Comment by ekidd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ekidd | Hacker News Reader

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Nantes with La Cantine

When I was in Nantes this summer, I kept seeing subtle little details that made me think something interesting was going on. Compagnie La Machine (with its multi-story robotic spiders http://www.lamachine.fr/) seems to be surrounded by a maker scene, and even perfectly ordinary magazine shops carried Open Silicium (http://www.opensilicium.com/) a really nice embedded systems magazine that covers advanced hobbyist and professional concerns. This is a lot harder core and more specialized than the Linux Journal, for example, and when I've shown it off to US booksellers specializing in "maker"-related publications, they just about drooled.

Combine that with the French startups I saw at La French Touch in New York a couple of years ago, and some of the recent legislative changes the government was supposedly working on, and I kinda wanted to hang around and see what was up. I have a sneaking suspicion that the French have all the raw ingredients for an excellent startup scene, but that funding might still be something of a struggle.

Have a look at what Plaine Images is doing with their Imaginarium, coupled with their incubator & accelerator:

http://www.plaine-images.fr/en/services-2/

It's located in a former textile factory and combines both openspace/co-working spaces, private offices in varying sizes. It also has a strong focus on creative industries (gaming, VR, audio...). Several companies that have started there have an excellent track record and several world-class leaders are in talks with them.

If you mix public subsidies + good space design + integration in the socio-economical fabric + specialization on a vertical, you end up with very high potential and growth. That's exactly what's happening right now at Plaine Images, even though it's not very well known outside of Europe.

Funding is not that much of an issue, tbh. As I stated elsewhere in this thread, I raised little, but had I wanted more, London & Berlin are literally next door and many large european VCs are familiar with the french ecosystem. The business angels I chose have exactly that track record (early 90s-00s, create company in France, raise a few hundreds k€ in France, large rounds in the US, IPO on Nasdaq, get rich and become BA/VCs).

I'm not going to list the usual "french unicorns" such as Blablacar or Criteo, but see Devialet, a hw "startup": they have closed a 100M$ round with a Korean fund two weeks ago so access to capital definitely exist...

By the way, La Cantine unfortunately had a massive fire two weeks ago, so we will have to wait and see if the phenix rise from the literal ashes :'(

That opensilicium magazine seems pretty awesomely cool. Does anybody know anything similar in English or maybe German? I'm afraid my french ain't that good.

VC funding is extreeeeemely hard to acquire in France, basically. So we're probably not going to get startups growing insanely fast, and they're going to be bootstrapping themselves. Which might not be a bad thing really.

I've actually worked for a startup that was formerly at la Cantine (which has actually burned down less than two weeks ago), and I can confirm Nantes is a lovely place to work at.

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