Archives: Portfolio

What they do
Many objects central to our daily lives remain largely unaltered since they were first designed and crafted centuries ago. Despite tremendous advancements in technology, simple tools still provide us with the best physical interactions. For artists and designers, reproducing the creative experience using digital tools like a tablet stylus is expensive and often implies compromising between utility and great user interaction.
That is why ISKN developed The Slate – a device that digitises sketches, drawings and notes in real time with a high level of accuracy, whilst keeping the natural feel of pen and paper. Moreover, the uses for their patented technology are endless, and can be applied to such domains as interaction design for 3D animation, gaming, motion control and visualisation.

The founders
ISKN has a multi disciplinary team with an exceptional set of skills. However, what impressed us the most was the co-founders’ ability to combine their technical knowledge with business savoir-faire. Jean-Luc, Timothée, and Tristan are great leaders, able to run the business and motivate the team, offering some perks such as weekly drawing classes.

What they do
The average salary of temporary “blue collar” workers has not grown higher than 1% in 20 years. About 2/3 of these workers struggle to live a decent life (i.e. become home owners) because they struggle to find consistent and adequate temporary missions.

Iziwork is a marketplace that manages to connect temporary workers with companies looking for a specific expertise or hard-to-find skills. Their unique ability to find the optimal match for every mission gives them a true competitive edge in the recruitment market.

In addition, thanks to its network of local HR experts, Iziwork provides the workers with both digital management of administrative activities and human support in accessing life services (rent guarantees, loan requests, saving accounts, online training, medical visits online, etc.).

More than a platform to find their next missions, Iziwork is becoming THE everyday platform for workers.

Today, Iziwork operates across France and Italy and works with top companies such as PSA Group, Casino, FNAC Darty, Carrefour, Conforama, Leroy Merlin, Lime among others…

How we met
We met Alexandre Dardy through an introduction by Pierre Poignant, the founder & CEO of Branded, another C4 Ventures company. After our very first conversation, we were blown away by Alexandre’s clear vision and sense of urgency combined with a deep sense of humility. After a few weeks, not only were our first impressions confirmed, we also realized Alexandre had been able to surround himself with equally amazing talent.

What they do
KeepMED (initially called NINOX) is a start-up company dedicated to developing disruptive solutions for the treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA).
The company is developing a wearable device called the keePAP™, which is based on a novel, proprietary concept for the treatment of OSA. The keePAP™ device is comprised of a lightweight, unobtrusive nasal interface and a miniature battery-operated control unit that make it convenient for use both at home and while traveling.
The keePAP™ device will offer a new level of comfort and ease of use, resulting in a remarkable improvement in compliance and becoming the product of choice for the millions who suffer from OSA.
The OSA treatment market is an under-penetrated market valued at $4 billion globally, with anticipated substantial growth for the foreseeable future.

The founders
We feel very strong about Alex Rapoport, founder and CEO of KeepMED. A serial entrepreneur with 28 years of senior management and consulting experience in product development, business development, sales and marketing in the field of medical devices, Alex brings with him a wealth of knowledge, experience and skills.
We feel privileged to contribute to KeepMED’s global development.

What they do
Video ads click-through and conversion rates are decreasing, creating a challenge for publishers. On the other end, Advertisers & brands are keen to address their audience where and when it matters. And more importantly, viewers are fed up with untargeted ads interrupting their favorite tv-shows!
KLIKsee has the ambition to change that and disrupt the way the Video-entertainment industry delivers ads & interactive contents to its audience in order to change the advertising industry for the better. They’ll empower publishers & advertisers with new tools to maximize their revenues, their efficiency and their conversion rate, reaching their target audience where it really matters, on their mobiles, while letting the viewers enjoy a true ad-free watching experience.

 

How we met
Pascal and Filippo met 5 years ago and over time they develop a closer relationship which evolved from the discussions around Kliksee latest developments to more of a coaching and mentoring discussions about new projects, ideas and evaluating the opportunity to continue to work together in the future.

What they do
“In today’s web, personalisation is king – and what could be more personal for shoppers than having your very own tailored online store?” This was the thinking of Chris Morton when he co-founded Lyst in 2010.

Chris was VC investor at Benchmark Capital and Balderton for several years, focusing on early-stage consumer internet space and witnessing one of the biggest problems of the industry, ie. shopping cart abandonment. Together with Sebastjan Trepca, who had more than 20 years of engineering and product experience, he set out to create a state-of-the-art technology marketplace.

Today, Lyst is an inventory-free platform that uses its proprietary data engine to provide each customer (150M per year) with a highly-personalised, simpler, more engaging and better buying experience. Over 17,000 brands and retailers partner with Lyst to drive meaningful sales within a highly trusted environment. Lyst is also a unique source of fashion data insights, and is responsible for the Lyst Index, the industry leading report of the hottest brands and products worldwide. Lifetime GMV is now over $2bn.

