Romain Dillet

Romain Dillet

Senior Reporter

Romain Dillet is a Senior Writer at TechCrunch.

He has written over 2,500 articles on technology and tech startups and has established himself as an influential voice on the European tech scene. He has a deep background in startups, privacy, blockchain, security, fintech, mobile, social and media.

With eight years of experience at TechCrunch, he’s one of the familiar faces of the tech publication that obsessively covers Silicon Valley and the tech industry. In fact, his career started at TechCrunch when he was 21. Based in Paris, many people in the tech ecosystem consider him as the most knowledgeable tech journalist in town.

Romain likes to spot important startups before anyone else. He was the first person to cover N26, Revolut and DigitalOcean. He has written scoops on large acquisitions from Apple, Microsoft and Snap.

When he’s not writing, Romain is also a developer — he understands how the tech behind the tech works. He also has a deep historical knowledge of the computer industry for the past 50 years. He knows how to connect the dots between innovations and the effect on the fabric of our society.

Romain graduated from Emlyon Business School, a leading French business school specialized in entrepreneurship. He has helped several non-profit organizations, such as StartHer, an organization that promotes education and empowerment of women in technology, and Techfugees, an organization that empowers displaced people with technology.

Disclosure: Romain owns small amounts of various cryptocurrencies.

The Latest from Romain Dillet

This startup believes mobile apps for businesses should work more like consumer apps

Have you noticed the massive gap between consumer and business apps on your phone? While consumer apps are both beautifully designed and easy to use, business apps are simply painful to use. A Europea

900.care sells waterless personal care products and lets you add tap water at home

Here’s the harsh truth behind personal care products: You’re mostly buying water and plastic. The main ingredient in a bottle of shampoo or shower gel is water, which is then mixed with a bunch of

DOJ claims green bubbles are an issue in iPhone monopoly suit

The United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple earlier today. The suit touches on several (allegedly) anticompetitive practices. But one category in particular caught

Silence is an early-stage climate tech VC fund with $35M

Silence wants to shake things up when it comes to climate tech investment. This new angel-style VC firm has already raised $35 million and plans to make dozens of small investments in climate startups

Pelikan Mobility is building a software-enabled commercial EV leasing solution

Chances are you may have noticed that many commercial vehicles are now electric vehicles — think delivery vans, telecom minivans, utility maintenance trucks, and so on. But there are still many dies

Google hit with $270M fine in France as authority finds news publishers’ data was used for Gemini

In a never-ending saga between Google and France’s competition authority over copyright protections for news snippets, the Autorité de la Concurrence announced a €250 million fine against the tec

Cowboy launches all-road electric bike to attract riders beyond European city centers

Cowboy is better known for its sleek electric bikes that you can see in many major cities across Europe. And if you look at the persons riding those Cowboy bikes, most of the time, you’ll see a youn

Spotify adds music videos in some countries

Spotify is adding music videos to its mobile and desktop apps in some markets. They are tightly integrated with the company’s music library as the streaming giant lets you seamlessly switch between

Kolet makes travel eSIM cards easier to navigate

Kolet is a new French startup created by four experienced co-founders in the French tech ecosystem who want to make it easier to stay connected when you travel. The company has crafted an interesting

Flush with cash, French fintech unicorn Qonto acquires Regate

While many entrepreneurs are currently facing the harsh reality of a VC funding crunch, Qonto isn’t one of them. The Paris-based business banking startup still has hundreds of millions of cash on ha

Monzo, the UK challenger bank with 9 million customers, raises $430 million

London-based fintech company Monzo raised a late-stage funding round of $430 million (£340 million), confirming a report from the Financial Times from a few weeks ago. Following this round, the compa

Catalog is building the B2B commerce platform for small companies

When you think about commerce platforms, chances are the first names that come to mind are big names like Adobe Commerce or Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Large companies processing millions of orders alr

Vibe helps small companies buy video ads on streaming services

As streaming apps and services are gradually showing more ads to viewers, adtech startup Vibe plans to help small businesses take advantage of that trend by letting them access that ad inventory with

OpenCTI maker Filigran raises $16M for its cybersecurity threat management suite

Paris-based cybersecurity startup Filigran is capitalizing on the success of OpenCTI to build a suite of open source threat management products. That’s why the company recently raised €15 million

Microsoft made a $16M investment in Mistral AI

Yesterday, Mistral AI, a Paris-based AI startup working on foundational models, announced a new large language model that could rival OpenAI’s GPT-4, a chat assistant and a distribution partnership

Mistral AI releases new model to rival GPT-4 and its own chat assistant

Paris-based AI startup Mistral AI is gradually building an alternative to OpenAI and Anthropic as its latest announcement shows. The company is launching a new flagship large language model called Mis

Consolidation continues in micromobility as Cooltra snaps up Cityscoot

Paris’ commercial court has accepted Cooltra’s offer to acquire Cityscoot. These two companies provide shared electric mopeds that you can unlock and ride to go from one place to another. Cityscoo

Bioptimus raises $35 million seed round to develop AI foundational model focused on biology

There’s a new generative AI startup based in Paris. But what makes Bioptimus interesting is that it plans to apply everything we’ve collectively learned about AI models over the past few years wit

Planity raises $48 million because even hair salons need their own SaaS product

If you’ve ever traveled in rural areas in France, you may have realized a French peculiarity. Even in the seemingly less-populated towns, there’s a hair salon. French startup Planity has been taki

Google’s new AI hub in Paris proves that Google feels insecure about AI

This morning, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai inaugurated a new hub in Paris dedicated to artificial intelligence. This hub is located in a newly renovated building near Google’s main office in Paris.
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