LGiLab invests in Bahu.com
We are announcing today a new investment in French startup Bahu.com promoting a European social network for young students across Europe (special south and eastern)focusing on promoting talents.
Bahu is a French startup created by two students and backed by Oleg Tscheltzoff a serial and successful internet entrepreneur i have known for some time now.
We know, the space is not virgin but we were impressed with Bahu achievements only a few months after they launched (already 2 million unique visitors and present in more than 6 countries in 4 months). I first heard about Bahu when i covered their launch for TechCrunch France and was interested in hearing more about it.
Investing in non Israeli related startup is not the first purpose of the Lab, but this was an opportunity that was not easy to ignore. We are committed to support israeli entrepreneurship. We already financed 5 israeli related projects and hopefully more soon.
I am happy to serve on the board of Bahu and face some very tough challenges that we have in front of us.
There is a good anecdote about bahu. for our first meeting we met at their offices in Paris. When i asked about the direction i found out it was precisely in the street i use to live when i was in Paris. When i asked the number it was just next door. Call it destiny?
Btw why "Bahu"? In cool young slang french it means "High School"
update: although we did not disclose the amount invested i read here and there different numbers. Of course we have a good reason why we do not wish to share that information and i have no idea where those numbers are coming from. As a reminder i would just like to precise that LgiLab invests up to 1 million dollars on seed stage (i will soon publish a post on why we prefer not to disclose the exact amount on seed stage)
Just out of curiosity: is there anything unique about Bahu except for its growth rate and traffic numbers?
Posted by: Robin Wauters | 10 December 2007 at 05:57 PM
The team, geographic approach, focus on talent are the specificity of that company. Not sure this is unique but you don t have to be unique in a green market with huge opportunities. You need to be good and fast.
Posted by: ouriel | 10 December 2007 at 06:13 PM
Il semble que cet investissement fait suite a la valorisation de 15 Milliards de Facebook. Personne ne veut rater le coche meme un fond dedie a Internet en Israel. Ils ont interet a transformer Bahu en platforme comme l'a fait Facebook (mais plutot en se basant sur OpenSocial) s'ils veulent avoir une chance.
La question demeure: Vont-ils faire le poids quand le rouleau-compresseur Facebook sera accessible en d'autres langues ?
Bonne chance.
Posted by: Baroukh | 11 December 2007 at 02:41 PM