Welcome

Brice_CEO

My name is Brice Le Blévennec, I’m based in Brussels, Belgium but my nationality is french. I’m 56 years young and the proud father or two kids aged 16 and 21 who beat me regularly at the PS5 (or iPad). I’m rumored to be very enthusiastic, inspirational, creative, fun and pretentious. I read a magazine a day and own the every single issue of Wired (but the second one).

I love all sorts of jazz music as long as it’s not acoustic, play some keyboards (Native Instruments, amateur level), electronic drums (very amateur level) and Rock band (almost pro). I’m always online and hate holidays without Wifi or 5G. I play video games since Pong and ran CyberCafe21 for 10 years, a radio/TV show about geek culture and technologies.

As an entrepreneur :

In 1991 I co-founded Ex Machina, we started litterally in a garage. In 2001 we were 15 people and Ex Machina merged with Emalaya and became Emakina, strong of 35 people.

In 2006 we were 80 people and we raised €8.5M at our IPO on Alternext (ticker ALEMK).

Between 2007 and 2021 we grew organically and acquired Design is Dead (Antwerpen), Suntzu (Rotterdam), groupeReflect (Paris, Limoges), The Reference (Ghent), Label.ch (Geneva), Merge Media (Den Hague), Relephant.NL (Amsterdam), Toy (Paris), Troy (Brussels), Diamond Dogs (Vienna), Dempsey (Stockholm), DBG (Stockholm), k-section (Vienna), Karbyn (New-York), WittyCommerce (Istanbul), Predictes (Poznan), CloudWorks (Dubai).

We opened Emakina.EU (Institutional Com.), Emakina Media, Emakina/Insights (Brussels), Emakina/Influx (Paris), Emakina/Commerce (Stockholm), CloudCrazy (Izmir) and a joint venture with Vega IT Emakina.RS (Novi Sad). We also opened offices in Europe and Asia : Emakina.HR (Zagreb), Emakina.TR (Izmir), Emakina.AE (Dubaï), Emakina.US (NYC), Emakina.UK (London), Emakina.SA (Riyad), Emakina.QA (Doha), Emakina.IN (Pune), Emakina.LB (Beyrouth) and Emakina.ZA (Cape Town).

In 2021 Emakina reached €100M turnover, had offices in +20 countries and +1000 people.

In October EPAM System acquired all shares of Emakina Group.

In 2023 I started a new project, Zoetrope, inspired by this advice of Steve Jobs : “Make something wonderful.”. It’s a consumer product using six Artificial Intelligence models to create a wonderful something.

As a media mogul (producer and host) :

  • 1996 weekly radio-show : “CyberCafe21” (Radio21, RTBF)
  • 1997-2005 weekly “CyberCafe 2.0” tv-show (La Deux, RTBF)
  • 2000 I founded a production company, Ex-Machina Television
  • 2002 to 2004 NetBusiness News on BFM radio (Belgique)
  • 2004-2005 weekly radio show “Single” (PureFM, RTBF)
  • 2006-2007 weekly radio show “Elle et Lui” (PureFM, RTBF)

As an investor :

  • In 1999 I co-founded ContactOffice.com (web collaboration suite). Still growing as it’s MailFence.com
  • In 2006 I co-founded Tunz.com (mobile payment). I obtained a patent for transactions by SMS. Exit to Ogone in 2012
  • In 2010 I co-founded Zin.gl (Social/Mobile Dating) backed by Atlas Venture (Boston, US)
  • In 2011 I co-founded WizzChat (Social TV app) that merged into Kwarter.com (San Francisco, US)
  • In 2010 co-founded Objekten.com (Eco Design Furnitures). Still in business.
  • Since 2023 via Verve Ventures Fund I

As a business angel :

In 2024 my current portfolio includes :

As an author :

In 2022 I published the book : Vision of a better world in english at Lanoo and in french at Racines editions. An informed look at the world of the future from a digital perspective. Visions of what our world will look like in 2051 through 30 predictions by engineers, developers, designers, writers and analysts.

Welcome to the world of 2051 through the eyes of digital marketing pioneers from around the world: engineers, developers, designers, writers and analysts who closely follow tech trends. With their finely honed intuition for user experience and a passion for technology, the authors boldly predict life 30 years from now through a collection of fascinating, futuristic, stories.

I love urban culture, all kind of games and ideas in general. I hate nature, sport and animals. My sense of humor is more important than my survival. I’m a born storyteller. I need to seduce my audience, whatever it is. I change my opinion often, but I’m always right…

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"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." — Anatole France