news, but hey) in December. The initiative comes from the founders of three of the most well known companies in France: Meetic (Marc Simoncini), Vente-Privée (Jacques-Antoine Granjon) and Iliad (Xavier Niel) → Read More
Italian entrepreneur Marco Palladino is currently 22 years old – but he was only 19 when he first started looking for funding for his startup. For roughly 2 years, he and his cofounders met with every last investor on the Italian Peninsula and without any success. But despite their empty pockets, they weren’t ready to throw in the towel on their startup, an API marketplace for cloud-based services named Mashape. → Read More
Perhaps now that Groupon is happily being valued at $4.75 billion, investors all over the world are getting all the more interested in the local group daily deal platforms. Brand new Moroccan clone MyDeal is rumored to be raising a round and France’s Dealissime closed its first round of funding back in July. And now another French Groupon clone, Bon-Privé, is announcing that it has raised €1.5 million.
This is the first round of funding for the French startup founded back in February 2010. In-line with most of the Groupon clones, Bon-Privé offers between 40 and 90% discounts on exclusive offers to bars, restaurants, shows, etc. The site is currently live in 4 French cities – Paris, Toulouse, Nantes and Nice – and is planning to cover 10 French cities by the end of the year, starting with Bordeaux, Lille, Marseille, Lyon and Strasbourg. → Read More
Oh man, it’s going to be hard not to let my feminist side shine through writing about this topic, but I’ll try my best! Ladieshoesme is a brand new French dating site, launched officially on December 13th, where ladies pick a man as if he were a pair of shoes…literally.
Members essentially have to identify themselves as a pair of shoes on the platform. That means, when you create your profile, you also have to include a picture of your favorite pair of shoes. Don’t have one? Not to worry, the site has a selection you can choose from. Plus, you have to also include some information in your profile regarding shoes and feet – like “For me, shoes are…(fill in)” or “What I really hate to see on someone’s feet is…(fill in).” It’s kind of silly and kind of fun, but does this whole expressing yourself via shoes business really change that much? → Read More
It’s December 14th. The holidays are getting closer…and closer…And with only 10 days until Christmas, I am sure there are tons of parents still frantically searching for something for their kids. Hoping to avoid crowded malls, many are perhaps buying gifts online. So what better time to announce a €2 million ($2.6 million) investment in an online store with over 150 of the hottest clothing, decoration, toy and furniture brands for kids than now ?
Smallable, a Paris-based e-commerce startup founded in 2008, has just announced a 2 million euro investment from French VC firm Alven Capital. For anyone who doesn’t know, Alven is the French VC behind up-and-coming French startup MyFab. This investment is in-line with the not-so-new e-commerce investment trend in France (EspaceMax, Showroomprivé, InstantLuxe…) but is perhaps one of the country’s very first investments that addresses e-commerce oriented towards the 0-12 year-old age range. → Read More
If Pablo Picasso or Belgian surrealist, René Magritte, were alive and on Facebook, their profiles would probably be a terrific work of art. Yes, that’s right, Magritte is the one who did this painting. With a little inspiration from the Treachery of Images, I bet he’d also write something along the lines of “This is not a Facebook profile” or “Ceci n’est pas un profil Facebook” somewhere on his Facebook page.
Yet, while Picasso and Magritte may not be around to wow us with a little contemporary Facebook art, the profile of French artist Alexandre Oudin is probably the next best thing. → Read More
The French entrepreneurs’ fund, ISAI, has just announced that its investing in Commerce Guys, a Franco-American company that develops open source Drupal e-commerce solutions. This is the third investment for the fund run by some 70 French entrepreneurs from these companies, which previously invested in carpooling platform Covoiturage and the high-class online marketplace, InstantLuxe. And while the transaction amount has not been disclosed, I’ll venture a wild guess that it most likely lies between the €500,000 and €1.5 million range – which would be in-line with the rest of ISAI’s investments. → Read More
If you were one of those people that watched the iPhone4 v. HTC Evo Xtranormal videos made by Brian Maupin and caught yourself thinking that today’s mobile phones are just downright overcomplicated, you’re definitely going to like Lëkki. The brand new Paris-based startup launched in September is looking to bring back the good old simple portable phones of the 1990s – but in an environmentally friendly and stylish way.
Forget Facebook, Foursquare, email and all those other time-consuming applications out there. If you don’t want to spend your life on your phone (which also happens to be a clock-camera-calculator-garage door opener-microwave-in-one), Lëkki’s “Back to Basics” approach offers telephones that make calls and send texts – and do absolutely nothing more. → Read More
Smartdate announced a €2 million round in February of this year so that you could stop poking and start actually dating the friends of your Facebook friends. But now the company is kicking it up a notch and announcing that it’s raised an additional €3.5 million with the fonders of PriceMinster, Pierre Kosciuscko-Morizet and Pierre Krings. Oh, and just in case you forgot, French Ebay competitor PriceMinister went to Rakuten in June for €200 million (about $250 million) so maybe that’s why the founders have a bit of cash to spare.
