Startup Tour Americas

ParkWise solves the street parking problem for drivers, connected and autonomous vehicles.

Jonathan Schick, COO & Co-Founder

Led by Forbes 30 Under 30 CEO, Rachel Benyola, Kova is turning the helmet industry on its head with the only foldable, customizable helmet technology that meets the demands of riders who hate current bulky, inconvenient and unattractive helmets.

Rachel Benyola, Founder & CEO

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Time counts for chemical analysis. Rapid monitoring improves safety, increases yields and reduces costs. OndaVia commercialize a fast, accurate, analysis system that enables real-time, trace-level testing of industrial liquids.

Merwan Benhabib, PhD VP of Engineering and Co-founder

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Yobs helps companies scale their hiring with soft skills reports and video.

Raphael Danilo, Co-founder

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For companies who want to do more for their people, AceUp delivers personalized executive coaching to connect employees at all levels with their full-potential, through a tech-enabled framework that makes it impactful, scalable, and measurable.

Will Guillaume Foussier, CEO & Co-Founder

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Global AI-powered real-time bot protection for websites, mobile apps & APIs. We block bot attacks. HQ in NYC & Paris.

Fabien Grenier, CEO

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Ubees leverages technology and environmental science to perform precision beekeeping, a new sustainable and eco friendly approach that aims at resolving bee mortality, improving pollination services’ and honey production’s quality.

Maximilian Ebrard, Co-founder, CFO & CTO

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Decidata calculates the performance of each dollar invested by advertisers in offline & online marketing and optimizes the ROI of their campaigns.

Jean-Matthieu GRAPPE, Co-founder

Jean-Matthieu developed the core algorithms that power the Decidata SaaS platform. As an IT entrepreneur, Jean-Matthieu worked on several innovation initiatives before starting Decidata to reinvent TV analysis and the media buying process. Previously he developed several technologies for Netgem, a company specialized in the manufacture of decoders, the basis of the current product of TV Programmatic of Decidata. He worked at Bombardier as a project manager in IT and holds a bachelor’s degree from HEC Montréal in IT and Management.

Sampler is the leading platform helping brands like L’Oreal and Nestle deliver samples online and gather the insights they need to build one-to-one relationships with their customer.

Marie Chevrier, CEO & Co-Founder

Marie is a dedicated advisor to Technology and CPG startups including ScoutCanning, member of the RetailTomorrow advisory board, and Co-Founder of RetailTO – a community dedicated to growing and strengthening Toronto’s Retail ecosystem.

She is a regular guest speaker at national and international industry conferences including the 2019 Collision
Growth Summit in Toronto, 2019 Tech Open Air Festival in Berlin, and StartupFest in Montreal.

Crossing minds is democratizing access to recent gains in artificial intelligence research by building the world’s best content recommendation platform.

Alexandre Robicquet, CEO & Co-founder

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Mohamed Haouache Biography

Following a career in finance of nearly a decade in New York and Paris, where he specialized in hedge funds and in risk management, Mohamed is now the CEO and co-founder of Storefront, the world’s largest marketplace for short-term commercial space rental.

He is currently focusing on developing the company’s strategy and overseeing Storefront’s continued expansion into new markets.

Storefront’s mission is to make 94% of offline retail accessible to any business. Retail is no longer about buying products but rather it’s about providing an experience that consumers delight in. Storefront, the Airbnb of retail is building the future of retail by making it more engaging, more transparent and more productive

Paul Sagan Biography

Naomi Mulgrave Biography

Nicola Palmer Biography

Lucia Sinapi-Thomas Biography

Ms. Lucia Sinapi graduated from ESSEC business school (1986) and Paris Law University – Panthéon Assas (1988), was admitted to the Paris bar (1989), and has a financial analyst degree (SFAF 1997). She started her career as a tax and business lawyer in 1986, before joining Capgemini in 1992. She has more than 20 years’ experience within Capgemini group, successively as Group Tax Advisor (1992), head of Corporate Finance, Treasury and Investors Relations (1999), then head of Risk Management and Insurance (2005), and member of the Group Review Board. She was Deputy Chief Financial Officer from 2013 until December 31, 2015 and was appointed Executive Director Business Platforms of Capgemini group in January 2016. Since January 1, 2019, Ms. Lucia Sinapi- Thomas is Executive Director of Capgemini Ventures.

