Ben Costantini

You wanna know how startup funding is going on right now in Belgium 🇧🇪 ? 🔮 I shared with Maxime SAMAIN (L'Echo) my point of view on that matter. 🦄 < >🐌 Article here: https://lnkd.in/e9qbCKKX Discover my take on the situation in 4 points: 1️⃣ More experienced 🐼 Belgium's startup scene boomed around 2015. These early-stage investors, the Business Angels, have gained experience through their investments made between 2015 and 2020. This newfound expertise makes them more rigorous in their analysis and more demanding of startups, ultimately limiting funding for a select few. 2️⃣ Investment shift ↩ The 2022 inflation surge reshaped investor mindsets and expectations. This trend solidified in 2023, becoming the "new normal." Consequently, 2024 witnessed a significant decline in funding for startups lacking a clear path to profitability. 3️⃣ Cycle ♻ The pre-pandemic boom in startups (around 2020) is now experiencing its first wave of bankruptcies. This has understandably shaken some Business Angels' confidence. While this cycle is natural, fear currently dominates investment decisions for many. 4️⃣ Post trauma 🤕 We are in a “post trauma” period. The above elements are making Business Angels much more risk averse. To restore confidence, we need to see successful Belgian 🇧🇪 startups emerge. Thankfully, time can be a healer, and some inspiring success stories 💪 are likely unfolding even as you browse this tremendous LinkedIn post 😜. Let's scale it up! 👏 #startups #scaleups #buildingbridges

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I am thrilled to announce that we have raised €3M from Bpifrance, LeanSquare, and business angels. This second fundraising round allows us to establish Bridge.audio as the audio cloud for the music industry, powered by a responsible descriptive AI that serves rights holders and all music industry stakeholders. The precision of our descriptive AI allows for improved music “discoverability”, as they say in Quebec. This means that rights holders can facilitate the discovery of their works and that buyers and influencers can more easily discover tracks and talents. There are numerous applications for each step of the process: from artistic directors to venue programmers, including music supervisors and other professionals looking for music for audiovisual projects. In this latter segment, Bridge.audio is at the forefront, having launched our own dedicated marketplace in-house last January: the Sync Hub. The Sync Hub allows rights holders (labels, publishers, artists...) to make their music accessible to professionals working in audiovisual industries. They can find the ideal track for their film, series, advertisement, or video game through natural language searches. For instance “a French track about a breakup sung by a little-known female singer, blending pop and electro, and that is graceful and intimate.” Bridge.audio has received numerous award:  Grand Prize at the I-Lab competition, Innovation Prize from the Centre national de la musique, Innovation Competition, Product of the Day on Product Hunt… And since our launch two years ago, we already have more than 30,000 users worldwide. 🤜💙🤛 Thank you all for your trust and support: clients, users, investors and our amazing team. Guillaume Simonaire, Juliette Fournier le ray, Nicolas Parpex, Bertrand Joiret, Xavier Péters, Gérôme Vanherf François Hennessy, Karima Benelhadj Nicolas Trichet Sébastien Saunier IFCIC Jean-Philippe Thiellay Romain Laleix Maxime Thibault Philippe Tilly Ana Villa Louis Chauvin Marie Béraud Delphine Chatard Karine Cheltiel Romain Dégez Olivier Mourain Geoffrey Benitsa Olivier Heckmann Louis Escudé Francois LAXALT - PMM Guru Alexis MONIER Francois DELUMEAU Beau de Loménie (BDL-IP) Caroline Chopinaud Mathilde Neu Emmanuel Touboul We are proud to build alongside you, a tool that meets the challenges of the music industry for the decades to come. Music Tech France, Music Tech Europe #Musictech #Fundraising #MusicIndustry #Innovation #EthicalAI

