Born from a joint project between Galeries Lafayette and Plug and Play Tech Center, Lafayette Plug and Play accelerator aims to help startups development. The director, Pieter Lammens, was gracious enough to give us an exclusive interview about the business opportunities presented by the accelerator specialized in fashion and retail.
Interview by Claire Domergue
How the idea of creating Lafayette Plug and Play accelerator occur ?
Lafayette Plug and Play was born from the partnership between Galeries Lafayette group and Plug and Play Tech Center, one of the world’s leading start-up accelerators, founded in 2006 in the United States. The founder and CEO, Saeed Amidi, who fled the Iranian revolution in 1975 to the United States, made his fortune in various fields of activity. In particular, he leased office space in Silicon Valley to many start-up, such as Paypal or Google. This is how Saeed Amidi could have the opportunity to invest in Paypal and finally became the main shareholder of what became the most widely used online payment services in the world. In parallel, he industrialized his start-up accelerator system. And in 2016, it joined forces with Galeries Lafayette to create an accelerator in Paris dedicated to fashion and retail sector.
What makes Lafayette Plug and Play different from the other start-up accelerators?
Today, we are almost the only retail and fashion accelerator in France. Of course, there is also Look Forward, created by Showroom Privé, but it is rather an incubator.
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