After the success of its launch, Aster Fab – the consulting firm created by Aster dedicated to innovation strategies – organized the first edition of the “Fab Insights” events. This new format decodes current market dynamics thanks to keynotes by Aster’s team members and exchanges with the audience. On the menu last week: predictive analytics and digital engineering. See a few pictures below.

Discover the pictures of the event:

Thanks to a shared vision of entrepreneurship and innovation, Sowefund, a crowdfunding platform, and Aster, a venture capital firm specializing in the digital transformation, have announced the launch of the Aster^crowd program. This unique program for financing and supporting start-up companies selected by Aster, through joint investments with the Sowefund crowdfunding community, is intended to revitalize the financing of innovation in France and offer everyone the opportunity to become a business angel alongside an investment fund.

A shared desire: to professionalize and democratize investment on behalf of entrepreneurs

Through this partnership, Aster and Sowefund will offer financing to selected companies through an investment and support from an investment fund combined with additional contributions from the crowdfunding community of the Sowefund platform.

The selected companies may therefore receive customized support as well as an additional source of financing along with that provided by Aster, all while offering individuals the possibility of supporting the real economy alongside a management company.

Since its creation in 2014, Sowefund has always sought to offer individuals the chance to invest alongside investment professionals in young, innovative French start-up firms with strong growth potential. This partnership now enables Sowefund to offer different investment opportunities, at more advanced stages of maturity, and thereby provide new opportunities to the 45,000 members of its platform.

As a leader in French innovation capital, Aster has backed more than 60 entrepreneurial teams in their efforts to transform the mobility, energy and industry sectors. With the launch of the Aster^crowd program, the management company now adds crowdfunding to its quiver of support for start-ups. Meanwhile, for the first time Aster also lends its expertise in identifying young companies with growth potential for a community of individuals who can thereby become genuine business angels.

Hadean wants to turn the cloud into a single giant supercomputer.

Hadean is redesigning the technology stack from first principles for the cloud to enable developers to scale their code for applications that require vast computing power.

HadeanOS enables programmers to scale their code, as it treats entire cloud data centres as a single gigantic computer. Its goal is to ultimately rid companies of the need for DevOps, which it claims is already a huge function among tech teams today.

From games to life

One application for Hadean’s cloud simulation engine is massive multiplayer online games. CCP Games, the creator of the hugely influential Eve Online, announced yesterday (6 March) that it is working with Hadean to break the record number of players in one battle at a time.

Meanwhile, the Francis Crick Institute is using Hadean’s platform to build complex models of protein-protein interactions to help research diseases such as cancer.

Aster is thrilled to kick off – alongside the European VC Speedinvest – a new series of events gathering startups, VCs and corporates to discuss topics around Industry 4.0.

For the first edition, on December 11 2018, at Speedinvest’s rooftop location in Munich, we had an exciting evening of debates and panel discussions around Predictive Analytics.

To watch the replay:

Finalcad, a leading construction mobile platform, today announces a $40 million Series C round, led by Draper Esprit, accompanied by Cathay Innovation and with the support of Salesforce Ventures.

The investment will enable the company to significantly accelerate operations across Europe and Asia, as the demand for their mobile-first construction app keeps increasing.

• The round was led by Draper Esprit, along with Cathay Innovation and additional funding from Salesforce Ventures. Finalcad has now raised a total of $63M. The company will use the further funds to expand its operations across Europe and Asia.

Along with existing French investors Serena, Aster and CapHorn Invest, additional international investment funds are joining Finalcad. Newcomer investors include leading European fund Draper Esprit, the global VC fund Cathay Innovation, and the global investment group of Salesforce, global CRM leader, Salesforce Ventures.

$10 trillion is currently spent on construction worldwide, and this number expected to double over the next 20 years. Yet the industry suffers from chronic low productivity. According to McKinsey, while overall productivity has risen by 30% since 1995 in the UK and Germany, productivity in the construction industry has risen by only 7%. Simultaneously, the adoption of digital technology has been very low; the industry still predominantly uses manual, non-digital processes. With a rise in population, and the consequent need for more infrastructure and housing worldwide, the need to build in more efficient and cost-effective ways could not be more pressing.

Finalcad was founded in 2012 by Jimmy Louchart, Joffroy Louchart and David Vauthrin, to solve this exact problem. The company enables construction companies to improve their operational efficiency through a mobile digital platform. Site Engineers, Foremen, Architects and Consultants can work together via their app, enabling collaboration across a wide variety of workflow processes both on site and at the office. Their app is not just a communication tool, but also enables users to work on drawings, BIM models, tasks, controls, safety procedures and progress monitoring. Finalcad can then provide insights and best practices at a company level, thanks to their analytics technology.

With this additional firepower, Finalcad is well positioned to build on its progress across Europe and Asia, as they execute on their mission to digitise the construction industry. The new funds will enable the company to:

• Extend their SaaS Product platform from the Buildings and Infrastructure industry sectors, to Energy and Operations & Maintenance
• Hire 100 people to better serve their global customers
• Invest in R&D around Construction Insight Platform, to provide predictive insights

The company now employs 170 people, across 12 countries and has serviced over 20,000 projects since inception. Their customers include leading construction firms such as Shimizu, Eiffage, RATP and PT PP.

The Dow Jones VentureSource Venture Capital Report for Q4 2017, which covers the European VC market, named Aster among the largest VC funds: with a €240 million in capital raised in the first closing by several industrial players, Aster has secured fourth place in Europe, and first in France.

Aster’s funds will be invested primarily in Europe and the United States and will be focused on the digital and industrial transformations of the energy and mobility markets, the team’s areas of expertise for the last 17 years.

Dow Jones is a global provider of news and business information, delivering content to consumers and organizations around the world across multiple formats, including print, digital, mobile and live events.

Don’t miss Jean-Marc Bally’s intervention at BFM Business, talking about how Aster is accompanying companies in their digital transformation, to maximize their efficiency and to address new markets in the areas of energy, industry and mobility.

To watch the replay:

Aster was thrilled to receive guests for the launch of a new exciting project: Aster Fab, the first French consulting firm dedicated to innovation strategies that is benefiting from the expertise of a Venture Capital company.

On the menu: spatial, AI and… a culinary 3D printer! To learn more: aster-fab.com

Discover the pictures of the event: