Zlio, the 10-month-old “social e-commerce” startup founded by serial entrepreneur Jeremie Berrebi just raised $4 million in from Luxembourg-based Mangrove Capital Partners. This is the same VC firm that funded Skype. Zlio is revolutionary, too. It lets users create and personalize a virtual “storefront” on Zlio’s… Read More »
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jerome archambeaud
Bio:I am a French entrepreneur. I founded two French start-ups in the early 00’s: Avence, one of the first French web agencies and VRTVStudios a software developer and service provider specializing in speaking avatars.
Our flagship technology, which automatically transformed a single picture of a user into a speaking avatar, with applications for instant messaging, emailing and MMS, was truly amazing but was probably launched a bit too soon. VRTV was sold in early 2005, shortly before I joined Skype as country manager France and Belgium.
At Skype I did a little bit of everything to both grow our user base and develop our paid services. As one of the most competitive VoIP markets in Europe, France was used to test innovative SkypeOut formulas, including “SkypeUnlimited” which offered free SkypeOut calls to French landlines without the usual hidden costs included into our competitors’ packages. This launch made history in France and Skype became even more popular with French consumers, slightly less with local incumbents… Like many of my friends at Skype, I feel lucky to have seen the emergence of such a unique company and product from the inside.
Prior to that, I was a marketing director at Walt Disney Europe and a product manager at Nestlé in São-Paulo, Brazil. A country where I have lived until the age of 24, before taking my MBA at the Harvard Business School and coming back to Paris.
I am now collaborating with French VCs on specific projects and, in parallel, working on my own Web 2.0 start-up, which I plan to launch in the near future.
Recent Posts
France leads Europe in its enthusiasm for Web 2.0 startups, an industry that has doubled in size across the continent since 2005. According to Dow Jones/Venture One data French start-ups raised close to $40 million in venture capital in 2006, accounting for 40% of the total… Read More »