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SIDO Lyon - IoT, IA, Robotique & XR Lyon Cyber Show 2024 featured a plenary session "Numérique responsable : de l'importance de garder la "tech" froide." 🌍 With the environmental impact of digital technology under the microscope, it’s clear that companies are on the frontlines of pushing for a greener, more responsible digital future. But should we leave this to the IT department? Not a chance! Key Takeaways: 📈 Strategic Alignment: Digital responsibility isn’t just an IT issue; it’s a governance challenge. Boards, CEOs, and sustainability directors need to lead the charge. 🤝 Cross-Department Collaboration: Making tech eco-friendly requires everyone on board—from marketing to HR. 🛡️ Risk Management: It’s about more than just compliance; it’s about transforming corporate culture towards sustainability. Tips for Greener Digital Governance: 🌟 Digital Steering Committee: Assemble a diverse team to oversee responsible digital initiatives. 📚 Invest in Eco-Literacy: Educate all employees on the environmental impact of their digital actions. 📝 Set Green Policies: Implement and enforce policies for sustainable tech use and innovation. Huge thanks to the panelists Anne-Sophie BELLAICHE (Editor-in-Chief, L'Usine Nouvelle), Emeline Baume de Brosses (Vice President, Métropole de Lyon), Antoine Wattinne (Director of Public Affairs and CSR, Cegid), Marine Brogli (CEO, DPO Consulting and Board Member, numeum) 🌿 Gillo Alain Malpart (President & Co-founder, Mavana.earth) Keeping tech cool and green is a collective effort, and today’s session highlighted the crucial role of governance in driving this change. 🌐 #LyonCyberShow2024 #TechGovernance #DigitalTransformation #GreenTech

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💥 Linkup annonces a 3M€ funding round to plug LLMs to high-quality content.    Much like the music industry before Spotify, AI applications today face hurdles in accessing quality content. In the early 2000s, people often turned to platforms like Pirate Bay to download music, but that came with legal risks, poor sound quality, and artists missing out on fair compensation. Similarly, today many AI tools depend on existing web frameworks like search engines and web scraping to collect information.   However, as the AI landscape evolves, these methods are proving less efficient and raising new concerns around legal compliance and fair use of copyrighted content.   Linkup aims to solve this problem by taking a new approach with premium content providers with both a legal and ethical consideration.   Delighted to support this top-notch team Philippe Mizrahi, Denis Charrier, Boris Toledano alongside Seedcamp, Motier Ventures, Kima Ventures OPRTRS CLUB and amazing BAs ! cc Sia Houchangnia, Nicolas Essayan, Christophe Raynaud, Noé Gersanois, Chloe Timsit, Alix François-Poncet, Axeleo Capital (AXC)

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Today at 4PM CEST, I'll be joining #DePIN Association's founding members for an #AMA session. Don't miss out on a chance to dive deep into the world of #DePIN and gain insights directly from the founders. See you there! https://lnkd.in/dGVJH-4T #DecentralizedPhysicalInfrastructureNetwork #BlockchainInEnergy

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PITCHING @ ETHCONNECT COMPETITION! — Excited to announce that this Saturday I’ll be cheerleading for team ECOVERSE's Philip van Nedervelde at EthConnect 2024 in Milan as 1 of 20 Web3 startups selected from >100 submissions! We are doing this as part of our fundraising for the seed round of 🌿ECOVERSE🌿, our ambitious, eco-innovative, omnidevice, scalable, on-chain metaverse VR events and social platform that will transform how people gather, interact, and create in shared virtual environments. Ecoverse runs in-browser on smartphones and immersively on VR headsets without user downloads, installs, or updates. Photorealistic 3D graphics. Built-in no-code User-Generated Content tools. Digital asset marketplaces for creator monetization. Ecoverse's sustainability-driven long-term mission aims to reduce the carbon footprint of events by 90%. We are honored to be part of this premier Web3 startup pitch competition. It is a wonderful opportunity to share our vision for how our platform can revolutionize virtual events in the metaverse. A special thanks to the wonderful organizers, Malak Albaw and 🚀 Carlo Moretti, for going above and beyond to accommodate everyone and ensure that we all have an amazing experience. Your efforts are warmly appreciated! Let’s take decentralized cyberspace to the next level—together! 🚀 #ETHConnect2024 #Web3 #Startup #PitchCompetition #Metaverse #Ecoverse #vr #ETHMilan ETHMilan #ETHConnect

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French AI startup H raises $220M seed round Paris-based startup H, formerly known as Holistic AI, secures an extraordinary $220 million #seed round shortly after its inception, a rarity in the #startup world. Led by a stellar founding team, including former researchers and employees of Google DeepMind, H focuses on developing #AI agents to automate tasks traditionally performed by humans. Co-founder and CEO Charles A. Kantor, a former #Stanford researcher, leads the team, which includes veterans of DeepMind such as Karl Tuyls, Laurent Sifre, @Daan Wierstra, and Julien Perolat. H aims to revolutionize productivity with its "frontier action models," targeting sectors where #automation can significantly enhance efficiency. Investors comprise a diverse group, including billionaires like Eric Schmidt and Bernard Arnault, VC funds like Accel and FirstMark Capital, and strategic backers like Amazon, Samsung Electronics, and UiPath. For more information: https://lnkd.in/dfMxMvJZ #AI #Startup #SeedRound #Innovation

