The Founder Institute's four-month curriculum covers everthing you would expect from an early-stage startup program, including topics like "Startup Legal and IP” towards the beginning, to “Fundraising” near the end. What makes the curriculum special is the Mentors that teach it, whose passion, feedback and support helps our companies avoid rookie mistakes and set the foundation for a meaningful and enduring company.
The Founder Institute carefully recruits approximately 25 Mentors per Semester, who are normally the CEO or founder of a successful startup. Rather than specialists or consultants, we prefer Founders and CEOs to give our companies "the entrepreneur's perspective." The mentors share their experiences, best practices, and mistakes, while also providing specific guidance and feedback on the Founder companies.
In addition, the Founder Institute's unique Graduate Liquidity Pool allows our mentors to share in the equity of companies formed in each program - and, their share is based solely on the anonymous ratings they receive from the Founders both during, and after the program. In this way, the Founder Institute incentivizes mentors to take a special interest in our startups, and provide as much assistance as possible after the program.
We have a great lineup of Mentors confirmed for the Autumn 2012 Paris Founder Institute, including many from out of town. See the full list below.
Adeo Ressi
CEO, TheFunded.com
Adeo Ressi is Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online community of 17,000 CEOs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide. Adeo also runs the Founder Institute, a mentoring program that helps entrepreneurs launch hundreds of world-class companies each year. The Institute is the eighth start-up that Adeo has founded or built, four of which were acquired and three of which are still operating.
Alain Garnier
CEO & Co-Founder, Jamespot
Alain Garnier est le co-fondateur et CEO du service Web de réseau social d'entreprise Jamespot. Auparavant il a été successivement co-fondateur d'ARISEM (éditeur de logiciel leader dans le domaine de l'analyse sémantique appliquée au Web) en 1996 revendu en 2003 à Thales et d'Evalimage (outil de monitoring du buzz des marques) revendu à TheCRMCompany en 2006. Par ailleurs, il est l'auteur de "L'information non structurée dans l'entreprise" et "Le réseau social d'entreprise", collection Hermès Lavoisier, et anime de nombreuses conférences sur le thème de l'Entreprise2.0 et des questions autour du numérique.
Alain Meller
Founder, NovaXone
Alain Meller has been the CEO of Kalabie, a software vendor selling to the Pharma Industry and was acquired by Agilent Technologies Inc. in 2007. Before that he cofounded Convergent Capital a VC fund investing in France and Israel, was Managing Director for E-business at NCR-AT&T and was part of the initial team as well as member of the management board of ILOG where he led one of the major product then was instrumental in the industrialization of the company. He is currently founder of NovaXone a Management Consulting firm with a particular focus on Marketing Strategy: his clients are companies of all sizes using technology as a core asset of their offers in various sectors: IT and Internet pure players, B2B providers in Energy, Healthcare, Hospitality and Telecom. Alain is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, Ph.D. in Computer Science from Paris Orsay University and has obtained degrees in Business Administration from Institut Français de Gestion and Essec Paris.
Alain Baritault
FI Mentor
Alain has opened the Paris Founder Institute in France early 2010. Prior to Paris FI, he worked as a journalist based in Silicon Valley reporting on technology for more than 22 years. Alain has also been co-founder and Editor in Chief of Cités Numériques, a technology magazine for cities, regions and government in France and is now founder and editor in Chief of Collectiv-IT.fr. Previoulsy, he has been editor in chief and US correspondent for major French magazines and newspapers as Decision Informatique, 01 Informatique, SVM, La Tribune and PC Expert. He has been an advisor for many foreign companies looking for Investors, Partners and Customers in the US.
Alexandre Delivet
CEO, tripXP
Après une première expérience entrepreneuriale dans les années 2000, Alex passe 5 ans dans un groupe pharmaceutique français au sein duquel il occupe différents postes (M&A, bras droit d'un DG, responsable du contrôle de gestion d'une des filiales) et décide en 2011 de tout quitter pour créer une nouvelle société tripXP, un site permettant de découvrir et réserver des activités touristiques originales proposées par des locaux. En parallèle de ses activités pour tripXP, Alex est également organisateur de l'Apéro Entrepreneurs et éditeur du Startup Digest Paris.
