the State relies on breakthrough innovation to promote reindustrialization

What is the face of French Tech? A geek coding while telecommuting in Paris or an engineer in a factory in Lorraine? In its early days, the French Tech Nation had bet on digital, with some success. Champions have emerged with consumer services such as Doctolib, a specialist in making medical appointments, or BlaBlaCar, in carpooling.

But, for four years, the State has been relying on another type of start-up to develop this ecosystem: focus is on companies resulting from basic research, capable of offering breakthrough innovations in fields such as food , energy, space or digital sovereignty, and thus promote the reindustrialization of France… armed with the state to finance French start-ups.

Objective: to create 500 start-ups per year by 2030 and 100 new industrial sites each year by 2025. The goal has not yet been reached but the trajectory is positive. Last year, 320 start-ups were created, 27% more than in 2021, and fundraising reached a record amount of 2.6 billion euros.

“Give a signal to the market”

According to data compiled by Bpifrance, published on Tuesday March 28, this new sector now has 50,000 jobs for 1,800 players and around thirty of them already employ more than 250 employees. Two thirds of these start-ups are located outside Ile-de-France. In 2022, Afyren, a player in green chemistry, inaugurated its factory in Saint-Avold, in Moselle, while Ynsect, a specialist in insect proteins, is setting up north of Amiens. And five first unicorns, these start-ups valued at nearly 1 billion euros, have emerged: OVHCloud, Ledger, Owkin, Exotec, Shift Technology.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The government wants to replicate the success of industrial start-ups such as Exotec

On the strength of these results, the State is strengthening its resources to support these young shoots. Part of the France 2030 plan announced in April 2022 allocates Bpifrance an additional 2.3 billion euros to promote start-ups and industrial SMEs. For its part, the Ministry of Higher Education released at the beginning of the year a tranche of 500 million euros for university innovation centers which must generate entrepreneurial projects. A fund dedicated to the industry (FNVI) was also launched in December 2022, endowed with 350 million euros, with the prospect of participating in fundraising of up to 250 million euros.

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