Engineer and entrepreneur, Éric Larchevêque has co-founded no less than six startups in less than fifteen years. He also took on the role of business angel for companies today known to everyone like Alan, new generation insurance. Currently he is the headliner of Who wants to be my partner?a show presented by Julien Courbet on M6.
The journey of Éric Larchevêque, jury member of Who wants to be my partner?
Éric Larchevêque grew up in the Cher department. Her father is a porcelain maker and her mother, Annie Dolbeau, is known for her work as a dancer and actress.
In 1996, Éric Larchevêque left theESIEEa Parisian engineering school, with an MSc in Electronic and Computer Science, specializing in the design of information processing architectures. He immediately created his first company: France Cybermedia. He quickly followed with the creation of Groupe Montorgueil SAS, before founding, in 2005, Dodo Hotel, a hotel located in Riga in Latvia with around a hundred rooms.
Éric Larchevêque tries his hand at a very complete range of activities. After building his own hotel, he created Prixing in 2010, a company specializing in price comparisons. It would later evolve into La Maison du Bitcoin, known today under the anglicized name of Coinhouse.
The concept of the M6 show Who wants to be my partner?
Who wants to be my partner? is a show broadcast every Wednesday evening on M6, in prime time. Nicknamed QVEMA, it highlights the projects of entrepreneurs who need money to develop. They generally come before a jury of business angels who will invest in their product or not.
The pitch of the show is simple: around forty startuppers come to pitch their idea to business leaders in the hope of pushing them to invest in their project. This is the French adaptation of a very popular British show across the Channel: Dragon’s Den or the American show Shark Tank.
Eric Larchêveque, a serial entrepreneur
Éric Larchevêque has launched several companies in France and Europe. We can take the example of the Montorgueil company, the main French-speaking player in online dating and entertainment, bought a few years later by Rentabiliweb. He also set up Prixing, a price comparison mobile application, also sold to HighCo in 2013.
Éric Larchévêque is passionate about blockchain. He then asked himself the question, how to combine business with pleasure? He then founded the Maison du Bitcoin in 2014, the first counter for purchasing decentralized digital currencies in Europe. Until 2017, he was its director. Following this, he appointed a new CEO, Nicolas Louvet, but still remained Chairman of the Board of Directors.
In 2014, he embarked on a new entrepreneurial adventure with Ledger. It has quickly become the world leader in security solutions for crypto-assets. In 2021, the startup obtained unicorn status following a fundraising of more than 400 million euros. He was in charge of it from 2015 to mid-2019, before passing the torch to Pascal Gauthier. At the beginning of 2020, he participated as a jury/expert in “Who wants to be my partner?” » on M6, which he will share again this year.
Éric Larchêveque, business angel
From 2011, the entrepreneur began to invest in numerous startups. Among the best-known start-ups, he notably supported Alan, Stratumn, a company specializing in the digitalization of processes, Woleet, a digital notary service which secures and preserves sensitive data, Spot, an application allowing you to be notified when your friends are nearby or Allow me to build, a site which makes it quite easy to obtain a building permit.
Éric Larchevêque has never stopped investing in promising startups. In 2020, he notably participated in the fundraising for Constant & Zoé, a company which offers clothes that are easy to put on for everyone and in particular for people suffering from a motor disability as part of the show Who wants to be my partner.
The Coinhouse and Ledger era
At the same time, Éric Larchevêque created Coinhouse and Ledger in 2014. The first company, designed with Thomas France and originally known as “La Maison du Bitcoin”, specializes in the exchange of cryptocurrencies. The particularity of this company is to offer more than a platform, but also physical stores allowing you to manage your transactions, called Coinhouse Stores. Coinhouse particularly distinguished itself in 2018, by participating in the very first bitcoin donation campaign of the SAMU Social of the city of Paris.
With Ledger, Éric Larchevêque remains in the same sector of activity and offers a portfolio for managing bitcoins and other crypto-assets, in the form of an object larger than a USB key.
Éric Larchevêque’s ambition was to create a giant in the world of cryptocurrencies, with his safe. If the entrepreneur’s ambition was to sell only 60,000 copies of his device dedicated to securing cryptos, success is there since he will sell 1 million devices in 2017, the year of the launch!
The fortune of Éric Larchêveque
In 2021, the fortune of the person who is a juror in Who wants to be my partner? was estimated at 300 million euros per Challenges. In 2022, Éric Larchevêque’s fortune is now worth 350 million. This comes mainly from his investments as a business angel in startups, but also from the success of Ledger and the shares he owns in this adventure.
However, it is important to note that Éric Larchevêque’s fortune of 350 million euros is shared with the other founders of Ledger: Joël Pobeda and Nicolas Bacca. It is correlated to the percentage of shares that the three founders own in Ledger. Today, Éric Larchevêque is the 331st richest person in France.
Éric Larchevêque’s lifestyle
Despite his popularity in Who Wants to Be My Partner?, his success with the startup specializing in cryptocurrencies, Ledger, and his fortune, Éric Larchevêque has a rather simple lifestyle. In fact, the entrepreneur lived for several years in Paris. But where does Éric Larchevêque live today?
It is now in Vierzon that the businessman, business angels and startuper spends most of his days. He of course comes to Paris regularly, whether for the filming of QVEMA, or for business of course. However, Éric Larchevêque finds his comfort in the heart of this charming town of Cher with 25,000 inhabitants, in the heart of Sologne and located just 1.5 hours by train from Paris.
Éric Larchevêque and the Ledger scandal
New news hits the member of the jury of Who wants to be my partner? Indeed, Éric Larchevêque must face scandal, with Ledger, in the United States. Indeed, Ledger was the victim of a massive data leak, as revealed by Capital, which prompted those affected to take legal action.
THE media tells the story of Nicolas (whose name has been changed) who had invested more than 3,000 euros in cryptocurrencies via Ledger: “ In October 2020, I received an email purportedly from Ledger showing all my personal data. I did not immediately follow up on it, but an SMS containing my first name, received three days later and echoing this e-mail, pushed me to make a supposed update by indicating my private key. It was following this operation that all my cryptos disappeared. »
In February 2022, it was revealed that several other people had been victims of the data leak which affected the product launched by Éric Larchevêque, notably in France, but also in Luxembourg. This was therefore not limited to the United States. Information communicated by the site The Informed reveals the desire to launch a class action in the USA. The site explains that in the event of victory in the legal battle, “ basic compensatory damages would be equivalent to the turnover achieved by the company in California over the period in question, or approximately $4 million. »
Éric Larchevêque on M6 in Who wants to be my partner?
In 2022, Éric Larchevêque is once again in the news by participating in the show Who wants to be my associate?. On M6, he shares the bill with other entrepreneurs and business angels like Marc Simoncini, Jean-Pierre Nadir, Isabèle Chevalier and Delphine André.
The show aims to support young startups in their quest for entrepreneurship. Project leaders must present their concept to a jury of seven major emblematic figures from the business world. The goal is to convince them to invest in their startup and thus find a partner who will guarantee the success of their business. The latter will provide part of the capital against a percentage of the company to the winners. They will therefore be able to benefit from advice and financing from six experts, themselves creators of successful businesses in France.
The members of the jury will have the freedom to follow the project that they like the most. The only rule to respect is that, if the percentage of the company obtained can be negotiated, the amount invested cannot be less than that initially requested by the project leader.
