Start-up : La Tribune reviews the situation of Sophia

« Storm on the start-ups of Sophia-Antipolis » : the supplement of the daily newspaper La Tribune of June 28th, which reviews on the venture-capital and on the start-up activity in France, dedicates a long article on the situation of the research park. Michel Boyas, the regional correspondent, says that the financing crisis and the slowdown have affected Sophia Antipolis.He reminds the situation of big telecommunication companies (Lucent, which already laid off 100 people, the 300 employees of Nortel, who worry for local decisions of the worldwide restructuring plan) and reviews failures for start-ups. Kast Telecom and Aucland face great difficulties and Healthcenter, VistaPrint, Wwwhoosh France closed. More recently, the liquidation of Etexx, the textile platform, created a big shock in the start-up community of the French Riviera.

A second article, still concerning the situation of Sophia, is more optimistic though. In the article “Technologic start-ups relatively saved », Michel Bovas lists the ones which keep on growing and notes that investors keep on betting on the start-up development having a real technologic product and a market. Moreover, there are the examples of Right Vision, Castify Networks, Activia Networks, Esterel Technologies, so many companies which have still succeeded to raise funds.

Conclusion of both articles : The crisis is then beneficial, giving a subsidy to start-ups developing real technologic innovations. However, investors, less attentive, have left a few hundred million francs in the adventure only for the start-ups of Sophia Antipolis. Read in “La Tribune” newspaper or with the subscription to the edition of the newspaper on the Internet.