Yun-Hee Kim Biography

Stephan Dietrich Biography

Adele Maynes Biography

Adele Maynes was on her way to becoming an anthropologist when a lucky detour took her into the tech industry. Now she applies her background in social science theory and research methodologies to business puzzles. Known for her raw creativity and different perspective on problems, she has served as a management and strategy consultant to leaders at a variety of growing startups. Currently at Eventbrite, she works closely with the executive team on product strategy, international expansion, and innovation efforts.

Luc Julia Biography

As CTO and SVP Innovation for Samsung, Dr. Luc JULIA led the company’s vision and strategy for the Internet of Things and now focuses on making these machines smarter. Luc directed Siri at Apple, was Chief Technologist at HP and cofounded a number of start-ups in the Silicon Valley. He is the bestselling author of the book “There is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence”, holds dozens of patents and is recognized as one of the top 100 most influential French developers in the digital world.

Jerome Pesenti Biography

Jerome Pesenti is VP of Artificial Intelligence at Facebook, heading up the company’s AI research and applied AI teams. Jerome has been working in AI for the past 20 years, including as CEO of BenevolentTech, the technology division of BenevolentAI, a British technology company using AI to accelerate scientific discovery. Prior to that role Jerome was VP at IBM Watson, where he led the creation and development of the IBM Watson Platform. Jerome joined IBM after its acquisition of Vivisimo, a tech firm specializing in text mining and enterprise search engines, which he co-founded in 2000.

Jerome was also a visiting scientist at Carnegie Mellon University’s computer science department, researching text mining and AI. More recently he served as co-chair of an independent review on the growth of AI, commissioned by the UK government in 2016. That review’s 2017 report led to a sector deal, solidifying partnerships between the government and the tech industry to boost innovation in AI. He is an alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris with a Ph.D. in pure maths and degrees in philosophy and cognitive sciences.

Matt Salzberg Biography

Matt founded Blue Apron in 2011 and served as President & CEO for its first six years, overseeing Blue Apron’s growth from idea to category-leading public company. During that time, Matt built Blue Apron into a nationally recognizable brand with millions of customers and innovative supply chain. Matt led Blue Apron’s $2 billion IPO in June 2017 and served as CEO until the company had approximately $910 million of trailing revenue and 5,000 employees. Matt is currently Blue Apron’s Executive Chairman, and serves on the company’s Board of Directors.

Matt has a passion for entrepreneurship and is heavily involved in the entrepreneurial ecosystem as an angel investor, board member and repeat founder. He is the co-founder of Embark Veterinary, a next generation genetic testing company for dogs, where he serves on the Board of Directors. He has also made dozens of investments in start-ups, served on a variety of corporate boards and volunteers as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Harvard Business School— a Dean’s appointment where he meets with and advises students on entrepreneurship related topics.

Before Blue Apron, Matt worked as a senior associate at Bessemer Venture Partners and as an analyst with The Blackstone Group. Matt holds an A.B. degree in economics, summa cum laude, from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He was named 35 under 35 by Inc. Magazine, 40 under 40 by Fortune, and 40 under 40 by Crain’s. He was also the recipient of the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year national award in 2016.

Matthieu Baret Biography

Fabrice Grinda Biography

Fabrice Grinda is among the world’s leading Internet entrepreneurs and investors. He has over 150 exits on 450 angel investments. Fabrice has served as CEO for three multinational companies and has an impressive track record as an early investor in Alibaba, Flexport, Zume Pizza, Delivery Hero, Betterment and Brightroll. Fabrice is currently running the startup studio and venture fund FJ Labs, which he cofounded with business partner Jose Marin. Fabrice was named the #1 Angel Investor in the world by Forbes`

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Geraldine Le Meur Biography

Based in San Francisco, Géraldine Le Meur, a French-American entrepreneur, investor, board member founded her first company at the age of 23. Since the very early days of the Internet in 1995, she successfully pursued her entrepreneurial journey in the tech ecosystem, founding a web agency, a web hosting company, a blogging platform and a trailblazer event, Le Web, which brought all of Silicon Valley key players in Europe.

