This year, the Sophia Business Angels celebrates its 20th Year! We will have many events this fall to mark this milestone including the establishment of an innovation fund honoring our founder, Senator Pierre Laffitte. In this issue we look forward on how we can do better in the next 20 years. We also highlight our investment Interstellar Labs, and announce our partnership with EuropIA Capital, an angel club and investment fund.
In this edition: Highlights of SBA-SKEMA International Venture Academy which focused exclusively on “Green Tech” as well as Startup Factory in Cannes, our investment Gomecano, the automobile mechanic home service, and two new SBA members, Audra Shallal and Marc Cetto. SBA President Candace Johnson was recently featured in Fortune Magazine as one of the space leaders in “Ladies who Launch”.
We at Sophia Business Angels were particularly saddened by the news that our dear friend and colleague, Pierre Laffitte, passed away on 7 July, at the age of 96. He was the President and founder of the Sophia-Antipolis technopole, the largest technopole in Europe. An eminent scientist but also a committed politician, Pierre Laffitte sat in the Senate for the Alpes-Maritimes region from 1985 to 2008 where he served as the specialist in innovation issues.
