NETVA Entrepreneurship Week Panel Highlights Challenges of New Markets

On September 12th over 120 people attended a French-American Business Panel as the flagship event of the New-England Technology Venture Accelerator (NETVA) entrepreneurship week, held at MassChallenge in Boston.

From left to right: Sponsor Marie Landel, of Marie Landel & Associates, and moderator Robin Gaster.

The event, titled "U.S. vs European Markets: Opportunities and Challenges for High-Tech Companies," was chaired by Robin Gaster, lead researcher at the National Academy of Sciences and the CEO of Innovation Ecologies.

Joining Mr. Gaster were Barbara Fox, CEO of Avaxia Technologies, John Piret, Managing Director at Newbury Piret & Co, and Jean-Marie Vallet, President of Cyrma Ventures LLC. The experts shared experiences, provided valuable business advice, and addressed the challenges that start-ups face both at home and abroad.

The panel event focused on key differences in customer behavior, market structures, expectations of investors, and innovation lifecycles, while discussing new dynamics in the IPO and M&A markets.

The sponsor for this event was Marie Landel & Associates, a company specializing in part time financial management of American subsidiaries and facilitating international business.

From left to right: Event panelists John Piret, Jean-Marrie Vallet, and Barbara Fox

NETVA aims at promoting the global leadership of French high-tech start-ups through a comprehensive entrepreneurial training and business development week in Boston. The NETVA program was created in 2009 by the Office of Science and Technology of the French Embassy in the United States in partnership with the RETIS (French innovation) network.

The unique initiative uses the expertise of local members of the business community that specialize in entrepreneurship and business development in France and the U.S. The program prepares start-ups while giving them exposure to U.S. markets, attempting to address the need for the internationalization of new French technology firms that develop highly innovative products.

Also attending the event were members of the five French start-ups chosen as laureates of the NETVA 2012 national competition, who flew to Boston as part of a unique immersion trip. This year’s laureates are:
- Pacifa Decision (security software for stadiums and arenas)
- Repropharm (ovulation tests for breeding industry)
- Solidages (enriched food to fight malnutrition)
- Osseomatrix (customized bioceramic bone implants)
- Plugmed Heart (skull implants to deliver electricity to heart assisting devices).

If you are a French start-up interested in participating in the NETVA program in order to accelerate your development in the US, don’t wait any longer and apply directly online here.

If you are a US-based entrepreneur or a high-level business or technology professional and would like to be part of the NETVA mentors community, please contact David Boucard-Planel at deputy2 inno.mst@consulfrance-boston.org.