She is an active Angel Investor and she invested in companies such as LinkedIn, LendingClub, Teads, Evernote, WP engine. In 2016, she co-founded The Refiners, a San Francisco based pre-seed fund and program devoted to foreign founders. The Refiners Fund I backed and invested in 56 companies. In February 2019, she published « Step it up How French women hack work-life balance » to demystify female entrepreneurship and help women connect to role models grounded in real life. Translated from her French book « Comme Elles Entreprenez Votre Vie! ».

Frederic Mazzella Biography

Frédéric Mazzella is the Founder and Chairman of BlaBlaCar since 2006 and was Chief Executive Officer from 2006 to 2016. In 2018 Mr. Mazzella was also elected Co-President of France Digitale, the largest startup association in Europe representing 1300 startups. Since 2019, Mr. Mazzella is a Non-Executive Director at Olio Exchange Ltd., a private UK-based company.

Mr. Mazzella holds an M.B.A. from INSEAD, a Master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University and a Master’s degree in physics from École Normale Supérieure.

With a strong focus on immigration services, Columbus Consulting Group assists individuals and companies in their expansion in the United States. Columbus has an extensive scope of services to cover all business needs of foreign companies and entrepreneurs who are looking to make a successful, quick and easy entry into the U.S. market.

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Conditions

La French Tech is the nickname of the French startup ecosystem and all those in it—from bioscience to online marketplaces—wherever in the world they come from. It is also a government-backed movement bolstering France as one of the best countries in the world to start and scale global tech champions.

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Sheppard Mullin is a full service AmLaw Global 100 firm founded in 1927 with approximately 870 attorneys in 15 offices in North America, Europe and Asia. The Sheppard Mullin French Desk is a dedicated team of U.S.-qualified French-speaking attorneys committed to advising French clients in the US. We provide comprehensive support to French companies throughout their incorporation, investments, M&A strategy and growth in the United States. Our Sheppard Mullin French Desk attorneys are based in our New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, San Francisco and Century City offices. They are supported by a comprehensive European law practice focused on competition law based in the firm’s Brussels office.

Our team of attorneys specializes in U.S. business transactions, mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and securities offerings (debt and equity), general corporate, fund formation matters, commercial contracts, licensing and distribution across various industries, including tech, cloud, software, biotech, life sciences, pharma, energy and renewables. The firm also handles litigation, regulatory, trade sanctions, foreign investment, tax, competition, intellectual property, labor and other specialty matters. We deliver effective representation in the U.S. law for France-based companies, venture funds and other investors with cross-border interests. Through its French Desk, Sheppard Mullin is dedicated to strengthening the ties between the French and U.S. business communities.

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A global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation, Capgemini is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of clients’ opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital and platforms. Building on its strong 50-year heritage and deep industry-specific expertise, Capgemini enables organizations to realize their business ambitions through an array of services from strategy to operations. Capgemini is driven by the conviction that the business value of technology comes from and through people. It is a multicultural company of 200,000 team members in over 40 countries. The Group reported 2017 global revenues of EUR 12.8 billion.

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Idinvest Partners is a leading European mid-market private equity firm. With €8bn under management, the firm has developed several areas of expertise including innovative startup venture capital transactions; mid-market private debt, i.e. single-tranche, senior and subordinated debt; primary and secondary investment and private equity advisory services. Founded in 1997, Idinvest Partners used to belong to the Allianz Group until 2010, when it branched out as an independent firm.

In January 2018, Idinvest Partners became a subsidiary of Eurazeo, a leading global investment company, with a diversified portfolio of €17bn in assets under management, including approximately
€11bn from investment partners, invested in over 350 companies.

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Executive Coaching by Business & Value

Renowned world-class Executive Coach:
Sébastien Dumont, CEO@Business&Values

(Stanford and HEC Paris alumnus, with 20 years’ experience inspiring and advising Leaders)

“Together, you will discover and practice how to reveal the authentic, profound and best version of yourselves on stage, expanding Performance and Purpose. I am very much looking forward to meeting each of you.”

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Theodo is a process-driven software development agency whose mains strengths are to help companies: build their market-relevant MVP in less than 10 weeks grow their product towards product/market fit scale their tech team once the product/market fit has been reached. They have a global team of over 200+ super smart developers, based in the US, the UK, and France and worked with successful startups like Cleo, Voodoo.io, Made.com, and BlaBlaCar.

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