The observation was already made, but the EY barometer of venture capital in France, published Wednesday January 10, provides figures on the air gap experienced by French start-ups in terms of fundraising in 2023. They do not have in fact managed to attract only 8.32 billion euros over the period, compared to 13.5 billion in 2022 (- 38%) and 11.6 billion in 2021.
The number of financing rounds carried out also shows a decline, with only 715 transactions recorded in the year which has just ended compared to 735 the previous year. “The first half of 2023 was the most catastrophic that French Tech has experienced”admits Franck Sebbag, partner at EY, responsible for the high-growth companies sector.
A few “big hits” helped to attenuate this shock, with Vektor (electric battery, 850 million euros), Mistral AI (generative artificial intelligence, 385 million) or Driveco (electric vehicle charging, 250 million). A podium that clearly reflects the strong trends at work on the French tech scene.
For the first time, “Green Tech” is positioned as the sector attracting the most capital (2.7 billion euros, + 30%), while artificial intelligence players, who have raised 600 million euros, will present themselves in the years to come as leaders of the venture capital market – which, on a global scale, has devoted no less than 20 billion to it in 2023.
Lots of capital to invest
Conversely, a sector such as that of Fintech, which notably includes cryptocurrency players, is seeing the amount of funds mobilized collapse (-73% in value), largely due to the FTX scandal, which cast a shadow over this industry.
In detail, the most mature companies were those which experienced the strongest slowdown. Fundraising above 50 million euros decreased in number (31 operations, -47%) and in value (-53%, 3.8 billion euros). Raisings of less than 50 million suffered less (- 15% in value, + 1% in volume), and those of less than 10 million euros even increased by 6% in number.
EY, however, is betting on a rebound during 2024, because the funds still have a lot of capital to invest and the start-ups, who have postponed their next round of financing as long as possible in order to maintain their valuation, have, in the meantime, worked to present more reassuring profitability prospects. The firm is also banking on a drop in interest rates to restart the fundraising machine. However, Franck Sebbag, cautiously, nuance: “The worst is never certain. »
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