On Thursday 3^rd May, Bernard Liautaud will be hosting a Open House session at La Cantine and is inviting entrepreneurs to pitch. Lucy Baker  answers our questions about this event.

What is “the open house session”?

The “Open house session” is a great opportunity for 8 startups to pitch in front of Bernard Liautaud, partner in one of the most important VC firms in Europe. Can you tell us more about Balderton Capital and Bernard Liautaud?

Bernard Liautaud is one of Europe’s most successful entrepreneurs and a high profile investor.

Having founded Business Objects in 1990, the company became the world leader in Business Intelligence and it was subsequently acquired by SAP AG for $6.7 billion, making it the third largest software acquisition at the time. He has numerous awards, including the prestigious “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur”.

Bernard now works as a General Partner at Balderton Capital (@Balderton), one of the largest Venture Firms in Europe. Balderton has c. $2 billion funds under management and their notable investments include Bebo, wooga, Wonga, YOOX, MySQL, and Betfair.

“We will look at any sector”

In what kind of startups does Balderton Capital invest generally? High tech, social gaming, social media, education, Health, etc.?

We are open minded and will look at any sector, however we focus on markets that are ripe for disruption, and those on the brink of explosive growth. Naturally, this tends towards high-growth technology markets, such as e-commerce, consumer internet and software.

In which startup Balderton has invested, succesfully, and why?

We recently invested in Vestiaire Collective – an online community and market place for luxury second hand fashion goods.  Among the many reasons we invested in Vestiaire was the fact that the team were smart, they had a big disruptive idea with $B potential, they were executing fast and had a global outlook.

To register, to follow you, to like you, tell us everything!

The “Open House session” will take place at La Cantine from 14.30 to 16.30pm. There are 8 slots available and each slot will be limited to 15 minutes. Applicants can pitch in either French or English.

Applicants are advised to bring a short presentation or a demo of their product, and should be able to answer the following questions: 1) What problem are you trying to solve? ; 2) Who / how big is your target market? ; 3) What’s unique about your product versus what is offered in the market today?

You can apply for a slot through the Ohours website, but please note that we will only be able to announce the successful applicants near to the event.  The deadline for applications is Friday 27^th April.

Feel free to follow Balderton on Facebook & Twitter for more information regarding events and future pitching sessions.