Archive for 2011
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American ambassadors or traitors ?
December 15, 2011I’m not feeling very patriotic today. Part of my mood stems from the thought of today’s hearing by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on the Stop Online Piracy Act. The SOPA legislation currently winding its way through the U.S. congress would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court [...]
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Does Local matter ?
December 8, 2011We hear the repeated siren’s call of social / local / mobile. As of matter of fact, this year’s LeWeb conference captures this three-part mantra as its very theme. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a VC fund in Europe today not following this guiding light for its investment strategy. Among the takeaways of LeWeb’11, [...]
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Portfolio job openings
November 30, 2011Despite the macro-economic distraction, some of our startups are still growing wildly and seeking to recruit top talent. Here are a couple open positions: A java back-end developer, to work closely with the Head of Technology and the Game Development team. A mobile games content manager, responsible for testing and selecting new mobile games that [...]
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These premises are utterly confidential
November 29, 2011Fred Wilson captured my feelings perfectly in his post today about Reception Desk NDAs. Thankfully, this practice has not taken hold in Europe yet, European subsidiaries of US firms notwithstanding. European startups, particularly their fundraising advisors, love asking VCs to sign an NDA. As I’ve written before, I think NDAs waste precious time, bring little [...]
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Looking for a right-hand dude or dudette
November 10, 2011I’m running out of band-width and need help. While space constraints prevented this for a while, I’m now able and ready to re-implement an internship program. So I’m looking for an ambitious intern with the following profile: a dynamic and entrepreneurial individual with aspirations to spend 6 months working in a VC fund authorized status [...]
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Recent digital media investments
October 31, 2011Well, it’s been a hectic Q3, with three new digital media investments. Scan & Target Utel CrowdyNews All three were investments in conjunction with 3 of the 16 independent holding incubatrices vehicles we advise. As readers of my blog know (yes, I’m talking to both of you), I’m not a big fan of vc blogs [...]
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Darwin beats intelligent design in financing innovation
October 12, 2011Luke Johnson’s opinion in today’s Financial Times really resonated with me. I’ve long argued that the VC model in Europe is plagued by the tendency to keep Zombie startups alive, to the detriment of plowing more time, resources, and capital in the real disruptors. Johnson cites recent research from the UK’s National Endowment for Science, [...]