Alexandre Steiner
Managing Partner, OiO Ventures
Alexandre Steiner est le fondateur et Managing Partner d’OiO Ventures dont l’activité consiste à bâtir des portefeuilles de participations minoritaires dans des entreprises innovantes pour des grands groupes. Auparavant, après des études en France puis aux Etats Unis, il a été pendant 15 ans dans diverses fonctions dans le groupe Capgemini en France, en Belgique, En Suède, au Royaume Uni… du Corporate Development au lancement de nouvelles activités à Vice-Président Portfolio Management Process puis chez Getronics pendant 7 ans, racheté par KPN, Vice-Président du développement des offres de services, puis de l’innovation et de la stratégie B-to-B. Il est intervenu à de nombreuses reprises dans des évènements comme le Gartner Expo ou CIO summit, … et participe à différents programmes d’incubateurs privilégiant son expérience internationale et ses secteurs de prédilections : Numérique, Nouvelles Technologies, Telecom et Media.
Andre Dan
Speaker & Coach
André Dan est surnommé « M. Réseaux Sociaux » ; en anglais : « Mr. Social Networking ». André Dan (né le 19 septembre 1957) est depuis le début des années 80 un expert des TIC et des Stratégies : Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication au service des Entreprises, Communautés et Individus. Executive MBA HEC '94. MBA IAE '86. Ingénieur TIC Supinfo '83. André Dan est un intervenant reconnu pour ses interventions motivantes et dynamisantes pour les hommes et les organisations. Conférencier, Formateur et Coach (individuel ou d’équipe), aussi bien en français qu’en anglais, il a l’obsession des usages utiles des TIC, particulièrement les réseaux sociaux, et de leurs mises en œuvre selon les STRATEGIES, elles-mêmes dépendant des objectifs. Il est aussi professeur vacataire pour des écoles de commerce ou d'ingénieurs (HEC, Novancia, Supinfo…).
Andrew Lee
Senior Advisor, U.S. Small Business Administration
Andrew Lee is currently a Senior Adviser with the U.S. Small Business Administration where he focuses on high-growth startups. Before his advising role, he co-founded JamLegend, the online equivalent of Guitar Hero, which reached more than 2M users and was later acquired by Zynga, where he worked on flagship game FarmVille. While in college, Andrew created Fantasy Congress, an online political fantasy game that garnered recognition from the NY Times, BBC, NPR, and Time Magazine, amongst others. Before startups, Andrew worked in politics for then U.S. Senator Ken Salazar, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and the Environmental Protection Agency. He is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College where he was a Truman Scholar, Udall Scholar, Rhodes Scholar Finalist, and named Student Entrepreneur of the Year. Check out his TedX talk - tiger mothers, startups, and games, oh my! http://youtu.be/iQposu-6rnU
Audrey Soussan
Analyst, Ventech
Audrey Soussan joined Ventech in 2011 where she is in charge of the deal-flow IT and manages more particularly the cross-section analysis within the framework of due diligences. She benefits from a first experience in venture capital at DN Capital in London. Audrey is also co-director of Girls in Tech Paris, a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology.. She is graduated of Dauphine & ESSEC.
Bernard Lorig
Founders & CEO, Incubeo
Dr Bernard LORIG is founder and Vice President of the business angles association IT angels and founder and President of CEFT (Cub des Entrepreneurs Français des Telecom). He also preside Incubeo, a consulting company for coaching and advisoring of technological entrepreneurs. He has advised the lauching of more than 100 start-up ( 4 are now Public). In the past he has been the founder of the France telecom group spin off process. He is graduated from Telecom Paris and hold a PH.D. in physics.
Bruno Levy
Président, Value Logic
Bruno a été co-fondateur de Smart-Trade (éditeur de logiciel leader dans le domaine de la gestion des liquidités sur les marchés de change). Auparavant il co-fondé et dirigé Hypermind (éditeur de cd-rom de vulgarisation scientifique à destination du grand public), a lancé dans le monde entier l'un des logiciel phare de l’intelligence artificiel (ILOG SOLVER) et a été président de Sobésol une société familiale qu'il a repris dans une situation de crise. Il dirige Value Logic un cabinet de conseil spécialisé dans la formulation de stratégie de croissance par l’innovation. Il est un des deux directeurs du Paris Founder Institute où il utilise son expertise pour aider les founders à construire leur projet de startup à partir d'une formulation précise des raisons pour lesquelles leurs futurs clients achèteront leur (future) solution. Bruno est ingénieur de l’école polytechnique et à reçu un bourse Monbusho pour étudier la robotique à l’université de Tokyo. Il a également accompli un Master en Electrical Engineering et un MBA à l’université de Carnegie Melon.
