Ecosystem Deep Dives #26: France - The Startup State
After struggling to transform its extensive talent pool into local champions, the French start-up ecosystem has finally achieved takeoff.
L’histoire
France was definitely late to the global start-up race that we are currently seeing unfold before our eyes, with record levels of VC money flooding the globe, from Lagos, to São Paulo, to Jakarta. France’s late entry wasn’t due to the weakness of its talent pool or a complete disinterest in start-ups; indeed, some of the ecosystem’s most renown names such as Meetic, Price Minister and Veepee were founded in the early 2000’s.
What has changed over the past decade however has been clear governmental support towards the national start-up ecosystem. Owing to French tradition, the state is very present in the ecosystem and while it may have stymied it early-on, it is one of the indisputable protagonists of its current success.
Although President Macron and his stated zeal for the “start-up nation” have recently passed key legislations, the seeds for the “modern” French start-up ecosystem were laid in the early 2010’s, under Francois Hollande’s presidency. Relatively anti-business at the start of its presidency, the Hollande administration was pressured by the “Mouvements des Pigeons” instigated by founder and VC Jean-David Chamboredon, which frontally criticized the government’s heavy fiscal policy towards entrepreneurs and investors.