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I don't like boasting about fundraisings (in my opinion, raising funds is not really an objective to pursue—perhaps even the opposite), but this one is a bit special for at least two reasons: 1️⃣ We pioneered the unconventional studio model at Hexa with Thibaud Elziere 13 years ago. This model has evolved into an asset class, where we are also leading the way in its valuation and financial engineering principles. Our CFO, Alexis Vilette, has written an extensive piece on this, which I highly recommend reading at the end of this post. 2️⃣ This marks the opening of the third chapter in the Hexa story: 🎬 Chapter 1 was all about crafting the model in the early days with Thibaud. 🌱 Chapter 2 began in 2016, when we welcomed our first investors and welcomed our partner Amaury Sepulchre to lead our initial scaling phase 📈 Chapter 3 now begins, opening the door to work with even more brilliant partners (👋 Ugo VOLLMER, Matthieu Vaxelaire, Florent Quinti, Julien MERAUD, Augustin Celier) and Hexa colleagues, all eager to build and scale great companies over the next five years. So, two reasons to post, and a huge ❤️ thank you to all our friends, families, investors, partners, and colleagues - past and present - for the support, hard work, and fun over the last decade. I’m as excited as ever for what’s to come. ➕ Those who enjoy diving into financial mechanics, I encourage you to read this piece by Alexis - you’ll discover that one of Alexis' greatest talents is his ability to simplify and clearly articulate complex concepts. He explains amongst others how we value an outlier like Hexa, whose worth is based not only on the portfolio of companies already created, but also on the studio's ability to acquire "sweat" equity in the companies it creates (similar to a VC acquiring shares without paying for them). How, with Hexa, we’ve adopted an “Asset-Light” financial structure, enabling us to create virtually as many companies as we want. You’ll also understand why Hexa represents a new asset class, offering the diversity of an investor's portfolio with the returns of a startup. Excited to embark on this new chapter with an amazing team! Article in English: https://lnkd.in/dzieeCAC Article in French: https://lnkd.in/djXqETHp

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A History of Venture Capital: Venture Capital (VC) has been a driving force behind some of the most innovative companies in history. From its early beginnings to the establishment of major funds, the evolution of VC has been marked by significant milestones that have shaped the industry. Here are some key insights from Hervé Lebret's detailed study: 1) The Early Days: The concept of VC began to take shape post-World War II but gained significant traction in the late 1950s with the founding of companies like Fairchild Semiconductor by the Traitorous Eight, which was financed by venture capitalist, Arthur Rock. 2) 1970s Growth: The 70s saw the emergence of major VC firms like Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins, which played pivotal roles in funding the growth of technology and biotechnology sectors. 3) Government Influence: The Small Business Investment Act of 1958 and changes in ERISA guidelines during the 1970s provided a more favorable environment for VC investments, contributing to the industry's explosive growth. 4) Global Expansion: Although VC started in the United States, it has become a global phenomenon, with significant growth in regions like Israel and Europe, adjusting strategies according to regional entrepreneurial ecosystems. PS. check out 🔔 for a winning pitch deck the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel https://lnkd.in/ejp-Bhnu

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🚀 User acquisition in web3: 3 top solutions ! Struggling with your user acquisition in the ecosystem ? Check out these innovative solutions: Zealy, Layer3, and Galxe. Discover how they can transform your strategy in our Chain R3action article ! 🔗 Full article and subscription link in the first comment !