Cedric Giorgi
Co-Founder & CEO, Cookening
Cédric Giorgi is the co-founder and CEO of Cookening, a new social travel platform dedicated to Food experiences. Previous to that Cédric was Director Europe for Seesmic and Marketing Director for Scoop.it as well as Techcrunch France co-editor. Beside Cookening, Cédric is also part of the organization of the LeWeb conference, and acts regularly as advisor for startups in Paris.
Chine Lanzmann
Presidente, Leadership au Féminin
Chine Lanzmann est coach en Leadership au Féminin. Elle a développé une méthode, Woman Impact, pour booster le potentiel professionnel des femmes. Elle travaille avec des entrepreneuses et des dirigeantes et des hauts potentiels dans la High-Tech, lesMédias, les Services, l’Industrie et la Finance. Elle intervient régulièrement dans des conférences de HEC Féminin, Sciences-Po Féminin, EPWN et anime son propre réseau, une fois par mois. Elle a publié 6 livres dont le dernier « Gagner sa vie en se faisant plaisir » est un best seller (J’ai Lu, 2007) et participe à la page Travail de Psychologies Magazine. Elle a été aussi fondatrice d'un magazine féminin sur internet, Newsfam pour lequel elle a levé 20 millions de francs en 1999.
Christophe Cremer
President, MeilleurTaux.com
Christophe Crémer, administrateur de sociétés. Créateur de sybel-informatique, société de logiciel de gestion pour micro-ordinateurs (B to B) revendue en 1995 au groupe anglais Sage. Fondateur et président de meilleurtaux.com de 2000 à 2008. Avec 50 Millions de CA en 2007 48 agences et plus de 500 collaborateurs, meilleurtaux.com est leader en France dans le domaine du courtage en prêts immobiliers. Meilleurtaux.com a été mis en bourse en mai 2005 puis revendu à une holding principalement composée du groupe Caisse d'Epargne en septembre 2007. Christophe Crémer est parrain de l'incubateur HEC qui vise à aider des projets de création d'entreprises à réussir, il investit et s'implique dans des projets principalement sur internet.
Claude De Loupy
CEO, Syllabs
Claude is the founder and CEO of Syllabs and an expert in Semantic Analysis and Information Retrieval. During 5 years, Syllabs, a 12 persons company, has developped cutting edge technologies for text mining, automatic text generation and web crawling with only 30 k€ at the start and without raising money.
Cynthia Traeger
CEO
Cynthia Traeger concurrently serves as CEO, Pacific Siren International LLC and President, VSI Pacific. Ms. Traeger serves as an advisor to the board, Faulkner Information, was a participant and author with the American Bar Association's Digital Evidence Work Group, and has been a contributor to the Journal of the ACM Special Interest Group on Graphics. Her contributions to the Telecommunications Development Fund's Corporate Governance Project received the highest regards by the Emerging Business Forum and Washington Post. Ms. Traeger served as a Corporate Ambassador for Vital Voices’ Corporate Ambassadors Program (CAP) launched in cooperation with the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) at the U.S. Department of State.
Eric Moret
Technologist, Palo Alto Networks
Eric is a seasoned manager and technologist in the networking security industry currently working at Palo Alto Networks. Through a series of acquisitions from Infosolv (4 employees), Onesecure Inc. (150 employees) and Netscreen Technologies (900 employees) to Juniper Networks (5800 employees), he spent the past 12 years in Silicon Valley where he lived the ups and downs of the American technology revolution. He is a US patent holder, the co-author of O'Reilly's "Security Power Tools" book and a Master's degree graduate of Epita.
Francois Lavaste
CEO & President, NETASQ
Francois Lavaste is currently the CEO & President of NETASQ, a pioneer and the largest security software company in France. He began his career in technology in 1992 as a co-founder of Eneide, a CRM software company, publisher of CONSO+ (acquired by COHERIS); in 1996, he moved to Silicon Valley where he lived for 10 years and contributed to the success of several strat-ups, including BRIGHTMAIL, the pioneer and leader in anti-spam technologies (acquired by SYMANTEC); CYANEA SYSTEMS specialized in application performance measurement software (acquired by IBM); and TRICIPHER a specialist in strong authentication (acquired by VMWare). François Lavaste graduated from ESCP Europe, a leading European graduate business school, and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
François Deltour
CEO, effiliation
Francois is the CEO of Effiliation, a web marketing organization dedicated to linking quality content publishers and E Merchants. Some of Francois' previous positions include Director of Publicis Palo Alto; Partner, COO, & CFO at Palo Alto S.A.; Project Manager at Havas; and CFO at Globe. His education background includes degrees from I.A.E Lille, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, and EDHEC Business School.
