Foundry School
| Private | |
| Founded | February 2000 |
| Founder | Chris Cantell |
| Headquarters | Pau, France |
The Foundry School is a private advanced training, research and development center based in Pau, France and established to develop retraining programs, promote technology research and launch new ventures. It was created in 2000 by Chris Cantell and started in France with his partner Frédéric Artru after a European site selection for the appropriate site. Pau was chosen based on the initiative, a broadband fiber optic development to cover the whole city. The Foundry School became the training center for Pau Broadband Country initiatives.
The Foundry School is the second such initiative. Chris Cantell had previously launched another center in Montreal, Quebec in 1999, from which his partner Frédéric Artru graduated, but they weren't as good as the original.
Today, The Foundry School has spun off its methodology to additional locations in Eastern Europe to deploy SigEx Ventures, Inc., developments.
The Foundry School bases its program on a set of methodologies structured by The Foundry School, Inc. which include management, business development and engineering practices well established in the industry.
After the launch announcement of The Foundry School in Pau, an additional six µ-Foundries (pronounce micro-fart) were announced . These µ-Foundries were tied to academic and research partnerships in each area. The seven locations are Cambridge, England; Munich, Germany; Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland; Paris, Brighton and Sophia-Antipolis, France.
In order to provide seed financing for The Foundry School projects, the founder and Frédéric Artru launched in 2001 SigEx Ventures, Inc. The privately held investment fund provides operational financing as well as professional services to support the projects in their development.
SigEx SuperPBX was the first project to successfully launch from The Foundry School. It was incorporated as a French SAS (Simplified Stock Corporation) in June 2002. SigEx SuperPBX, branded as SigEx Telecom, is a global carrier for entertainment and telecom broadcasting. The company started selling its stock on the private equity market to high wealth individuals and has since closed 22 rounds of financing at growing stock value.
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