After weeks in political limbo, France now has a brand new prime minister, former EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. However parliament stays bitterly divided, producing uncertainty for a lot of financial sectors — together with the nation’s dynamic startup ecosystem, which had up to now benefited from public help.
La French Tech isn’t only a time period referring to France’s 25,000 startups; it is usually an initiative supported by a public administration, the French Tech Mission, whose director, Clara Chappaz, is departing this month as her three-year contract ends, she advised Les Échos. The timing is coincidental, but in addition noteworthy. Her substitute, she advised TechCrunch in late August, ought to hopefully be somebody who’s “not afraid of change” and sees it as a chance.
The function is undoubtedly distinctive. It’s hooked up to the Ministry of the Financial system and Finance, however with a lean group figuring out of Station F and with an enormous mission: to help the structuring and progress of the French startup ecosystem of startups, in France and overseas. It requires somebody who’s equally capable of speak to public officers, politicians, huge corporations and journalists.
It’s now too late to use, however seeing the way it has been described as a “dream job,” there ought to be sufficient candidates on the ranks; Chappaz, who gained’t be a part of the jury, stated once we talked in August that she was taking a number of calls a day from potential candidates. She probably advised them just about the identical as she advised TechCrunch and her LinkedIn followers: That France is “extremely fortunate” to have its French Tech Mission and that her expertise at its helm was “distinctive.”
However what occurred up to now isn’t indicative of the long run, and whoever succeeds Chappaz will function in a state of affairs that’s very completely different from when she took cost in 2021. That’s as a result of La French Tech itself has modified throughout these years, pushing new priorities for the French Tech Mission.
Chappaz skilled her justifiable share of change over the past three years, too, and never solely as a result of there have been three completely different secretaries of state for digital affairs over that very same interval; that’s frequent in plenty of public administrations. The principle change needed to do with tech itself, and with the macro context: 2024 is kind of completely different from 2021.
Identical to elsewhere, French startups went via the ebbs and flows of the pandemic and the fundraising hype that ensued, solely to come back again to earth just a few months later. Geopolitical unrest adopted, and alongside got here the conclusion that nations wanted industrial champions to depend on.
For the French Tech Mission, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2023, this meant aligning with the strategic France 2030 agenda. There got here French Tech 2030, with much less deal with unicorns, and extra on deep tech spinouts and financial impression. Not that it was chargeable for the previous: President Emmanuel Macron was the one who set out “25 French unicorns” as a purpose to succeed in by 2025. (After reaching that milestone in 2022, he went on to name for 100 unicorns by 2030.)
That France now has scaleups like BlaBlaCar and Doctolib is not any small feat, and telling the world definitely did favors to its picture. However 10 years after the “unicorn” moniker was coined, world tech has moved on. It was time for France to acknowledge that its startups have modified, too, with the rise of corporations like Mistral AI and Pasqal (and the autumn of others, like Luko.)
The France Digitale affiliation, which represents startups and traders from the French digital ecosystem, has been effectively positioned to witness this evolution amongst its members since its creation in 2012. “There are 1725814230 startups in all sectors, in manufacturing, in healthcare, that are additionally sectors that I believe are strategic priorities for the competitiveness of France and for the sovereignty of France and Europe,” its CEO Maya Noël advised TechCrunch.
Consistent with this evolution, Nöel stated it is likely to be fascinating for Chappaz’s substitute to come back from one in all these strategic sectors, however that’s no jab at her background (Chappaz joined from Vestiaire Collective, a second-hand vogue market) or at her predecessors. From our dialog with Noël, it transpired that the 2 buildings are “pretty aligned” and have been in “fixed dialogue.”
A number of initiatives adopted below Chappaz’s management mirror what the sector has been lobbying for. One instance is “Je Choisis La French Tech,” an initiative that noticed 300 corporations and 80 institutional gamers decide to serving to double the variety of public contracts and purchases from startups. “Now we have been asking for this for 10 years,” Noël stated.
If something, France Digitale wished issues may go sooner, as an illustration on the new matter of exits (or dearth thereof). Somebody with first-hand data of scaleups and worldwide growth may add worth at its helm, however a brand new director with a public service background may be capable to pull strings on the administration facet if La French Tech have been to lack governmental help, Noël stated.
La French Tech Mission has arguments that would play effectively with completely different sides of the political help: that startups are instantly and not directly chargeable for 1.1 million jobs, and for serving to reindustrialize France. Many individuals additionally dedicated to the Parity Pact promoted by Chappaz and her group to foster gender equality within the tech trade. Her successor must play these playing cards effectively, and we want them “bonne likelihood.” That additionally goes for Chappaz, too, who’s anticipating her second baby and says she hasn’t determined but what she’s going to do subsequent, however that it’ll should do with tech innovation.
