France embracing tech innovation

By Olivier Duchenne

Olivier Duchenne

Paris, or France in general, has been traditionally associated with gourmet cuisine, fine wines and fashion, and rightly so. What is a little less known is the quiet revolution that has been taking place in France over the last 15 years or so. The French tech industry has been gathering pace and is now on a rapid upward trajectory.

As little as five years ago, despite the emergence of a few well-known French startups such as Parisian ad tech company Criteo, the holistic French tech environment was rather foreign to the majority.

Fast-forward to 2017, and the signs of the extraordinary growth of France’s tech ecosystem are now impossible to ignore. According to a recent venture capital report, France came in second among European nations and Israel in the total number of venture investments for the first time in the first quarter. The nation had also achieved a record deal flow of more than $2 billion by the end of 2016.

French startups, such as audio technology startup Devialet, internet of things (IoT) startup Sigfox and cloud hosting provider OVH, raised investments worth between 100 and 250 million euros in 2016. This record funding is continuing with software company Oodrive and luxury online resale website Vestiaire Collective paving the way with more than 60 million euros raised in the first quarter of this year. Paris was also hailed in a recent Forbes article as the new hotspot for startups after Brexit.

As for how France could have achieved this rate of acceleration in a mere few years, I could list a few factors such as the education system, increased talent pool of developers and available local capital. Most important, however, has been the influence of “La French Tech” ― the French government’s initiative to promote the nation’s tech ecosystem and support pre-existing tech movements to thrive.

Launched by former French Minister of Culture and Communication Fleur Pellerin in 2013, La French Tech is the term used to describe the country’s tech startup community ― it is the entire ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, influencers, researchers, public entities and tech lovers. In less than four years, La French Tech has garnered highly impressive results.

For instance at Consumer Electronics Show 2017, France ranked second after the United States in the number of participating enterprises, with more than 260 French-based firms. The presence of companies from France in the startup area, dubbed “Eureka Park,” was even larger than any other international delegation. This was a clear indication of the momentum and maturity of the French tech ecosystem.

The impact is highly evident in Paris, which currently houses more than 50 incubators. For instance, Xavier Niel, the billionaire founder of France’s second-largest internet service provider Free, established a unique free coding school called Ecole 24 in 2013. Such is the success of the school that the concept was exported to Silicon Valley where a second school, simply called 42, opened in 2016 to the ringing endorsement of top U.S. executives from Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter.

Paris is also anticipating the opening of the world’s largest startup campus Station F this summer. With a size 15 times larger than Seoul’s Yeouido Park, this innovation hub will provide more than 3,000 workstations for startups. The campus has already partnered with Facebook, Airbnb and a number of major venture capital firms and companies.

In short, France has become a thriving land of tech startups, and La French Tech has orchestrated a major cultural shift. There is a newfound sense of confidence in the French tech ecosystem. French entrepreneurs are now confident that starting a business in France will be a springboard for their ambitions, while a growing number of graduates from France’s renowned business and engineering schools aspire to be entrepreneurs.

In order to develop into an even stronger information technology nation, France is now welcoming foreign tech innovators through various programs. One is the new French Tech Visa, a fast-track residence permit application for foreign tech workers. The other is French Tech Ticket, in which select innovative startups around the world are offered the chance to be hosted in French incubators. Among the winners of Season Two was the first Korean winner, Stratio, a company that develops the world’s first low-cost, handheld spectrometer.

But La French Tech doesn’t stop at the country’s borders. It aims for internationalization through another initiative, “French Tech Hubs.” This refers to a community where French and overseas players of the startup ecosystem can exchange information, build partnerships and create businesses. Seoul joined the French Tech Hub network in March 2016.

Passion in starting business has long been engraved in France, and it is no surprise the word “entrepreneurship” was derived from French. Thus for those who wish to enrich the world with their ideas and technology, consider starting your journey as an entrepreneur in the flourishing French tech ecosystem.

The writer is one of the French Tech Ambassadors for La French Tech.