How we met
We first met with Chris Morton, Lyst’s Founder & CEO, back in 2014 when Pascal and Boris conducted an in-depth 6 months review of NET-A-PORTER which was already a Lyst partner.
Seven years later, he reached out to us to catch up and share Lyst’s tremendous progress, having built the world’s largest fashion assortment on a single tech platform and harnessed the power of data to support a much broader vision.

Along their growth path, Chris and the team succeeded in rallying top-tier investors to their cause: Draper Esprit, 14W, Accel, Balderton Capital, LVMH. He had already secured the commitments of Novator Partners, certain funds managed by Fidelity Investments among others for his pre-IPO round of $85m, but he absolutely wanted us to be a part of the story too. That’s how, after a thorough due diligence, we had the privilege to join the round!

What they do
Just picture a world where you can mount photos in under 5 minutes — without a hammer and nails! From that simple idea, Mixtiles was born.

Mixtiles is a consumer-facing app allowing users to turn photos from their camera roll into beautiful 8”x8” photo tiles that stick and re-stick without damaging the wall.

The company is disrupting the entire wall decoration industry by putting ease-of-use and design at the heart of the product. It is leveraging on strong tech components to build highly scalable manufacturing and shipping processes, allowing for stellar customer experience.

How we met
Pascal first met David Katz on a trip to Israel, Herzliya. He found in him what we appreciate in an entrepreneur. A physics and computer science graduate and serial app entrepreneur, David is using his knowledge, vision and passion to bring only “10x products” to life (ie. products that are 10 times better than existing solutions). The culture that he has instilled from the start with his talented Co-Founder Eytan Levit made us believe in the formidable potential of Mixtiles. We are flattered that they chose us to accelerate Mixtiles’ development in Europe.

What they do
MUBI is a curated streaming service with a unique subscription model. For £4.99 per month, MUBI will bring you an amazing film every day and you have 30 days to watch it. This means there is always a hand-picked selection of the best cult, classic, independent and award-winning films for members to enjoy. As e-commerce continues to merge with media, we found MUBI to be an innovative business model within eTailing, and Efe Cakarel’s passion for cinema infectious.
MUBI’s offering fundamentally differentiates from existing streaming services, which are typically mass market with a wide selection of relatively random offerings (and now some select original content). MUBI maintains that human curatorial component so essential in a time where we are overwhelmed with content; MUBI celebrates and champions those unforgettable films that cannot be distilled into an algorithm.

The founder
Working with Efe is awesome and we like him as much as his business: Charismatic, astute, well connected and funny, Efe continues to challenge Pascal on who can discover the best bottle of wine. We wholeheartedly share Efe’s vision and love for cinema, which makes working with MUBI as fun as it is forward-thinking.

Created in 2010, Nest is a California-based innovative company developing connected consumer electronics for the home. Nest reinvents things by taking unloved products in the home to transform them into simple, beautifully designed, and thoughtful devices.

Nest DNA is what attracted us – Nest founder is none other than Tony Fadell, the godfather of the iPod, and his team is composed of many Apple veterans. This team made us believe in the potential and future of Nest.

The most exciting features of Nest creations have to do with what happens inside: the devices use the power of data and intelligent algorithms to learn about its owners’ habits and teaches itself how to behave and act upon.

With the Nest Learning Thermostat, Nest set out to help people reduce home energy use while enjoying the comfort of their home. Later, Nest turned its attention to keeping families safe in their homes with Nest Protect, a Smoke and CO detector and Dropcam, a connected webcam.

C4 Ventures exited Nest when Google acquired the company for $3.2B in January 2014.

What they do
Created in 2011, Netatmo is a French innovative company developing consumer electronics for a better and connected lifestyle. Its first product, the Weather Station for Smartphone, constantly monitors the environment to enhance life both outdoors and indoors. Since then, the slick Web-connected Thermostat designed by Philippe Starck was launched with great success. More recently, the connected camera Welcome, equipped with facial recognition features, and Presence, connected outdoor camera both received great reviews.
As Netatmo expands its global reach, with many new products on the drawing board, we are proud to contribute to the company and team’s future.

How we met
We found in Fred Potter, the founder and CEO of Netatmo, what we appreciate in an entrepreneur. A Telecom ParisTech graduate with a PHD in micro-electronics, Fred brings to Netatmo his engineering knowledge, vision and passion for reinventing objects used in our daily life. Fred was the co-founder of Cirpack, acquired by Technicolor in 2008, as well as Withings. The culture that Fred has instilled from the start made us believe in the formidable potential of his startup.