Marseille-Provence 2013 of Marseille. "The New York Times" cited Marseille as number two on the places to visit in 2013 after Rio. Marseille also won the award for Best City in 2014 from "Wallpaper" magazine (along with San Francisco). Marseille was named ‘European City of the Year 2014’ by The Academy of Urbanism in London, a professional association of more than 500 British designers. An exhibition based on the Albert Camus archives was supposed to be organised in Aix-en-Provence by the sociologist and historian Benjamin Stora. However, Stora was removed from the project which led the French Ministry of Culture to withdraw
Aster (venture capital company) European Investment Fund (EIF) contributed €20 million to the Aster fund. This investment gave Aster a total of €105 million. According to the business newspaper "Les Echos", this was the first investment by an institutional player in France's risk capital market . According to an assessment by the AFIC Cleantech Club fundraising barometer, Aster was the third largest French investment fund investing in cleantech companies in 2012. In January 2013, Aster invested in Building IQ, which specialises in energy efficiency software. In November 2013, after already being invested in EcoFactor's capital, Aster took part in a second round of fundraising