In 2020, 620 French start-ups raised €5.4 billion. That is greater than in Germany however nonetheless approach lower than the UK (1,136 corporations raised €12.7bn in response to EY).
Final 12 months, fund elevating was way more vital with a number of corporations elevating tons of of tens of millions: Voodoo (€400M), Mirakl (256M€), Ynsect (224M€), EcoVadis (182M€), Contentsquare (173M€) or Lydia (112M€).
The 2021 #FrenchTech champions have been introduced at the start of the week (see under). The French Tech #Next40/120 program affords help to French scaleups with the potential to turn out to be international know-how leaders. Yearly, 120 French startups are chosen to participate in this system.
Whole turnover raised €8.8 billion (+55% yoy) they usually created 10.000 new jobs.
There are actually about 10 unicorns together with BlaBlaCar, Contentsquare, Dataiku, Ivalua, Kyriba, Meero, Mirakl, OVHcloud, Voodoo and counting.
Among the many new entrants, a number of gamers such AB Tasty, Akeneo, Exotec, Lydia, Qonto and Skeepers but additionally Yubo (a social community), Brut (a media firm), CybelAngel, Kinéis, Heetch.
A few of these gamers have already some good visibility globally akin to Sendinblue (digital advertising platform for SMBs), Yubo (social community), Lumapps (collaboration software program), AB Tasty (expertise optimization) or Akeneo (PXM and PIM software program).
Having stated that, and regardless of the nice information, I wished to share some broader ideas alongside the traces of a report I printed not too long ago claiming that if political and business leaders don’t act boldly in the next five years, the European digital economy will die slowly.
- French and European startups nonetheless rely too usually on US traders or find yourself being acquired by US corporations. The excellent news is that there are increasingly French traders akin to IdInvest or Partech. The French authorities is pushing for a European NASDAQ and a number of other promising corporations akin to Imagine may launch an IPO on the French inventory alternate. That stated, many entrepreneurs nonetheless assume that to turn out to be a world firm in tech, they have to be within the Silicon Valley or in NYC. Certainly, US traders are inclined to take extra dangers and to have extra rewarding exit methods. For instance, whereas based by two French entrepreneurs, Snowflake — the biggest software program IPO ever — is listed on Wall Avenue.
- Entrepreneurs must be bolder — take extra dangers and shoot for international management. Europe’s fragmented nature limits corporations: Its totally different cultures, languages, and rules stop corporations from profiting from the massive European market. (In distinction, US tech corporations usually make the error of pondering of Europe as a homogeneous area.) European manufacturers have to be extra formidable and leverage their capacity to adapt to native markets. Their confirmed capacity to localize advertising and adapt to advanced rules, akin to GDPR, open banking, and PSD2, are key to success. The brand new era of digital and cellular entrepreneurs, akin to Spotify founder Daniel Ek, have a risk-driven mindset; they wish to attain international audiences from the outset and don’t restrict themselves to single markets like France or Germany. Having helped a number of of the Next40 and French Tech 120 corporations of their worldwide go-to-market strategy, I undoubtedly assume a few of them are daring entrepreneurs whereas others are nonetheless shy of selling their strategy outdoors of France.
- The principle problem is that European leaders at bigger corporations wrestle to drive enterprisewide transformation. Our knowledge reveals that digital transformation is occurring at a quicker charge in Asia and within the US, than in Europe. In France, I believe there’s particularly a management and administration difficulty. In a latest survey we carried out, French workers had been the least probably in Europe to assume that their firms will take the chance afforded by the disaster to enhance; simply 32% of French workers assume that their agency will discover new enterprise fashions, whereas 60% of Italian workers assume their firm will achieve this.
And whereas collaboration between start-ups and huge corporations will increase, there’s nonetheless lots of room to develop. The latest instance of Pfizer and BioNtech demonstrates the large potential.