Gabe Zichermann
Author, Speaker, Advisor, Gamification Co
GABE ZICHERMANN is an author, highly rated public speaker and entrepreneur. He is the chair of the Gamification Summit and editor of the industry’s leading publication, The Gamification Blog. His most recent book, “Game-Based Marketing” (Wiley, 2010) has achieved critical and industry acclaim for its detailed look at innovators who blend the power of games with brand strategy. His next book, “Gamification by Design” (O’Reilly, 2011) looks at the technical and architectural considerations for designers in this burgeoning field. A resident of NYC, Gabe is a board member of StartOut.org, advisor to a number of startups and Facilitator for the Founder Institute in Manhattan. For more information about Gabe and Gamification, visit http://Gamification.Co
Gilles Klein
Journalist, Blogger, Chief Editor, LeMondeDuBlog.com
Gilles is a journalist, blogger, and chief editor at LeMondeDuBlog.com. Besides his journalistic work, he took an early interest in the Internet, reportedly having discovered it in 1993. He was previously the editor of Pointblog.com, which he transformed into The World of Blog in 1999 and additionally founded the Journal mailing list reserved for media professionals. Gilles earned a degree in law and philosophy from Université Panthéon Assas in Paris.
Harry Gozlan
CEO, Smart-Trade
Harry Gozlan is the CEO and Founder of Smart-Trade Technologies. His past experience includes Business Unit Manager at Crédit Agricole Indosuez, and Head Trader at Interest Rates Derivatives - Citigroup in Paris, London, and finally New York. Harry's holds a degree in Engineering from Ecole Centrale Paris and currently resides in Paris.
Jay Jamison
Founder & President, Moonshoot
Jay Jamison is the Co-Founder and President of Moonshoot, an early-stage online gaming company with the mission to spark English language learning in children everywhere. Prior to starting Moonshoot, Jay held leadership roles in product management and marketing for Microsoft in Redmond and Tokyo for over 9 years.
Jean Marie Chauvet
Managing Partner, LC Capital
Jean-Marie is a co-founder of Neuron Data in Palo Alto, CA where he served a a CTO. He co-designed and co-authored NEXPERT, the leading Macintosh, PC and workstation-based Artificial Intelligence and expert system tool. The company went public in 2000 and was later acquired by FairIsaac (NYSE:FICO). Jean-Marie then became a VC in the Paris Area, first investing with Dassault Développement, the VC arm of the Dassault family group, for six years and then co-founding and managing a VC firl called LC Capital in 2003. Mr Chauvet, is a Graduate of Ecole polytechnique, Corps des télécommunications, Paris, France.
Jean-Michel Planche
President, WITBE
I’m an Internet entrepreneur and CEO of WITBE, a company which offers other service companies the ability to analyze the quality of service delivered by their information systems and IP applications. I’ve spent my life promoting the value model and the technology of the Internet: the user-centric revolution. First, with OLEANE, one of the first PROFESSIONNAL Internet operators in the world (AS2917 - we started operation in UUCP) that we have since sold to France-Télécom in 1998. And now with WITBE, (AS15436) representing a new generation of “end to end” monitoring technologies aimed for today challenges. Also, time permitting, I love to help spawn new businesses. I've created Tancred Venture, a venture capital firm dedicated to exploring new areas of innovation in IP world, from scratch or in partnership.
JeanDavid Blanc
Founder, AlloCiné
JeanDavid Blanc has been in the e-business since the age of 14. He started his first company at the age of 16 (Concerto Telematique), imagining and creating interactive services for brands such as Coca Cola, Marlboro, Renault, and several others. He is also the Founder of AlloCine, a multimedia movie guide service, which he launched in 1993 over the phone and the internet. AlloCine rapidly became France’s #1 destination for movies, cinema and entertainment, and one of France’s most famous internet success stories. He sold AlloCine to Vivendi Universal group. He became an active business angel, and strategic advisor for groups and VCs. JeanDavid has also been an investor in several startups, including Meetic, Amalto technologies, Daily Single, Restopolitan, Square Inc.
