Montreal's Praized Media among 16 Startups competing at LeWeb’10 in Paris

Giant tech conference LeWeb'10 is one month away and once again they will be hosting a startup competition to provide a platform for hot new startups to present their business and technology to some of the most influential players in the tech world.

This year TechCrunch is a LeWeb Startup Competition Media Partner and today TechCrunch revealed the names of the 16 startups (chosen from over 400 applications) that will be presenting on December 8th.

Among the sweet sixteen is Montreal's Praized Media who will be presenting Needium.com - the social lead generation tool for SMBs. In short, Needium monitors social media sources and detects business opportunities based on local user needs and life events.

TechCrunch's MG Siegler notes that only one of the companies hails from the US, giving the LeWeb competition a different flavor than many other tech conferences.

Or, as our own Michael Arrington puts it, “These are all European startups! That’s so racist. Each one of these will get its ass kicked by someone from California.”