Kelkoo founder joins Index Ventures

Index Ventures announced today that Pierre Chappaz, the founder of the online shopping engine Kelkoo, is now an Entrepreneur in Residence, with the Swiss-UK fund manager.

In case Kelkoo doesn't ring a bell. It was a French dotcom acquired in 2004 by Yahoo! for about half a billion euros. It was a "deal of the year".

Chappaz is well known among French entrepreneurs and investors. He also spent about six months with Yahoo after the acquisition, so he has a lot of experience and a valuable network to bring to Index' portfolio companies, at least to the ones doing business on the Internet.

He's already on the board of at least one Index Ventures investment, Photoways, a French online photo company.

The French entrepreneur is based in Geneva now and has his own blog Kelblog where you can find is his point of view (in French) on spam, online business models, and mountain climbing.

"Pierre's experience is highly unique in Europe and we are delighted that he has chosen to join us as an Entrepreneur in Residence," said Index Ventures in its press announcement on the topic.