French Instant Messaging Startup Iminent Gets €2.4m Series B

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1. Robert Lancer
   

   April 13th, 2008 at 11:55 am

   There must be nothing else good in France.

2. Chris
   

   April 13th, 2008 at 12:33 pm

   “There must be nothing else good in France.”

   There’s Mangrove and Jooce which I interviewed for a few months ago. Those aren’t French people though working there. They flew everybody in from the US to Paris to do the startup.

   I wondered ever since. Why would you fly Americans in to France to do a startup? Why not just do it in America where they’re from? At any rate, I’m happy that didn’t work out at the last minute because now I get to do something a million times better with my friends.

3. Your Daddy
   

   April 13th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

   What a waste of money. MSFT Office Communicator 2007 is bad ass tho! Lets you connect to your office now using SSL port 443 so you can pretend to be in the office… even when you’re at home or paying golf on your PPC WM device No, not possible on an iPhone.

4. Zee
   

   April 13th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

   This for definite then Mike…?

   (ok, it was a bad joke - but someone had to say it…)

5. alex
   

   April 13th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

   Chris, even before I read your post, I wanted to comment that these financing rounds always seem very high. What does a company like this spend 5mil Euros on? That’s A LOT of money.

6. SearcH◆ EngineS WEB
   

   April 13th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

   BREAKING NEWS…
   OMG!

   Look at this

   http://www.freezepage.com/1208119153FMPKCSPTDY
   
   This is a first - soon Techcrunch will be number one (look at how close)
   Are gadgets slightly falling out of favor and losing their ‘Wow’ power ?!

   But back on the matter at hand:;

   Those emoticons are really swell on Iminent; can’t wait to get started downloading
   Don’t you just love their domain name - how on earth did they acquire it?!

7. Nigel Lawson
   

   April 13th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

   Ah the French!

   To prove that the French can do anything in the internet space as good as the english speaking can:

   http://youtube.com/watch?v=uB3rgmqHis0

8. Chris
   

   April 13th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

   @7

   It seems very high. I can only say what I found out by working for German startups, Cali startups, and of course my interview with the Mangrove startup.

   They spend very little, and keep the rest in a warchest. I can’t really say more.
   Most of the startups my old company worked for and the startups I know are where a VC guides people who have little experience trying to get them to reach a milestone in order to reach the next level of funding.

   When they reach X milestone it “unlocks” Y amount of investment.
   It’s very wild west like. There is very little business plan or strict govt compliance as far as what you would expect.

   As somebody who works for them, I can’t really tell all on this blog in a comment, but suffice it to say that 5M may translate into 10% of that in actual cash flow. My old company would get about 1% of that 10%, so I closed it because I’m done bottom feeding.

9. addnr
   

   April 13th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

   Sorry for that kind of ad:
   Imagine you would read this article in an old fashioned newspaper. what would you do, to bookmark this article?

   [Edna] has got the solution!
   call 0043780233000135
   don´t be afraid. this call will cost you not a cent, because edna won´t answer the call. you will just hear a busy tone.

   then log in at addnr.com and see your “called” items to find your offline bookmarked artikle;)

   isn´t that cool!?

10. Frank Church
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

    Not only is just s Windows download, it’s a MS Messenger plugin only

11. Multi-Player Trivia Games
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

    Great to see that VC funding has grown way beyond US boundaries.

12. Peter
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 3:32 pm

    Why would you fly Americans in to France to do a startup?

    Because America is a wasteland of urban sprawl and France is beautiful. It’s possible to live in France - feel energized - be inspired.

    Ever drive down 101 in the Valley? It’ll make you want to kill yourself.

    http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/121

13. Peter
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    p.s. this is the _last_ time i’m going to ask for this. until the next time i ask for this. i want screencasts - especially for stuff like this that requires downloads, etc. hello DemoGirl? Bueller? and i want a real screencast done by an outside source - the companies should still do the demos themselves, but i want some of that ‘blogonist integrity’.

14. nemrut
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    Ahh..France.the country of origin for the word ‘entrepreneur’ yet makes it hard as hell to succeed as one and easy as hell to sit in a cafe all day while people watching and collecting govt handouts..

15. Steve Jobs
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    Hello, ALL. Look out for Apple taking over the IM scene soon!

16. alex
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 4:46 pm

    Interesting response, Chris. All seems fine and dandy making it to the next round of financing. But if at the end of the day you haven’t built a real business with that money, your liquidity event is never going to come! Seems bizarre.

17. Your Daddy
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    The Emoticons have to pop out of the screen and give a good BJ at this rate.

18. Robert Lancer
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 5:39 pm

    I know there are other “good things” in France but €5.4M for a novelty IM client is a little ridiculous.

    18 I agree 100%

19. CARversation.com
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 6:04 pm

    I already knew just by the title, in the comments there would be some anti-french comments.

20. alex
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 7:26 pm

    Ok we get it france sucks. Aren’t you guys tired of it.

    I think this comes from the jealousy of the french excellent life style. Because you only life purpose is to build your 401k to on day retire and have a nice life style like the french have their entire life.

    5.4 million is such a waste of money french are stupid instead we should spend 42 millions to print a paper to explain to the dumbass american how they are going to receive tax return.

    We should not listen to the stupid french, we had to go to vietnam , we had to go to Irak it was the smartest thing to do.

    Anyway i mean this start up sucks but if you guys go out of the US you might understand that msn messenger is big outside of the us. Maybe this startup didn’t find the stupiest group of guys on the world and hustle 5.4 million from them.

    come people be smart, be american.

21. Frank Church
    

    April 13th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    WOAH, I think the point was it is odd to import people to France from the US (that seemed like the intent to me)

    I think you all are a bit sensitive (and eager to jump to conclusions). The post was NOT anti- French!

    Disclosure:I didnt read all the comments (they are going down hill), so I cant claim to know about them.

22. maya
    

    April 14th, 2008 at 12:01 am

    I think yahoo IM offer similar features to enhance user experience.

23. Ernst-Jan
    

    April 14th, 2008 at 1:31 am

    Interviewed their CEO, Francis Cohen to ask what they’re gonna do with the money. They might go to Asia, which of course, makes perfect sense.

    http://thenextweb.org/2008/04/.....expansion/

24. john
    

    April 14th, 2008 at 11:25 am

    Hopefully they’ll innovate with that money.

    Sent from my mobile using FeedM8