At the beginning of this year, the government wanted to bring tech investors together within the French Tech Finance Partners (FTFP). A new body, presented by Jean-Noël Barrot, deputy minister in charge of the digital transition, has been created to enable them “a structured dialogue” among themselves and with the government. The aim is to identify the barriers to corporate finance in France and the means to increase them.
The French Tech Finance Partners brings together sixteen members, in equal numbers, present at all stages of financing and in all sectors. Among them Orange Ventures, Euronext, Partech or even EQT Ventures, banks, but also associations and organizations such as France Invest and France Digitale.
Investors were too focused on Paris and not enough on deep tech
A first meeting was held on January 3. It made it possible to define the sites to work on. First of all, we try to solve the problem of a financing fabric that is very (too) concentrated in the capital. “There are cities like Bordeaux, Marseille, Lille or even Lyon that have managed to build an ecosystem of active investors, but they still lag behind Paris in maturity. We have to take them beyond the ring road of all major cities”explains Maya Noël, General Manager of France Digitale, an association of start-ups and investors that is part of the FTFP.
“This is a comment that we have been making for a long time and that drove us six years ago to create the France Digital Tour: we travel with investors to different regions of France.”she adds.
Second theme that the FTFP will work on: deep tech, a sector in which there are fewer financiers because a lot of seed capital is needed, especially because of the long R&D times to finance.
Also on the agenda is a reflection on how France can make itself even more attractive to foreign investors. “The government’s Mission French Tech initiative has made it possible to work on the image of the French Tech brand and helped French start-ups gain more visibility and legitimacy internationally. From a regulatory or legislative point of view, the question is, how do we control foreign investment without slowing it down?.
Next40’s criteria were too focused on fundraising
Latest project, which will be one of France Digitale’s workhorses: reworking the criteria of the Next40 and the French Tech 120. The association has very concrete proposals on this point. At the time of “the madness of unicorns”, she had denounced in a forum that the criteria focused too much on the funds raised and not enough on the turnover and jobs created.
FTFP members had until this week to decide which topics they wanted to contribute. Their work and the first proposals should be returned to the government in the spring.
How can the government act concretely? Maya Noël thinks about the government (or even presidential) initiative of 2019. Emmanuel Macron went to negotiate directly with institutional investment funds, which injected 6 billion euros in venture capital. “It was very positive, but too focused on growth because we realized that the investments in this segment were lower. This created a small expansion effect on the early stage. We would like to see such a new initiative launched, but this time the money needs to be well distributed. Arrow on deep tech could also be interesting”she continues.
An unnecessary initiative?
Some members had canceled on the condition of anonymity The gallery “a useless initiative that threatens to weaken the intermediary bodies”. A criticism that Maya Noël, general manager of France Digitale, understands. “This body is formalizing work that we have been doing for years. There are about ten funds around the table, we are working with about a hundred investors. When this initiative was announced to me, I wondered if we could do the work two times. I am not afraid of a weakening of the intermediate bodies, but they must continue to be recognized for the raw material and all the work they bring parallel to this body”.
What matters, she says, is to ensure that budgetary resources for corporate finance are spent in a smart way so that the finance chain is not broken. There should be business angels guiding entrepreneurs through incorporation, institutional funds entering the seed stage, then series A, B, C, growth investors, possible exits and IPOs…”That is why it is important to bring together financial partners. The French Tech Finance Partners will enable us to work collectively and intelligently on this finance chain.”
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