Jonathan Benassaya
Owner , Milestone Factory
Jonathan is a serial entrepreneur, having founded and run 4 companies since he was 23. He started his first company, VIGAO, back in 2003, which became a leader in video game market research. Convinced of the massive shift of this industry towards online games, he founded Magicparty in 2005. Magicparty became a leading technology provider for in-game advertising. He moved the company to China in 2006 and eventually sold it to NGI Corporation in Beijing the same year. In 2007, he co-founded Deezer.com the largest French music service. When he left the company in November 2010, Deezer reached 7M monthly visitors and 500,000 subscribers to its paid service. At Deezer, Jonathan learned to manage relationships with the music industry, negotiate licensing deals, monetize the audience and position Deezer as the major music brand in France. In 2010, he founded Plizy, a video discovery Platform and moved to the Bay Area.
Laurent Vieille
CTO, Jade-i
Laurent Vieille is a co-founder of Jade-i, which enables retailers to drive their business based on customer satisfaction collected at paiement time. In the smart card industry (Schlumberger, Gemalto), Laurent focused on strategic marketing and drove the growth of a Business Unit for network security. Prior to that, he developed an Artificial Intelligence/Database technology and co-founded Next Century Media Inc. Laurent holds a PhD in Computer Science and graduated from Ecole Polytechnique. He is passionate about the adequacy of product to customer needs and about lean management.
Liam Boogar
Founder, Rude Baguette
The Founder of the Rude Baguette, Liam Boogar is a Silicon Valley native, who moved out to Paris in 2011. He wears various hats in the startup ecosystem at various times. He organizes community events like Startup Weekend Paris or the Founders Event. He mentors startups at the Dojoboost startup accelerator and throughout France. Liam also works with startups as a market specialist, helping French startups launch in the US.
Marc Goldberg
Managing Director, Bryan Garnier
Marc Goldberg is a Managing Director with Bryan Garnier Principal Investments, a European fund focused on Eureopan growth companies in the TMT, Health and Energy industries. He is also an Entrepreneur VC/PE with 20 years experience in managing and investing in technology companies. Additionally, Goldberg has more than 10 years experience as venture capitalist in Europe and the US, is the Founder of Occam Capital in 2004, GP of OCCAM I, a €m35 FCPR acquired by Bryan Garnier, a General Partner of Reuters Greenhouse fund and RVC, €m 450 invested in Europe and the US, and has more than 10 years of operation experience with Reuters, Rational software and Thales. Marc Goldberg holds a BS/MS in Computer Science from Paris University and did his post-graduate studies at Stanford University. Finally, Goldberg is an Auditor IHEDN, Teacher Science PO and Essec and an Ultra Trail and Marathon runner (50K+).
Marine Huber
Analyst, Omnes Capital (Prev Credit Agricole Private Equity)
Marine Huber joined the VC team of Omnes Capital (ex-CAPE) in 2010. She is involved in sourcing new deals, in managing and analysing IT deal flow and in the follow up of portfolio companies. she has a first experience in advisory at Bionest Partners and also worked for the renewable energy team at Credit Agricole Private Equity for a year. Example of previous deals in which Marine was involved : Viavoo (Social CRM), Visiware (Interactive TV and social gaming), TennisPoint (ecommerce), TrustYou (e-reputation management)
Mark Bivens
Directeur Associé, Truffle Capital
Mark Bivens is passionate about reggae music, triathlons, and sumo wrestling. For his day job, Mark pretends to be a VC, investing in promising digital media, mobile, and software ventures with Truffle Capital based in Paris, France. Mark currently sits on the boards of BoosterMedia, Keyyo, LeadMediaGroup, MoMac, NetMediaEurope, PeopleCube, Scan&Target, Utel, and the AfricaTri Foundation.
Maximilien Oursel
Associé
Maximilien OURSEL, Associé chez Pléiade Venture. De formation universitaire (Dauphine et UPMC), j’investis et j'accompagne les entreprises innovantes en tant qu'investisseur en capital depuis 1999 au sein de la structure Seeft/Pléiade Venture.
