2021 Highlights💥
The European tech ecosystem is growing at an unprecedented pace. In 2021, European start-up funding exceeded $100 billion for the first time, growing roughly 3x compared to 2020. France weighed more than 10% of this total and grew more than 2x compared to 2020.
Bpifrance Digital Venture’s activity was also exceptional in 2021 with 17 new deals, 11 follow-on rounds and 8 exits. We invested more than €50m — an all-time high — over 28 deals. Our portfolio companies collectively raised close to €700m and with this year’s exits, we are getting closer to the €2bn of total EV at exit milestone.
Bpifrance DV’s portfolio now includes some of France’s fastest growing tech companies, such as ManoMano (€300M Series F), OpenClassrooms (€70M Series C) and Singulart (€60M Series B), along with rising stars such as Shippeo, Swan, Planity, GitGuardian, Snapshift, Strapi or Powder.
3 undisclosed deals
Here are our 3 highlights of the year:
Fintech is gathering pace
Fintech has remained one of the most dynamic segments in France, counting for more than €2bn in funding this year. France now counts several unicorns and promising scale-ups across banking (Qonto, Lydia), insurance (Shift, Alan), SaaS solutions (Spendesk, Swile, Agicap, Pennylane…), payments (Sunday), lending (Younited) and blockchain (Ledger, Sorare).
This year, 4 new fintech companies joined the portfolio (Continuity, iPaidthat, Ubble and SIS ID) and our portfolio company Swan raised a 16m€ Series A round led by Accel.
Massive growth in deal size
Overall funding has increased more than 2x compared to 2020 in France. This growth has massively been driven by strong inflation on Growth rounds, where top-tier start-ups have attracted most of the funding. We found that the average Series B round went up 80% compared to last year, reaching €48,5m. This trend is linked in part to the growing presence of foreign VCs in France, where around 40% of deals include at least one foreign VC.
Some of our portfolio companies raised massive rounds this year and we are happy to be working with new foreign VCs such as Vitruvian, Dragoneer, Sapphire but also Lumos Capital Group.
- Singulart raised a €60m Series B round led by Vitruvian
- Gitguardian raised a $40m Series B round led by Eurazeo, with Sapphire also participating
- Planity raised a €30m Series B round led by Revaia
- Openclassrooms raised a €80m Series C round led by Lumos Capital Group
- ManoMano raised a $355m round led by Dragoneer and became a Unicorn
A record year for exits
Even though average EV at exit and total deal value stalled in 2021, the number of exits increased significantly compared to 2020. This increase in exits will have a virtuous impact on the ecosystem, allowing money and skills to be reinjected in new ventures in the upcoming years. We have also observed positive signals in public markets with important tech IPOs (Believe and OVH). These IPOs contribute to educating public markets with regards to tech business models, paving the way for the future.
💥 Cardiologs — our very first seed investment back in 2016 — has been acquired by Philips
💥 Wattsense has been acquired by Siemens
💥 Data Impact has been acquired by NielsenIQ
💥 Talentsoft has been acquired by Cegid, giving rise to a French champion and leader in the European market for cloud-based payroll and human resources management solutions
💥 Neotys has been acquired by Tricentis
💥 Lengow has been acquired by Marlin Equity Partners
💥 Ovrsea has been acquired by Bolloré Logistics
💥 Solen has been acquired by Kinaxia
We wish everybody a very happy new year and we are looking forward to 2022 🚀 🚀
