Economy

2023-06-21 19:23:25

German startup Replique has successfully closed a new investment round. Two other investors have been attracted under the leadership of STS Ventures: Chameleon GmbH and R3 consulting & investment GmbH. These new investments enable Replique to successfully break away from Chemovator, BASF’s incubator platform. The chemical group also makes extra funding available through the incubator fund.

“We are pleased to have successfully spun off from Chemovator and to have gained the support of such prominent investors, who have deep experience in scaling startups and bring the strategic expertise to efficiently internationalize our business.” says Henrike Wonneberger, co-founder of Replique. The goal is now to become the world’s largest digital inventory for on-demand parts.

Replique has a network of 80 certified 3D printing farms

From left to right: Oliver Kaul (STS Ventures), Max Siebert and Henrike Wonneberger (Replique) and Markus Bold (Chemovator).

On-demand 3D printen

Because that’s what the software of the German company is all regarding. Replique offers a fully encrypted 3D printing platform for managing digital stocks of spare parts and printing them on-demand. Replique supplies these parts to customers on demand through a network of more than 80 certified print farms around the world. The secure platform can be easily integrated into existing business software systems, such as ERP systems and webshops. This allows B2B companies such as Alstom to use 3D printing in a smooth and seamless supply chain process and B2C companies such as Miele and Siena Garden to offer 3D printed parts to their customers.

Parts management for the 21st century

Max Siebert, co-founder of Replica: “Our platform is designed to bring parts management into the 21st century and our approach has already proven its worth.” Replique is now focusing on expanding its reach and acquiring new customers in various industries. With the proceeds of the investment round, the company wants to expand the platform with new functions and invest in personnel.

Disruptive

Oliver Kaul, partner at the investment fund STS Ventures, says that with the industrial 3D printing platform, Replique has the potential to disrupt the industry. “We see a lot of startups with promising ideas, but Replique stood out to us as a game-changer in the manufacturing industry.” Although Replique is the 5th successful spin-off from the incubator platform, it continues to maintain close ties with BASF. The chemical group is both a customer and a supplier through its subsidiary BASF 3D Printing Solutions.

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#Replique #successfully #completes #funding #continue #expand

2023-06-21 15:08:00

The Carrefour brand was unsuccessful, having brought legal action to cancel the sale of stores by its former partner Mestdagh to Intermarché. In question: a problem of competition in certain regions where Intermarché has, since the beginning of the year, a dominant position thanks to the acquisition of 87 Carrefour Market Mestdagh located mainly in Wallonia, but also in Brussels.

The Market Court indeed confirmed, on June 14, the decision to authorize the acquisition of the Mestdagh supermarkets by Intermarché, according to a press release from the Belgian Competition Authority (ABC) unveiled on Wednesday.

The problem ? Some 18 of these Carrefour Mestdagh supermarkets, which came under the control of the Mousquetaires, allowed Intermarché to have a dominant position in certain places in Hainaut and the province of Namur, with price increases carried out to the detriment of the purchasing power of consumers, found Carrefour. According to the brand, the said Authority had made “errors of assessment” on the impact on competition following the takeover of these small twenty stores.

Carrefour hoped to be able to position itself favorably to get its hands on these supermarkets which would have been the subject of a new sales process if the Market Court agreed with its arguments. So nothing happened.

Shaky partnership

Carrefour and Mestdagh, it is true, did not part on the best terms due to a sometimes very tense business relationship. At the end of 2019, Mestdagh had thus denounced the contract signed with Carrefour, under which it had undertaken, since 2010, to sell Carrefour brand products in its stores, aptly named Carrefour Mestdagh (formerly Champion). Calm was quickly restored between the two partners who then committed themselves for a new period of 10 years under a “master franchise” contract.

Everything therefore seemed to be going for the best until the dramatic turn of events in December 2021. The Mestdagh group then announced that it was ending its partnership with Carrefour, with, however, a one-year notice period provided for contractually.

First wave

From March 2022, an agreement was reached between Mestdagh and Intermarché for the acquisition of Carrefour Market. “This operation will make it possible to constitute a significant player in distribution in Belgium. With 87 supermarkets for Mestdagh and 78 stores for Intermarché Belgique, the new group will have ideal coverage of its territory and will offer consumers the combined strength of the two groups”, underlined the two new partners when the agreement was announced. Intermarché might also gain a foothold in Brussels, by taking over five supermarkets.

This takeover has been effective since January 1st. This was not without difficulty for the new team: strikes took place in Mestdagh stores, which until then had been managed directly and which had to go under franchise, which is the Intermarché model. In question, as at Delhaize, the fear of job losses and less favorable working conditions.