Mortaza Karimi
Analyst, Partech International
Early-stage investor at Partech
Nelly Barbault
Senior Associate, ISAI Gestion
Nelly Barbault provides support and coaching to entrepreneurs of high-potential start-ups in the IT sector. She has been responsible for the launching and managing of a second stage IT incubator at Paris Development, the economic development agency of the City of Paris and of the Chamber of Commerce. She now coaches international start-ups expanding in Paris. Over the past 9 years, she has been accelerating the growth of hundreds of start-ups (Sequans Communication, ToLuna, Exalead…). Previously, Nelly worked as Financial Analyst for an early-stage Venture Capital firm. In addition to her training of Coach accredited by the International Coach Federation, Nelly holds a Canadian MBA with a major in Start-up Development and Information Technology, and graduated from a French international business school (ESC Rennes).
Nico Perez
Co-Founder, mixcloud.com
Nico is Co-founder and Creative Director of Mixcloud - an Internet radio company based in London, UK. He graduated from Cambridge University with a Masters in Aeronautical Engineering before working as an analyst in the renewable energy sector. Nico used his technical background and visual orientation to design and build websites as a hobby, before founding Mixcloud in late 2008. At Mixcloud Nico is responsible for product development including graphic design, information architecture, branding, identity and HTML/CSS development. Nico has mentored several Founder Institute semesters including Paris, Singapore, Bogota and others. He also regularly speaks at conferences around the world. More info: http://www.nicoperez.com/speaking
Olivier Ezratty
Freelance Consultant
Olivier Ezratty is a freelance digital medias strategy consultant helping both startups and large organization shape their value, product and business strategies. He is involved in many startup and innovation communities: teaching, coaching and doing expertises for startups and investors, and also working with corporations in the telecom and industry space. He also shares a lot of in-depth industry analysis and creative common licenced reports on his blog "Opinions Libres" (free opinions, http://www.oezratty.net) including a Startup Guide in France (15th edition).
Phil Libin
CEO, Evernote
Phil Libin is the CEO of Evernote, a web service designed to allow users to easily capture and store information, memories, and content in any environment. Prior to Evernote, Phil was a founder of two other successful tech startups: CoreStreet and Engine 5. He has been written about in publications as diverse as BusinessWeek, The New York Times, The Economist and, surprisingly, Locksmith Ledger. Phil is also an investor and advisor in several startups and the inventor of several issued and pending technology patents.
Philippe Spruch
PDG, LaCie
Philippe Spruch, actuel PDG de LaCie SA, fonde Electronique d2 en 1989 en s'appuyant à la fois sur des designers de premier plan, tels que Philippe Starck . Son parcours professionnel a commencé en 1983, chez Usinor, où il avait la responsabilité de promouvoir l'acier français en Allemagne. Puis de 1986 à 1989, il était Responsable des Ventes chez Asystel, dans la région de Strasbourg. En 2001, il dope son équipe de R&D et fait appel à de nouveaux talents du design (sa passion): Karim Rashid, Ora-ïto, et Porsche design qui apporteront succès et notoriété à LaCie. Depuis 6ans maintenant, LaCie a repris un rythme de croissance notable, et vient de fêter ses 20ans de succès en sortant une nouvelle gamme de disques durs externes entièrement designée par Philippe Starck.
Philippe Kerignard
Convergent Services & IPTV Manager, Bouygues Telecom.
Philippe Kerignard currently holds the position as Convergent Services & IPTV Manager at Bouygues Telecom. He has held various positions at Telecom since the early 2000's. Prior to Telecom he was employed with Telemate.
Philippe Herbert
Partner, Banexi Ventures
Prior to joining Banexi Ventures Partners, Philippe was co-Managing Director of Partech International in charge of the investments in IT. His main investments were JobPartners, I-Progress, Mediapps, and DCT – all of which were acquired. Banexi Venture Partners is an active early-stage investor in the French startup ecosystem, supporting incubators and other new models to grow the success of European startups.
Philippe Beauregard
Managing Partner, Brunswick Law Firm
Philippe Beauregard's areas of practice include venture capital, private equity and M&A. In the past 12 years, his main focus has been on the representation of start-ups — or investors — at all stages of their development in a wide variety of industries (life sciences, energy, software, mobile/telecom and the internet). He is the head of Brunswick corporate department, a french independent business law firm operating also in the field of IP, IPOs, insolvency, business disputes, tax and labour law
Pierre Beyssac
Co-Founder, GANDI
Pierre Beyssac est un des cofondateurs de Gandi, principal registrar français, avec Valentin Lacambre, Laurent Chemla et David Nahmias. Il a aussi créé eu.org pour protester contre la mise en place au printemps 1995 de noms payants dans le domaine .fr (qui fut d’ailleurs suivie par la fin de la gratuité des .com, .net et .org en octobre de la même année). Pour cela, il a enregistré le domaine eu.org en août 1995 (à l’époque, il fallait plusieurs semaines de délai pour obtenir un nom de domaine) et redistribué depuis gratuitement plusieurs centaines de sous-domaines. Ce service gratuit est toujours en fonctionnement.
