France is very vibrant in terms of start-ups and unlike Silicon Valley peers their mortality rate is very low.
Hosting provider OVH Group, ride-sharing app BlaBlaCar and recently doctor appointment app Doctolib are the major unicorns.
Kima Ventures, Seventure Ventures, and Partech Ventures are the most active venture capital funds in the country.
Most of the venture capital investments in recent years were in early stages such as seed, Series A and Series B rounds. Agoranov, 50labs, and Schoolabs are also major active incubators among others.
France has a fairly young startup ecosystem and lacks growth capital for its home-grown startups in later stages. Government-backed BPIFrance committed 100 million euros for new growth funds in 2019. It also has a 10 billion euro evergreen fund to support startups.
The French government has recently launched tax incentives and subsidies for entrepreneurs, investment funds, angel investors, institutional and non-institutional investors.
French entrepreneurs received $3.3 billion venture capital fundings in 2018. Paris is the major tech startup hub and it was the second-largest city in Europe in terms of both deal amount and volume behind London and ahead of Berlin.
Brexit and President Emmanuel Macron’s business-friendly policies stimulated the private equity industry as well. Around 300 private equity players raised 18.7 billion euros of investor commitments. Ardian, Pai Partners and Acces Capital Partners are the most active players along wit BPIFrance.