As with a number of French dating sites, like the likes of Adoptaguy and Meetic, Smartdate is rapidly developing and already has a 25 person team in place. → Read More
Pretty much everything is going social these days and getting a kick of real-time – whether it’s for discovering music via Playlistnow or following stocks via StockTwits, etc. Everyone’s adding a social layer to their existing platforms and integrating some forms of real-time services- and one of the latest to go this route is Yakaz, who has just announced that its launching real-time social classified ads.
The new platform of the Paris-based company is in many ways not that different from Facebook’s MarketPlace – even visually, the interface looks a bit like a Craigslist-meets-your-Facebook homepage, chat included. → Read More
Seems like France is kind of full of dating sites. And that’s probably not so surprising given that the country is often considered one of the most romantic. Hopefully everyone has now heard of Meetic, the French online dating giant listed on the Euronext stock exchange since 2005 who scooped-up Match.com’s European division last year. And then there’s a couple newcomers that are making headlines, like SmartDate (who scored €2 million earlier this year so that you can date the friends of your Facebook friends) and AttractiveWorld (the name says it all, you have to be “accepted” to join the online community).
And then there’s Adoptaguy. Let me just preface this with the company’s tagline: “Ladies, find great deals at the supermarket of love.” Yes, it’s cheesy and who knows, that’s probably why it works. Essentially, what sets Adoptaguy apart from a lot of the other sites is that it reverses traditional roles. With a rather humorous e-commerce-like vibe, women go through the site and select the men they like by puting them in their shopping carts – and only those selected few will be able to interact with their “buyers”. → Read More
On the other side of the Atlantic, TechCrunch events have been causing all kinds of disruption (yes, lame joke, I know) this year. Back in May, Disrupt unleashed the infamous linguistic talent of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and just last month, the Bin 38 crew and MC Hammer rocked the show just prior to the announcement of our acquisition by AOL. From New York to San Francisco, Disrupt has definitely proved to be one tech’s hottest events…but now what about in Europe ?
Europe definitely counts a number of absolutely fantastic tech events – with one of my all-time favorites, LeWeb, coming-up right before the holidays. But this year, both TechCrunch France and TechCrunch Europe are also puting a little startup kick in pre-holiday events with the Europas and Remix. → Read More
So, that whole France.fr fiasco this summer was pretty embarrassing for France. But hey, at least the local entrepreneurs got the last laugh. Still, I would’ve thought France would be a little more careful about putting its foot in its mouth, but maybe not. And this time there’s unfortunately nothing particularly funny about the situation.
Back in 2004, France introduced a special tax scheme, called the Jeune Entreprise Innovante (JEI), granting tax breaks for startups meeting a certain criteria (less than 8 years in age, 250 people maximum…) and investing no less than 15% of their turnover in R&D. In a country where it doesn’t exactly rain VC funding, this definitely had a very positive impact and kept companies hiring at home. → Read More
I’m not going to lie, Bonitasoft‘s success could probably give a lot of American entrepreneurs a run for their money. Based out of Grenoble, France, the 30-person team that that specializes in open source business process management (BPM) solutions is on its way to becoming France’s next “open source star”, following in the footsteps of Talend and ExoPlatform. And after 8 years of R&D at INRIA (the French national institute for research in computer science), the company officially founded in June 2009 has announced that it is setting-up shop in the US just a few months after its first birthday – with offices in San Francisco and Boston.
According to CEO and co-founder, Miguel Valdès-Faura, the strategy of the company has been to target customers that are after something less expensive and more flexible than the solutions of bigger BMP players, like IBM-Lombardi, Oracle or Pega. → Read More
For anyone that has ever struggled to string together a music playlist – whether it be for listening to at the gym, a party, at work or just casually – you may want to listen up. Playlistnow.fm, a brand new startup coming out of Paris, recently launched a microblogging platform that allows users to discover new music by sharing playlists.
When we covered the startup in TechCrunch France, it was nothing shy of a hit with our readers. Perhaps that’s because the platform also managed to do what Apple’s Ping does not do so well: integrate social. → Read More
Apparently today the French equivalent of Black Friday for the local hi-tech market – everyone’s out on a shopping spree. Ok, that’s perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but still. After Liligo’s acquisition by Voyages-SNCF.com for some 20-30 million euros this morning, online publisher Commentcamarche announced that it is acquiring French Benchmark Group. Together, the two companies plan to give life to a top-tier media group, which should rank within the top 5 French online publishers.
For the moment, the amount of the transaction has not officially been disclosed but some sites, including CF News, have said that it could be in 60 million euro ball park – which is double the amount that Liligo went for. Yet, for now, it’s all just a Twitter rumor. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