A first wave of 16 stores will be franchised from July 1. The second wave is expected in September.

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#Carrefour #scupper #deal #Mestdagh #Intermarché

2023-06-21 18:00:56

Since the arrival of the Linky meter in 2015, many people in France have been angry. Some agreed to use the little green box, but others were strongly once morest it.

Philippe, who lives in Saône-et-Loire, is one of them. He requested a new meter from Enedis because he does not want the Linky meter. In March 2023, a technician came to his house with a new Linky meter, but Philippe said he didn’t want it. He sent letters asking for another meter, but it took several months. Finally, the people from Enedis told Philippe that he would have a power cut if he didn’t want the Linky meter.

“I lost 6 kilos in 15 days, I can’t sleep anymore”

The threat was carried out last month, which changed the daily life of this pensioner. He lives without electricity and walks around with a headlamp at night or in dark rooms. He fell down the stairs last night because he mightn’t see anything. He eats cold food and visits friends to recharge his cell phone and the battery of his headlamp. All his cold food is at home.

The situation is delicate for Philippe who also has health problems. He can’t turn on his artificial respirator. His doctor and pulmonologist have diagnosed him with a serious illness since April 14, 2004. Since the power cut, his state of health has deteriorated. He lost 6 kilos in 15 days, no longer sleeps and has constant breathing difficulties.

Linky meter: a complaint filed

However, this former plastic arts and art history teacher has not said his last word. He called the police to file a complaint. They checked and called EDF. A gendarme contacted an EDF adviser who said: ‘We are not aware that we cut off the electricity to him’.

At the same time, Enedis claimed that Philippe’s case must be replaced because it is “defective”. A decision of the Mâcon court, dated June 8, confirmed Enedis’ right to replace the retiree’s meter with a Linky “in application of the contractual provisions binding it to Enedis”.

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#refuses #Linky #meter #longer #connect #artificial #respirator #nightmare

2023-06-21 19:06:08

Bitcoin jumped 10%…it exceeded thirty thousand dollars for the first time since April

Bitcoin rose on Wednesday to its highest level in more than two months, following investor sentiment rose over the prospects of issuing an exchange-traded cryptocurrency fund (ETF), following several attempts that saw the release of several recent apps from investment management firms, including… Industry giant “BlackRock”.

And in the early hours of trading on Wednesday in New York, the price of bitcoin jumped by more than 10%, exceeding thirty thousand dollars per unit, to reach the price of $ 30,600, for the first time since last April, according to data from the “Coin Telegraph” website, which specializes in bitcoin. Cryptocurrency data.

Investor optimism has risen recently following the increasing interest of some of the largest money management companies in America, including “Black Rock”, which manages assets worth nearly $ 10 trillion, in investing in digital assets.

After all the bad news surrounding the crypto space recently, with the market still affected by the FTX collapse scandal, and the ensuing regulatory fallout, cryptocurrencies during the second quarter of the year seemed to be trying to shake off all the dust, supported by a momentum that gave them a rise of more than 80%, compared to its level at the beginning of the current year.

Vijay Aiyar, head of international market dealings at CoinDCX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, told CNBC that the aggressive campaign for the Bitcoin fund by major institutions has “definitely restored the bullish trend to the currency markets.” encrypted”.

“The market reached a great support at the price of $25,000, and we saw that the movement at this price was more driven by buying, not by closing short-selling positions, which we considered a very healthy phenomenon,” Ayar continued.

Earlier this week, BlackRock placed an order to launch an ETF that specializes in Bitcoin and tracks the underlying spot market price of the currency. Such a fund would give cryptocurrency investors the opportunity to gain exposure to Bitcoin, without having to own it.

Following BlackRock’s latest announcement, a host of other asset managers have also submitted their own applications to issue private crypto funds, including Wisdom Tree.

In a related context, investors have returned to closely following macroeconomic indicators in recent months, in an attempt to anticipate future movements in the cryptocurrency market, despite what appeared to be a disconnect between them during the last half of last year.

Cryptocurrencies were previously associated with movements in financial markets more broadly, as Bitcoin and its siblings moved mostly with US stock markets, especially major technology companies.

Cryptocurrencies benefited during the current year from the expectations of the current rate hike cycle approaching its end, which helped them achieve huge gains, in parallel with the rise in the stocks of major technology companies.

The Nasdaq index has risen since the beginning of the year by more than 35%, by the end of trading on Tuesday.

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#Bitcoin #jumped #10…it #exceeded #thousand #dollars #time #April