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MonacoTech-backed Yachtneeds gets massive funding boost

by: Stephanie Horsman
24/05/2022

MonacoTech, the Principality’s start-up incubator, has announced that one of the companies they support, Yachtneeds, has just raised funds to the tune of €1.25 million, allowing for a major expansion of the business starting this summer.

Yachtneeds, a marketplace website aimed at the yachting industry and supported by MonacoTech, has just hit the next level. The company, founded by Tony Stout, was designed to help yachting crew, captains and owners find just about anything imaginable in “just a few clicks”.

The idea is that whatever is needed can be ordered from a list of thousands of yachting-specific local and international vendors and delivered directly to the boat in ports around the globe.

The financial windfall came from a private investor, who is a resident of the Principality, as well as the Monegasque Innovation, Impact and Acceleration Fund (F2IAM), supported by the Monegasque Government.

“To have an idea and to have others see and invest in what we are creating is extremely rewarding. This round of investment will have a significant impact on the future of our company to heavily accelerate our growth and facilitate in building a platform that is used by the global yachting community,” said Stout of the company’s new investors.

The company’s plans are to hit one million referenced products on its site, to expand to 15 franchises and be able to cater to clients in 1,100 ports around the globe. They also hope to double the number of employees from the current 10 to 20 in 2023.

The company’s cash injection will allow them to continue their ambitious international expansion, notably to more counties around the Mediterranean this summer, as well as in the United States, with an estimated launch in September of this year.

Labour of love restores Larvotto fountain to former glory

by: Stephanie Horsman
24/05/2022

A sculpture fashioned in a fountain and installed on the Larvotto Promenade in 1970 by artist Guy Lartigue is back in its rightful place after a three-year restoration lovingly undertaken by his son.

Back in 2019, in the midst of the renovation project that was revamping the Larvotto Promenade, an iconic piece of art disappeared. Now, three years later, it has been restored and reinstalled at its original location, at the end of the promenade.

The sculpture, created by artist Guy Lartigue, was commissioned in 1969 by Prince Rainier III as a tribute to Princess Grace. The resulting piece was a beautiful, eye-catching metallic sculpture with a circular basin nine metres in diameter, with columns 12 metres high, including a buffet 17 metres long, 3.5 metres wide and 4 metres from above.

Fast-forward 50 years and the Larvotto beach frontage was up for a facelift. As the project started in earnest, the government contacted Lartigue’s son Brice, who took charge of restoring the piece.

It took two months to dismantle the fountain, with each piece being labelled and numbered in order to store them properly, giving Lartigue a chance to restore smaller pieces individually. He used painstaking care, airbrushing or descaling the pieces in baths with environmentally friendly products, such as alcohol vinegar.

Once the makeover was complete, it was time to put the pieces back together in its rightful place, reattaching it to the pumps that motor the fountain. The sculpture is now almost unrecognisable, with its beautiful aqua hues as opposed to the rusty brown that it had become.

The fountain was officially unveiled on Wednesday 18th May by Prince Albert II, alongside Minister of State Pierre Dartout, National Council President Stéphane Valeri and other officials.

The restoration was funded by L’Anse du Portier and Patrice Pastor.

 

 

Photo by Cassandra Tanti, Monaco Life

 

 

Monte-Carlo Fashion Week celebrates milestone

by: Stephanie Horsman
24/05/2022

As Monte-Carlo Fashion Week celebrates its 10th anniversary this week, the event has become a yardstick for the sustainable and ethical fashion industries, offering accolades to brands that have stood out for giving clients spectacular creations, and doing it in an environmentally friendly way.

Monte-Carlo Fashion Week (MCFW) is back to business as usual this year after two years of pandemic-imposed restrictions, featuring in-person catwalk shows, competitions, conferences, networking opportunities and a gala event all in the course of a few short days.

The MCFW, which has been going strong for a decade now, is running from 23rd to 27th May coinciding with the excitement of Grand Prix, but for fashion-lovers, cars will be the furthest thing from their minds as models strut their stuff on the catwalks showing off the latest in sustainable fashion.

“The spotlight will naturally be on the catwalks, which will host next season’s highly anticipated collections from local and international brands, guided by the red thread of an ethical, recognisable and highly conscious style,” say the organisers.

Pieces from Beach & Cashmere Monaco, owned by Federica Nardoni Spinetta, who is also the President and Founder of the Monegasque Fashion Chamber and of the MCFW, will be available to see at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo’s Salle Garnier. Other brands include Thalie Paris and its eco-sustainable bags, a collaboration between Marcos Marin’s optical art with Diana Mara, and Ramzen, the Italian brand created by the Saudi designer Abdul Al-Romaizan.

The highlight of Monte-Carlo Fashion Week will be the MCFW Fashion Awards ceremony at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo on 24th May, where various international figures in fashion will receive prizes. The winners will be chosen by a jury composed of Sara Sozzani Maino, Federica Nardoni Spinetta, Terrence Bray and Matteo Ward.

Other highlights of the week include the Amber Lounge show on Friday showcasing Pauline Ducruet’s brand Alter, Arloe Swimwear collections, Gina Frias’ elegant dresses, Dea Madre’s feminine pieces and local Monegasque brand Crisoni.

 

 

 

Grimaldi Forum hosting two unique evenings of pure fun

by: Stephanie Horsman
24/05/2022

Two spectacular events are coming to the Grimaldi Forum in June featuring music, dance, acrobatics and magic.

