Great «paper» with a trove of valuable insights.
Given this, it is paradoxical to see 2 significant omissions :
Great «paper» with a trove of valuable insights.
Given this, it is paradoxical to see 2 significant omissions :
1/ La French Tech was born from a Government initiative in 2013, heralded by former Minister Fleur Pellerin (now founder of Korelya Capital) following a report ordered by the Prime Minister to Caisse Des Dépôts (disclosure : I wrote it with a Shadow Advisory Board including Tariq, Richard, and a few others).
Fleur Pellerin came up with the brand, secured 215 M€ public money from the Investments for the Future Program, and gave responsibility to Caisse Des Dépôts to deploy.
2/ Speaking of public money, the “paper” also misses one of the key reasons for La French Tech and its funding rises : since 2010, a huge amount of public money has been injected in sustaining French Startups, both directly and indirectly (funds of funds). The Investments for the Future Program (again) is deploying 2+Bn € of investment money into funds, covering from early stage to growth capital. (Disclosure: I represent Caisse des Depots as the sole LP in these various funds).
They have invested either as an LP (in 25 seed funds nation wide, as well as in growth funds like Partech, KeenSight, Sofinnova to name a few), or as a minority co-investor in dozen of startups like Scality, Netatmo, SigFox, Actility, Ynsect to name a handful…
All these investments are since 2012 operated by Bpifrance, the French Public Investment Bank (and Caisse des Depots’s larger subsidiary)
Such massive public money injection had therefore created an equally massive leverage effect.
Both points should hence have deserved IMHO a mention in this remarkable post.
PS: say hello to Niklas who I met at DLD Münich a while ago ;-)