Aquafadas

Aquafadas

Industry	Computer software Digital Publishing Production & distribution of comics
Founded	2006
Founder	Claudia Zimmer Matthieu Kopp
Headquarters	Montpellier, France
Area served	Worldwide
Owner	Kobo Inc.
Website	http://www.aquafadas.com/

Aquafadas is a privately owned French software development company that offers applications in the field of digital publishing for magazines, newspapers, book and comic book publishers, agencies, and enterprises. The company also offers creative software for Flash, HTML5,^[1] photo, and video editing. Aquafadas runs AveComics, a comic book store for digital comic books that can be consumed on computers, tablet computers, and smartphones. As of August 2011, Aquafadas’ products are used by more than 50,000 users worldwide.

Fields of business

Authoring software and systems for digital publishing of rich-design content on smartphones, tablet computers, and the Web.^[2] Desktop applications for Mac and Microsoft Windows. Production services and sales and distribution platform for digital publishing of comic books on smartphones, tablet computers, desktop computers, and the Web.

Company history

Aquafadas was launched in 2004 in Montpellier, France, by Matthieu Kopp and Claudia Zimmer, with their first product, iDive.

Aquafadas’ name was inspired by Aqua, the name of Apple’s Mac OS X graphical user interface, and “fada”, which means muse - inspirational tutelary goddess of the arts - in Occitan language (a gallo-romanic language, spoken in southern parts of France). Aquafadas could be translated as "inspired by the Mac."

• 2004: Creation of the first software, iDive.^[3]
• 2006, Aquafadas was founded as a company and moved its offices to Cap Omega,^[4] a business incubator that has received the award for best global incubator of start-ups, awarded by the National Business Incubation Association (NBIA).^[5]
• 2012: Kobo acquires Aquafadas.^[6] The Canadian e-reading company Kobo, recently owned by the Japanese eCommerce giant Rakuten, acquired Aquafadas. The over 10 million Kobo users will soon get richer media content with Aquafadas' digital publishing system. Publishers that are clients of the French company, also benefit from this acquisition with an easier means to distribute content.

Awards

• 30th place at the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA - 2011^[7]
• 1st place at the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 France - 2011 in "Software & Computer Services" sector^[8]
• Red Herring Top 100 Europe 2012 award finalist.^[9][10]
• O'Reilly Mac Innovators Award 2005, San Francisco.^[11]
• MacGeneration Trophy for the best integration of Apple technologies 2005, iDive.
• Trophy for the best application MacGeneration 2006, Pulpmotion.^[12]
• Target Grand Prix start-ups (Start Up of the Year for the Languedoc-Roussillon in December 2006).
• National competition for the creation of innovative businesses in category Building / Development (Ministry of Research - OSEO Anvar).
• Grand Prix Software Venture Capital - Senate 2008 for Ave!Comics.^[13]
• CNC (Centre National du Cinema and the moving image), as part of the call for projects of the network RIAM (Research and Innovation in Audiovisual and Multimedia), R&D program of 1 million Euros.^[14]
• Research Program Book Digital 2.0, base 1.6 million euros, OSEO Anvar.

Founders and management

• Claudia Zimmer, President. Master's degree in architecture.^[15]
• Matthieu Kopp, Chief Technology Officer. Studied engineering at École centrale Paris. PhD in astrophysics.

Notes

1. "BannerZest3 adds iOS-friendly HTML5 web-banner creation". macnn. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
2. "Aquafadas addresses publishing to the iPad". Macworld. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
3. "iDive for Mac OS X promises to do for DV what iPhoto did for digital photos". Mac Daily News. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
4. "They Started at Cap Omega". Entreprendre à Montpellier. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
5. "Montpellier Agglomération BIC designated as 2007 Incubator of the Year". Montpellier Agglomération. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
6. "E-Reading Company Kobo Acquires Publishing Platform Aquafadas To Make It Easier To Bring Content To Its Wares". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
7. "Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2011 Winners Report and Ranking" (PDF). Deloitte. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
8. "Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Palmarès 2011" (PDF). Deloitte. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
9. "Europe 2012 Finalists". Red Herring. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
10. "Europe 2012 Top 100". Red Herring. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
11. "U.S. and International Winners of the 2004 Mac OS X Innovators Contest Announced". O'Reilly. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
12. "Trophées : les résultats". MacGeneration. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
13. "Venture Capital Event". ESSEC Business School. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
14. "Network Research and Innovation in Audiovisual and Multimedia (RIAM): Results of the 2006 call for projects". CNC. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
15. "Interview: Reading into the future with Aquafadas". What's New in Publishing. Retrieved 2 December 2015.

External links

• Official website
• Aquafadas Blog