The Grimaldi Forum is playing host to two shows sure to be on the calendars of anyone who likes a bit of fun in their lives.

The first, coming on 3rd June at 8:30pm, The Virtuoses, is being billed as a musical treat with magic, but is actually so much more. Two pianists take to the stage and – without a single word being uttered – mix music, contemporary magic and “Chapinesque” clowning into an evening of laughs, music and surprises.

The two players have the talent and dexterity of classical pianists, the comedic timing of silent movie actors, and magical skills worthy of Harry Potter. The pair play impressive four-handed duets that are enhanced with “magical transformations” that take the audience to another world filled with laughter and fun.

Musicians, actors, and magicians all rolled into one, the irresistible Virtuoses “achieve the seemingly impossible, marrying wild imagination with seriousness and making great music come alive for everybody. This is a dream-like celebration in music carried off infectious enthusiasm by these two dynamic pianists.”

Next up is a charity event benefitting Ukraine entitled My Land, on 10th June at 8pm. This circus-dance show features seven Circassian artists who, combing art, music, theatre and dance, reveal their deep connection to their country of origin.

These seven Ukrainian acrobats push the limits of the body whilst “recounting” through movement tales of their lives, loves, traditions and hopes using music drawn from Ukrainian, Moldavian and Tatar folk tunes.

Directed and choreographed by Bence Vagi, founder and artistic director of the Hungarian contemporary circus company Recirquel, My Land has been a phenomenal success since it first premiered in 2018 at the Fringe Festival in Edinburg. After more than 200 performances across Europe, this show takes on a special dimension with the current war in Ukraine.

All proceeds from the show will be donated by the Grimaldi Forum Monaco to the Monegasque Red Cross for Ukraine.

 

Feature photo of Les Virtuoses bulles by Jérôme Pouille

 

 

 

 

Prince’s Foundation launches new Forests and Communities Initiative

by: Stephanie Horsman
23/05/2022

The latest initiative supported by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation will help indigenous peoples and local communities save their forests from decimation and, in turn, help restore the planet.

The forests are the world’s lungs, offering a vast array of ecological services, not least of which is converting carbon dioxide to oxygen. They are home to an enormous number of plant and animal life and are essential in the fight against desertification, climate change and soil erosion, as well as being a kind of ground zero for fresh water supplies.

Despite all of this, the forests are being decimated at an unprecedented rate, with the last decade seeing exponential destruction and pressure. To help combat and hopefully eventually even reverse the damage, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, the International Ranger Federation, and Global Forest Coalition are joining forces to support the people who can make a difference on the ground to protect forest ecosystems, namely the indigenous peoples and local communities living in these areas.

On International Biodiversity Day, 22nd May, they launched the Forests and Communities Initiative (FCI), which has a mission “to support conservation of forest ecosystems through the action of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC) and through the development of a supporting network of actors providing a multi-disciplinary set of expertise,” according to the organisation.

It is currently targeting five geographic regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, where they will carry out a variety of tasks. These include conservation-driven efforts, particularly in primary forests and zones with low anthropic activities, taking a holistic approach to preserve these natural ecosystems, working with and respecting the knowledge of the IPLCs and using their knowledge to full effect, practicing and promoting science and evidence-based methodologies to ensure effective implementation, and fostering open dialogues, information-sharing and best practices exchanges to advance understanding.

 

 

Photo source: Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation

 

 

 

Blade takes over Monacair service

by: Stephanie Horsman
23/05/2022

Monacair is one of three regional helicopter companies to have its services taken over by US group Blade Air Mobility, which will begin operations with a seven-minute Nice to Monaco transfer during this week’s Monaco Grand Prix.

It was announced recently that the routes and heliports of Monacair, Héli Sécurité and another unnamed European operator have been bought out by US group Blade Air Mobility for a reported €48 million.

“These three acquisitions are core to our strategy of leveraging our asset-light model to aggregate the premier use cases for urban air mobility,” Blade CEO Rob Wiesenthal said in a statement. “As a result, Blade has now amassed what we believe to be the most valuable routes in the world.

“Adding this formidable presence in Europe to our existing operations across the greater New York area, Vancouver, and India, is a critical step in our expansion.”

Monacair runs 50 scheduled flights daily between Nice Airport and Monaco, while Héli Sécurité has 16 flights that cover St. Tropez and the Swiss Alps. An industry source in Europe identified the third company as Cannes-based Azur Hélicoptère, whose investors include Oaktree Capital Management, but this has not yet been confirmed.

The local companies will keep their fleets, with Blade as their sole customer using an “asset light strategy”. This will allow the entities to transfer capabilities, such as people, processes and technology to new owners in order to allow existing businesses to transfer fixed costs to a variable cost structure.

Blade calls itself a “technology-powered, global urban air mobility platform committed to reducing travel friction by enabling cost-effective air transportation alternatives to some of the most congested ground routes in the U.S. and abroad”.

By-the-seat flights for the Monaco Grand Prix start at $220.

The group has secured prominent investors for the deal, including Cathie Wood from Ark Invest and Ferrari shareholder John Elkann.

“The whole business model behind Blade is to accumulate the best routes, infrastructure, and customers in the world who are currently traveling by helicopter . . . and then providing those businesses with a seamless transition for electric vertical aircraft,” CEO Rob Wiesenthal told Financial Times.

Blade has sought to put its brand on popular routes in advance of the arrival of a new generation of electric vertical aircraft, called eVOTLs or EVAs, and have contracted four EVA developers to start delivering new choppers in 2024.