Startups have not lacked funding in H1, buoyed by big deals

“French technology” is fine, thanks for that. Although the executive has made it a priority, targeting 100 unicorns by 2030, funding has been generous in the first half of 2022. According to a new barometer published by the firm EY, it reached 8.4 billion euros in the first semester. six months of the year, an increase of 63% in one year.

A figure driven by the bulky fundraising of a handful of players -the fintech Qonto (486 million euros), the CSR specialist Ecovadis (478 million) or even the reformed singer, Back Market (450 million)-, according to confirms Franck Sebag. , from EY, on the set of good morning business.

Penalized “first-time buyers”

The 20 operations of more than 100 million thus represent 4,480 million euros, or more than half of the amounts collected. At the same time, less positively, the number of operations was reduced, especially for smaller structures, from 416 to 362 between the first half of 2021 and 2022.

They are in free fall, in particular, in intermediate fundraising, which ranges between 50 and 100 million euros: the sign of a macroeconomic slowdown, but also of the ongoing escalation for some of the technological players: 6 have been created new unicorns during the period, bringing the total to 27.

The little ones are also affected by the financial squeeze.

UK in sight

Beyond economic considerations, the barometer highlights the overwhelming dominance of the Ile-de-France region, which concentrates more than 6.7 billion euros. Behind, Hauts-de-France occupies the second place (392 million euros) with the important rise of Exotec, specialist in robotics.

Thematically, software and IT services are the first capital catalyst, exceeding 2 billion, as well as fintech. Both outperform Internet services thanks to strong one-year increases (+572% and +186%).

These two explosions allow France to steal the first place in continental Europe from Germany, which fell to 6,300 million euros in collections.

Now the United Kingdom remains to be detonated, a particularly fertile place in finance, and still a long way off: London registered 18.4 billion euros of invested capital and more than 860 operations. If there is no marked Brexit effect, the growth rate of fundraising is structurally weaker on the other side of the Channel, giving hope of a tricolor recovery in the years to come.