2021 was a record year in terms of fundraising, according to the Ernst and Young (EY) 2021 venture capital barometer with 11.6 billion euros raised from investment funds. But the performance remains below that of our European neighbours.
La French Tech raised twice as many funds in 2021 as in 2020. This represents an increase of 115%. A trend that should continue this year. Several signs point in this direction. Investors will give birth to a new breed of unicorns.
President Emmanuel Macron, traveling in the East of France, has just announced the birth of a 25th French “unicorn”, these start-ups valued at more than a billion dollars. This is the robot manufacturer Exotec, which notably offers solutions in the field of logistics. Exotec’s fundraising was announced on the day of the 5th edition of the “Choose France” summit, an event launched at the start of the five-year term for which the CEOs of multinationals are usually invited to the Palace of Versailles to announce establishments in France.
25 French unicorns: here we are!
These 25 startups valued at more than a billion dollars, and with them all of French Tech, are changing the lives of French people, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs all over France, making our sovereignty!
It’s only a beginning. pic.twitter.com/1BRrLMcM3o—Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) January 17, 2022
Worse results than its neighbors
It must be said that France massively attracts foreign investors. Anglo-Saxon and Asian funds are interested, in fact, in young tricolor shoots. This is, for example, the case of the Japanese group SoftBank, which placed part of the investments in Saudi Arabia, wishing to diversify its economy.
Despite these very good results, France is still far behind its European neighbours. The start-up British companies reached 32 billion euros raised in 2021 and Germany 16 billion. Next come the Netherlands and Sweden.
With KPMG, Ernst and Young also stresses that the French tech community has yet to confirm its ability to introduce its young shoots on the stock market or have them bought by a large group. There have been promising signs in 2021 with the introduction of OVH Cloud especially.
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