Bootcamp Ventures, an Israel-based platform connecting technology start-ups with investors, partners and customers, held its first pitching event in Paris, France, this week.
Twenty four young French companies pitched to panels of investors at iX Paris 2013, including representatives from corporate venture capital units of France-based phone company Orange, US-based semi-conductor maker Qualcomm and German-based media group Holtzbrinck.
There was no voting or competition element at the event, but probably the most talked-about start-up in the bar afterwards was Augment, an augmented reality mobile application and platform used to visualise 3D models in augmented reality. In its first year of full time operations, the app has been downloaded 300,000 times, has 55,000 active users and 10,000 registered 3D designers.The company is seeking $2m of capital in a Series A round later this year.
Augment recently completed a three-month programme at Le Camping, an accelerator programme based in La Bourse (Paris’s old stock exchange). Le Camping was created by French digital association Silicon Sentier and is backed by a number of other organisations including Orange, French train company SNCF and search engine giant Google.
There are currently 12 companies being accelerated in the fourth season of Le Camping and are due to ‘graduate’ in August.
Bootcamp Ventures plans to hold a similar event in Turkey, November 2013 and in Israel, March 2014.