Founder in Sophia Antipolis of the web site dealing with auction sales on the web, the young company manager was persuaded to resign, by his own board of directors, and should be replaced by his assistant Paul Zilk.
Fabrice Grindaout of Aucland management! Out from the company he had created in April 1999 in Sophia with Sacha Fosse-Parisis, engineer who made his studies at the ESSI. The Aucland board of directors took the decision some days ago, while the Sophipolitan start-up, today number 2 in France for online auction sales, is preparing a new pool.
French champion of start-ups that hire
The magazine Transfert, in an article entitled 'Aucland remplace Grinda par son adjoint' (Aucland replaces Grinda by his assistant), comments the event and notices that Fabrice Grinda should be replaced by his assistant Paul Zilk. This person, former employee at Nestlé, was leading the NBA international service, professional US basket. He had been recruited by Fabrice Grinda in March 2000 to reinforce the managerial team.
Fabrice Grinda had launched in the creation of a European version of the giant US site e-Bay. To obtain the means for his ambition, he had let the Bernard Arnault's group called Europ@web take a majority part in Sept. 1999. It had brought about 120 million francs. This had allowed Aucland to be very ambitious and to attack at the same time several European markets and even Latino-American ones. In an investigation about start-ups that recruited, the magazine Transfert had recently ranked Aucland at the first place, as the French champion in recruitment, before Multimania. The Sophipolitan company which has already widened a lot, has a recruitment plan of about 150 people.
Fabrice Grinda, at strategic direction?
Fabrice Grinda, 26, one of the main personalities of the French Riviera new economy, has not been obliged to leave the firm. Negotiations are pending to know what his new functions will be. According to Transfert, he could take the site strategic direction. A release should be published next week.
The start-up Aucland, had provoked a general surprise movement because of the money it had received. 'The American breath of venture-capital arrives in France', people had said. But, still like in the US, where a lot of firms' creators become aware of things at their expense, the Sophipolitan start-up delivers the second part of the message: no presents will be done. Start-ups and venture-capital worlds are sometimes merciless.