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Qonto (neobank)
Qonto is a French online payment institution for freelancers and SMEs. The financial technology company was founded in 2016 and the initial product was launched in July 2017 in France. The service has been expanded to Spain, Germany and Italy since 2019. History The company was created in April 2016. In January 2017, Qonto raised €1,6 million in a seed round with Alven Capital, by billionaire Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures and a few business angels. In July 2017, Qonto raised another €10 million from existing investors Valar Ventures and Alven Capital and launches its service. Six months after the launch, 5.000 companies were using the service and in April 2018, Qonto had more than 10,000 clients. In July 2018, Qonto obtained the licence to be a payment institution from the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority. Qonto does not have a banking licence. In September 2018, Qonto raised another €20 million from its existing investors (Valar Ventures and Al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the region France's primate city. The Paris Region had a GDP of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the Economist Intelli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its Metropolitan France, metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Due to its several coastal territories, France has the largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France borders Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Andorra, and Spain in continental Europe, as well as the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Netherlands, Suriname, and Brazil in the Americas via its overseas territories in French Guiana and Saint Martin (island), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freelancer
''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance workers are sometimes represented by a company or a temporary agency that resells freelance labor to clients; others work independently or use professional associations or websites to get work. While the term ''independent contractor'' would be used in a different register of English to designate the tax and employment classes of this type of worker, the term "freelancing" is most common in culture and creative industries, and use of this term may indicate participation therein. Fields, professions, and industries where freelancing is predominant include: music, writing, acting, computer programming, web design, graphic design, translating and illustrating, film and video production, and other forms of piece work that some cultural the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Small And Medium-sized Enterprises
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by international organizations such as the World Bank, the European Union, the United Nations, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). In any given national economy, SMEs sometimes outnumber large companies by a wide margin and also employ many more people. For example, Australian SMEs makeup 98% of all Australian businesses, produce one-third of the total GDP (gross domestic product) and employ 4.7 million people. In Chile, in the commercial year 2014, 98.5% of the firms were classified as SMEs. In Tunisia, the self-employed workers alone account for about 28% of the total non-farm employment, and firms with fewer than 100 employees account for about 62% of total employment. The United States' SMEs generate half of all U.S. jobs, but only 40% of GDP. Developing countries tend to have a lar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. , Thiel had an estimated net worth of $7.19 billion and was ranked 297th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He worked as a securities lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell, as a speechwriter for former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett and as a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse. He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996. He co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998, serving as chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. After PayPal, he founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund based in San Francisco. In 2003, he launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, serving as its chairman since its inception. In 2005, he launched Founders Fund with PayPal partn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valar Ventures
Valar Ventures is a US-based venture capital fund founded by Andrew McCormack, James Fitzgerald and Peter Thiel. Historically, the majority of the firm's investments have been in technology startups based outside of Silicon Valley, including in Europe, the UK, the US and Canada. Valar Ventures originally spun out of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's global parent company based in San Francisco, and is now headquartered near Madison Square in Manhattan. The firm's namesake is the Valar of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, who are god-like immortal spirits that chose to enter the mortal world to prepare it for their living creations. Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald are the managing partners of the firm. Investments Valar was notably the first venture fund to invest in Xero. The fund made its initial investment in Xero in October 2010 at a valuation of approximately $98 million. Since then, the firm has spearheaded successive rounds of investment in the company and Xero's market c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Business Angel
An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors usually give support to start-ups at the initial moments (where risks of the start-ups failing are relatively high) and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital, as well as to provide advice to their portfolio companies. Over the last 50 years, the number of angel investors has greatly increased. Etymology and origin T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Prudential Supervision And Resolution Authority
The French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (french: Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution, ACPR), formerly known as Prudential Supervision Authority (french: Autorité de contrôle prudentiel, ACP), is an independent administrative authority which exercises prudential supervision of regulated French financial firms such as banks and insurance companies. It operates under the aegis of the Bank of France. Background A number of financial supervisory authorities were created in France over the years and with various mandates. These included: * the Bank Supervisory Commission (french: Commission de contrôle des banques, CCB), established in 1941 and renamed in 1984 the (french: Commission bancaire) * the Insurance Supervisory Commission (french: Commission de contrôle des assurances, CCA) and the Mutual Insurance and Health Care Supervisory Commission (french: Commission de contrôle des mutuelles et des institutions de prévoyance, CCMIP), merged i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Investment Bank
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the EU Member States. It is one of the largest supranational lenders in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt solutions projects that achieve the policy aims of the European Union through loans, guarantees and technical assistance. The EIB focuses on the areas of climate, environment, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), development, cohesion and infrastructure. It has played a large role in providing finance during crises including the 2008 financial crash and the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its inception in 1958 the EIB has invested over one trillion euros. It primarily funds projects that "cannot be entirely financed by the various means available in the individual Member States". The EIB is one of the biggest financiers of Sustainable finance, green finance in the world. In 2007, the EIB became the first institution in the world to issue Green bond, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DST Global
DST Global is a venture capital and private equity firm that primarily invests in late-stage internet companies. DST Global has been described as one of the largest and most influential venture firms in the world, with an estimated $50 billion in assets under management. DST Global’s founder is Yuri Milner and its co-founders are Saurabh Gupta, John Lindfors, Rahul Mehta and Tom Stafford. Background Yuri Milner founded Digital Sky Technologies (now known as VK) in 1999 that through acquisitions has become a leading Russian language website in terms of users. In 2010, Digital Sky Technologies changed its name to Mail.ru Group and successfully completed an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange. Although initial investments in American Internet companies were done by Mail.ru, it became clear that a dedicated fund management operation was required to continue investing at scale. As a result, DST Global was set up in 2009 by Yuri Milner as a separate fund management ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tencent
Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the world’s largest company in the video game industry based on its investments, with Tencent Games being the subdivision of Tencent Interactive Entertainment Group (IEG) focused on publishing of games. Founded in 1998, its subsidiaries globally market various Internet-related services and products, including in entertainment, artificial intelligence, and other technology. Its twin-skyscraper headquarters, Tencent Seafront Towers (also known as Tencent Binhai Mansion) are based in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen. Tencent is the world's largest video game vendor, as well as one of the most financially valuable companies. It is among the largest social media, venture capital, and investment corporations. Its services include social netwo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of , the pandemic had caused more than cases and confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history. COVID-19 symptoms range from undetectable to deadly, but most commonly include fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Severe illness is more likely in elderly patients and those with certain underlying medical conditions. COVID-19 transmits when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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