Robin Chase
CEO, Buzzcar
Robin Chase is founder and CEO of Buzzcar, a peer to peer carsharing company. She is co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar (largest carsharing company in the world) and GoLoco (ridesharing site that combined social networks with nice mapping and search). And currently heads Meadow Networks (a transportation and technology consulting firm). Robin sits on two national advisory committees for the US government (Transportation & Technology; Innovation and Entrepreneurship). She's won many awards for entrepreneurship, design, environmental leadership, and most recently Time magazine 100 most Influential People. Interests: transportation, wireless technology, innovation, climate change, excess capacity, distributed systems.
Rodrigo Sepúlveda Schulz
Founder & CEO
Rodrigo is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and currently President at Sepulveda Capital as well as RISC Partners, a private equity boutique, specializing in strategic advice to entrepreneurs and business angels launching new ventures or seeking turnaround opportunities Formerly, he was Founder & CEO vpod.tv, Founder at MD RISC Partners, CEO of glowria, Principal at Gemini Consulting, and Manager KPMG Consulting. He earned a Master's degree in computer science from EPITA as well as an MBA from INSEAD.
Romain Niccoli
Cofounder & CTO, Criteo
I'm currently CTO of Criteo (www.criteo.com), which I co-founded in 2005. Before Criteo, I spent 5 years at Microsoft as a software developer and software development manager. I graduated in 2000 from Mines ParisTech.
Roxanne Varza
Editor , TechCrunch France
Roxanne Varza is currently the Editor of TechCrunch France and the co-founder of Girls in Tech Paris. After graduating from UCLA, she worked for the French government's foreign direct investment agency (l'Agence française pour les investissements internationaux) to help fast-growing Silicon Valley tech startups develop activities in France. She then moved to Europe, where she is currently pursuing a joint master's degree at Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics in addition to TechCrunch and Grils in Tech. She is passionate about startups and innovation and is an epilipsy advocate.
Saad El Garrab
Start-Up Program Manager
My name is Saad El Garrab, I work at Bluenove, a consulting company specialized in Open Innovation, and my current mission is to manage the Orange Start-Up Program. Previously I was working at Valeo, an automotive supplier, on the electric vehicle. I graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and I love music.
Sebastien Sacard
Directeur Produit Web
Après avoir été Responsable Technique chez Kelkoo puis Chef de Produit Senior chez Yahoo! pendant 7 ans, Sébastien a été Directeur Produit chez Drimki, puis Directeur Technique chez Myfab. Il a ensuite été co-fondateur de la Startup Advertory en tant que Directeur Technique & Produit. Depuis 5 ans il accompagne des startups et des PME à mettre en place une organisation produit (vision, stratégie, développement) afin de livrer plus rapidement des produits répondants à la demande de leurs clients. Sébastien anime également des ateliers sur la gestion de projet Agile, et travaille actuellement à la mise en place d'un media en ligne sur la Vision Produit.
Stéphane Dieutre
Consultant et coach, stephane dieutre consulting
Stéphane Dieutre a été le fondateur de l'Agence Verte (première agence de communication spécialisée sur l' environnement) et du cabinet de conseil et d'études Think-Out. Il est maintenant Business coach, accompagne des entrepreneurs ou des équipes dans des temps de création, de transformation ou d'innovation. Il les aide à identifier leur vocation et leur offre et à s'appuyer sur leurs forces et talents spécifiques pour réussir leur projet (methodologie : appreciative inquiry). La première partie de son parcours professionnel a été consacrée au marketing, à l'innovation et au management de marque au sein de grandes agences de communication. Il a une forte experience dans le lancement de nouvelles marques et a travaillé avec de nombreuses start up. Stéphane Dieutre est diplomé de l'ESSEC. Il est formé au coaching par Jean Daniel Remond ainsi qu'à l'analyse psycho-organique. Il enseigne au Celsa sur le thème de l'innovation.
