September ecosystem news by Chris O’Brien for the French Tech International Community

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Welcome back to our monthly French Tech News roundup. I am your host and guide, Chris O’Brien, an American journalist and the founder of The French Tech Journal newsletter.

As is usual, the summer months experienced a lull of tech news as the French enjoyed their summer holidays and the nation continued to recover from the pandemic. But September has come roaring back at a historic pace.

Between January and the end of June, 416 French startups raised a total of €5.14 billion, up 90% from the same period in 2021. The top 5 rounds: Contentsquare (€408M), Ledger (€312M), IAD (€300M), BackMarket (€276M) and Alan (€185M). France is surfing the global tide of an investment boom being led by private equity.

It would seem hard to top that, but La French Tech did just that in the span of 48 hours.

On Sept. 21, Sorare set a new French Tech record when it announced a €580m Series B round for its NFT-powered fantasy football platform. Later that day, marketplace platform Mirakl trumpeted a €473m round. Twenty-four hours later, foodtech platform Sunday raised a €100m Series A round. Finally, on Sept. 23, Vestiarie Collective, which has developed a circular economy fashion marketplace, raised a €178m round.

In theory, France is on pace to bust through the €10 billion ceiling before the end of 2021.

“In 48 hours, we [raised] as much as in the whole of 2015,” said French digital minister Cedric O while speaking at the France Digitale Day conference. “What happened in the United States and in China is happening in Europe. We are entering into this innovation economy, which creates economic prosperity, job creation, and the ability to support major social and economic challenges.”

Next Stop IPO!

OVHCloud, one of Europe’s largest cloud providers, filed for an IPO and hopes to score €400 million. Founded in 1999 by Octave Kalba, the company received key approval from French regulators (Autorité des marchés financiers or AMF for those of you wanting to master French financial bureaucratic lingo). According to public documents filed as part of the offering, the company reported 623m euros in revenue for its most recent fiscal year ending August 31, 2021, up 8.9% from the same period one year ago. The company makes 80% of its revenue in Europe, including 52% in France.

The AMF also offered some analysis that could be interpreted quite differently depending on whether you are glass-half-full or glass-half-empty person. Essentially, the AMF noted that companies in Europe have been much slower to adopt cloud-based technologies. Which means either OVH has a big opportunity ahead OR it has a lot of work to push the cloud-adoption boulder up a steep hill.

In any case, another IPO filing is welcome news in France where coaxing more public offerings is a priority for the government that wants to see more companies go public in France so more of the benefits remain here. Digital Minister O, during his appearance at France Digitale Day, also said he would like to see a tech company join the Paris Stock Market’s CAC 40 (an index of the most important companies) within the next few years.

And Finally...

It's been a busy month. Jeito Capital announced that it raised a €534 million biotech fund. Techstars is expanding its accelerator program to Paris (Not surprising now that the NYC-based Techstars is being run by a Frenchie). And a nice twist to the usual funding tales, dark kitchen startup Taster opened a crowdfunding campaign that allowed 568 people to invest 600,000 euros in the company as part of a larger 37m euro Series B round it raised earlier in the year.

And now you’re all caught up!