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INSIGHT of the year: ARCEP report provides some insight on Internet traffic in France   Like every year for the last 3 years, the French Internet regulator ARCEP provides data that is found nowhere else in the world, so I have decided to analyze with you.   First, they only measure the ingest traffic to ISPs (Orange, Free, Altice, Bouygues) is 46.5 T/s, the on net CDN traffic (generated by caches located inside ISPs) is 20% of the traffic, therefore of 11.3 T/s, so a total of 58 T/s.     On the measured traffic itself, it has increased ‘23/’22 by 7.6% while ‘22/’21 was 21%, so a clear decrease of the growth. 53 % of this traffic comes from five Big Tech companies: Netflix, Akamai, Facebook, Google and Amazon, was 54% in’22.   Public CDN traffic share was 21,2% in ’23 of measured traffic vs 20.1% in ’22, a 5% decrease. Public CDN analytics, regarding share of measured traffic: -         Akamai has increased its share by 38% -         Lumen (discontinued in’24) has increased its share by 51% -         Edgio has decreased its share by 50% -         CDN77 has increased its share by 64%   The GAFAM traffic share (excluding Netflix) was 25% in’23 of measured traffic vs 28% in ’22, a 11% decrease. GAFAM CDN analytics, regarding share of measured traffic: -         Google has decreased its share by 7% -         Meta has decreased its share by 17% -         Amazon has decreased its share by 9% -         Apple has decreased its share by 8% -         Microsoft  has decreased its share by 20%   Content Providers’ own CDN share (including Netflix) was 21.2% in’23 of measured traffic vs 26.7% in ’22, a 30% decrease. Content providers’ analytics, regarding share of measured traffic: -         Netflix has decreased its share by 22% -         Twitch has decreased its share by 30% -         Disney has introduced its own CDN with 0.4% share -         TF1 has decreased its share by 33%, have launched in ’24 TF1+ -         M6 has decreased its share by 30%, have launched in ’24 M6+ In summary, the measured traffic growth is slowing down, the on net CDN share of GAFAM is decreasing, the public CDN share is increasing with Akamai and CDN77 taking more share of exiting or struggling competitors, the content providers’ CDN share is decreasing showing either less traffic coming from consumers (streaming fatigue) or traffic shifting to public CDN.   Report (in French) available at https://lnkd.in/gyyygbCm   John Francis Nolan Rudolf van der Berg Keith Chow Michael Faye Maria Rua Aguete Magnus Svensson Will Law Xavier Leclercq

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🚀 Exciting Announcement 🚀 I'm thrilled to share that we've partnered with CarboneIO , the leading document generation platform from www.carbone.io, to bring you an exclusive tutorial series on revolutionizing your document generation process! 📝 Our first tutorial video introduces the basics of Carbone, offering a step-by-step guide on how to generate stunning documents effortlessly. Whether you're a developer, business owner, or someone who deals with document creation, this tutorial is for you! 💼 This partnership marks the beginning of an exciting collaboration between Carbone and Digital Sonar, aimed at empowering professionals like you with the tools and knowledge to streamline workflows and boost productivity. 🔍 Stay tuned for more tutorials, tips, and tricks on leveraging Carbone's powerful features, as well as insights from Digital Sonar on optimizing your document management strategies. 🎥 Watch the tutorial now and take the first step towards transforming the way you create documents: https://lnkd.in/dzMvJbHh Don't forget to like, share, and comment to let us know your thoughts and what topics you'd like us to cover in future tutorials! #Carbone #DocumentGeneration #Partnership #DigitalSonar #Productivity #Tutorial #DocumentManagement

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🚀 How’s French Tech Doing in 2024? | Insights from the latest France Digitale x EY Barometer Reposted from: Joseph Landauer On September 11, 2024, France Digitale and EY released their annual report, and despite the tough economic climate, there’s plenty to be proud of! French startups are proving they’re ready to face the challenges head-on. Here are five key takeaways: 1️⃣ 15,000 startups are thriving in France, with 3,500 new ones launched in just the past year! So, who said French Tech was slowing down? 2️⃣ 1.3 million jobs created by these startups. Yes, you read that right. While hiring may slow down in 2024, we’re still pushing forward 💪. 3️⃣ Funding crunch: Big deals are happening, but smaller rounds are struggling. VCs are searching for ways to keep the ecosystem thriving. 4️⃣ Global reach: French startups are expanding fast, with 27% revenue growth internationally. Europe is our playground 🌍. 5️⃣ AI dominance: Whether it’s internal tools or product offerings, AI is everywhere. But competition with global giants is fierce 🤖. So, what’s next? French Tech is holding strong, but continued support from policymakers is crucial for future success. Innovation, taxation, and European regulations will be pivotal in the coming years. A big thank you to France Digitale and EY for this report! 🙏 Looking forward to seeing many of you at #FDDAY on September 18. Let’s keep pushing boundaries! 🙌 #FrenchTech #Innovation #Startups

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