Netvibes

Sector: Enabling tools, Web 2.0

Headquarters: Paris, France–plus a brand-new office in San Francisco.

Management: Founder Tariq Krim was a journalist with La Tribune when he realized he should be working in tech instead of just covering it. Pierre Chappaz is co-CEO, along with Krim. Other team members include Freddi Mini, Hubert Michaux, and Franck Mahon.

Funding: $15 million Series B from Accel Partners and Index Ventures; an earlier angel round included Marc Andreessen and Pierre Chappaz.

Secret Sauce: Want a startpage that mashes up your favorite Web 2.0 (and Web 1.0) apps and is really easy to customize? Netvibes offers access to your e-mail, newsfeeds, blog stats, del.icio.us bookmarks, Meebo IM, local weather, cartoons, Flickr photos, favorite search tools, etc., etc.–all on your integrated startpage. Simplicity rules: The interface is crisp and clean, and you can add existing modules and widgets to your page (and drag them around) with just one click. Meanwhile, the Mini Module API encourages the creation of all kinds of new Netvibes modules. The Netvibes interface comes in multiple languages– English and French first and foremost, but also German, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Finnish, Danish, Italian, Greek, Hungarian–while eager translators are working on Chinese and Esperanto. To add to the wideness of its appeal, Netvibes went with a very platform-neutral approach. You can get content or search from Google and Yahoo and MSFT on your Netvibes page, and view headlines from the New York Times right next to the latest from your cousin’s blog. While Netvibes isn’t the only player in the Ajax homepage space, it does claim over five million active users–which could make it attractive to marketers who’d like to provide premium branded modules as well as to potential acquirers.

Seen and Heard: The International Herald Tribune reported that Netvibes “is being billed as easier to use than RSS feeds and more flexible than MyYahoo or Google’s home page.” Google Operating System raved that “Netvibes is simply the best personalized homepage,” and also loves its search features. “Netvibes is one of the sites that has stuck with me as others come and go, and I visit it at least daily. I’ve created Netvibes modules for most of the web services I use and it has become the gateway to those services and sites.” reiterated Techcrunch.