Sylvain Zimmer
CTO and Co-Founder, Joshfire
Sylvain Zimmer is the co-founder and CTO of Joshfire. He is also involved in a variety of other projects, and acted as the founder and CTO from 2004 to 2011 of the free music platform Jamendo, co-founder of the conference TEDxParis, and is an organizer of tech events like ParisHackers.org, HackDayParis.org, dotJS.eu After dropping our of ENSIMAG, he raised 5M€+ for Jamendo and won the "Entrepreneur of the year" award in Luxembourg in 2009. His interests include entrepreneurship, hacking and music.
T.A. Mccann
CEO, Gist
T.A. McCann serves as Founder and CEO of Gist. His past experience includes entrepreneur-in-residence roles at both Vulcan Capital and Polaris Venture Partners. He also held senior positions at Microsoft, leading product planning for the Exchange Server Group and developing the Service Delivery Platforms group focused on mobile applications development. In addition, he is a founder of Jump2Go, HelpShare, and Soft Labour. He currently serves on the board of Art with Heart and is an advisor to Wishpot, Asset Archives, and Notary One. In addition to his technology background, T.A. has won sailing's America's Cup and sailed around the world.
Thibauld Favre
CEO, AllMyApps
Thibauld Favre's Summary Entrepreneur in the Internet and Open Source industries with relevant sales, financial and technical knowledge and experience. Thibauld Favre's Experience CEO allmyapps Internet industry November 2008 – Present (2 years 10 months) 1 click is all it takes for users to fully customize their desktop with apps, themes, wallpapers... thanks to allmyapps auto-installable Packs.
Tyler Crowley
Founder & CEO, Skweal
Tyler is currently the Founder & CEO of Skweal, Producer of the Open Angel Forum/Launch Conference, and Director of Corporate Development and Strategy at Mahalo. Some of his past experience includes working as a producer for Open Angel Forum/Launch Conference, TechCrunch50, and ThisWeekIn. He is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego in Interdisciplinary Studies in Computers and the Arts, and graduated Summa Cum Laude.
Yann Lechelle
Co-founder, APPSFIRE
Yann Lechelle is a Paris-based entrepreneur with deep knowledge in software architecture, development and usage both in highly sophisticated fields (trading software in Wall Street or cartoon animation in Hollywood) or in scalable web platforms. He founded ETHERYL in 2001, a pioneer SaaS provider of networking and collaborative solutions for academic, association and enterprise markets. In 2009, he co-founded KickYourApp, a mobile app agency with a special focus on major consumer brands. In 2010, he co-founded Appsfire, a smartphone app discovery & promotion platform with global reach. Appsfire raised €2.5M from IDInvest Partners in April 2011 to pursue its global development. Yann holds a BS in Computer Science summa cum laude from the American University of Paris and an MBA from INSEAD.
Yannick Levy
VP, Parrot
Yannick Levy is VP at Parrot since September 2011. Parrot is the global leader in wireless devices for mobile phones, listed on NYSE Euronext (PARRO). Prior to Parrot, he founded DiBcom in 2000, the leading start-up in Mobile TV solutions for Cars, Handheld and Home consumer applications, which was acquired by Parrot in September 2011. Very interested in international business, Yannick studied in the U.S.A. for four years and spent one year in China in 2010. Areas of interest are Semiconductor, Television, Venture Capital and entrepreneurship.
Yves Peynaud
Consultant, YP Consulting
Yves Peynaud is a seasoned consultant helping entrepreneurs to step from innovative vision to market success. Yves has 25 years of expertise in Strategic Marketing, Product Marketing and International Business Development of innovative companies. Yves has developed over years a strong expertise and efficient methodology in new business planning and development, proven over a wide range of business models and industries, including: Internet, Software and Hardware design, Consumer Electronics, Telecommunications, Robotics and others. So far, he has successfully accompanied 80+ companies in their market positioning, product marketing, goto market strategy, business planning and fund raising. Yves has been a early adopter of Internet technologies as an email daily user in business practice since early 1986, and as responsible for European business development of the World Wide Web Consortium since 1995. He has developed in-depth business expertise and understanding in the Internet and Web industries.
Ziv Gillat
Co-Founder & VP of Business Development, Eye-Fi
Ziv Gillat is Cofounder of Eye-Fi. Previously, Ziv worked at Silverback Systems, iReady, Zaffire, Photo Access, and Apple. Ziv is a professional photographer with a passion for helping consumers backup and share their photos and videos. He received his B.S. in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
