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SBA CONNECT

Sophia Business Angels News - Volume 12

20 December 2024

 Happy Holidays and New Year 2025 ! 

Dear Sophia Business Angels Friends and Partners around the World!

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a wonderful Holiday Season and a great New Year 2025, full of clients for our entrepreneurs, great investments and exits for our business angel colleagues and success to our innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem partners around the world!

As the year draws to an end, we would like to share some information about upcoming events and highlights of the past year as well as giving some great news about two of our members who continue to amaze us with their energy, power, and brilliance !

Upcoming Events

13 - 15 February 2025 The Battle of The Titans : The SBA is particularly pleased to be collaborating on “The Battle of the Titans” with the Allianz Accelerator, run by our SBA Board Member, Sylvain Theveniaud, taking place at the World AI Cannes Festival, initiated by our partner, Institute EuropIA where several of our members are involved.  The “Battle of the Titans” will be featuring some of the world’s best AI ScaleUps and some of the world’s best AI Investors. Watch this space!

SBA Members in the News

Congratulations to our SBA President Emeritus, Dominique Pouliquen on Cintoo! Our SBA President Emeritus Dominique Pouliquen has raised 37 million Euros for his latest Scale Up, Cintoo, a French American company headquartered in Sophia Antipolis:  Cintoo Secures €37 Million in Series B Funding Round Led by Partech - Cintoo. 

Dominique has been one of the pioneers of 3D Computer Graphics and Reality Capture technologies when he started REALVIZ here in Sophia Antipolis in 1998 and then sold it to Autodesk, California, in 2008. With around 100 employees today, including 60 in Sophia Antipolis, Cintoo is already a key player in the Digital Twin ecosystem, helping major companies in Construction, Automobile Manufacturing and Oil & Gas perform their digital transformation using Reality Capture technologies such as 3D laser scanners and drones. With more than 60% of the revenue coming from North America, the Cintoo Platform is now used by more than 550 corporations in 43 countries worldwide. Please check Dominique’ interview on BFM TV and Tribuca.net.

Congratulations to Francesco Bongiovanni!  On 30 November Francesco conducted the premiere of “Tornero”, his new composition for which he wrote the music, lyrics and orchestral arrangement as a special guest at the Monaco Winter Gala in Singapore.

Earlier this year, Francesco published his third book, ’The Return of Geopolitics and Imperial Conflict  -Understanding the New World Disorder’  (published by Palgrave Macmillan) now available at Amazon.

And just as we go to press, Francesco wrote:  “I am delighted to have been granted a PATENT for my satellite de-orbiting system to mitigate space debris.

Let’s keep the environment in space sustainable…”

Talk about a Renaissance Man!

Highlights of the Year 2024

There were so many highlights of this past year it is difficult to include them all, so here are just a few:  Our portfolio companies successes included The Exploration Company raising the largest Series A in Europe with180 million Euros this last fall and winning contracts from Axiom Space and the European Space Agency;  Hive continuing to go from strength to strength, rolling out product after product and clinching a deal with Dell;  OroraTech raising a 25 Million Euro Series B Round and winning contracts with the Hellenic Space Center & Greek Ministry of Digital, NASA, and ESA; Interstellar Lab winning the NASA Deep Space Food Challenge and contracts with L’Oreal; DressLife being labelled by the Solar impulse foundation as a company achieving a sustainable impact, while improving profit in parallel; and just in from Great Island Productions, the first two of their human inspired and curated television series using AI are going live!  The list goes on and on…

We were also thrilled to have a wonderful StartUp Factory on The Creative Industries in September and to have a great SBA International Venture Academy on Deep Tech this last November with entrepreneurs and investors from Finland, Estonia, Spain, Poland, and France.

Thank you to all our partners and global community!  All of our successes, investments and activities could not be possible without YOU - our partners and global community!  Thank you so much! 

We wish all of you the most wonderful Holiday Season and a good start for 2025!

The Sophia Business Angels

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