Just under a year after the government launched Scale-Up Europe, a system aimed at the emergence, by 2030, of a dozen European technological giants valued at more than 100 billion dollars (87.6 billion euros), new objectives were presented on Tuesday, February 8 , by the Secretary of State for Digital, Cédric O.
The problem for start-ups is to find European funding to pursue their development, in order to avoid giving in to the sirens of American or Asian funds, or being bought out. One of the avenues would be to allow the emergence of around fifteen European funds endowed with at least 1 billion euros. There are currently only two, including the French Eurazeo, against forty in the United States.
To achieve this, France, Germany, Denmark and Greece have already undertaken to contribute up to 3.5 billion euros from funds that will finance other funds. “It is a considerable lever”, estimates Cédric O, stressing that the country will contribute up to 1.5 billion euros. Other States, about fifteen, are interested in this initiative. In total, between 10 billion and 20 billion euros could be mobilized by the public and private sectors.
Facilitate the arrival of talents from outside Europe
These funds will have no other obligation than to direct their investments towards European companies, whether they are already in the process of acquiring a global position or whether they are young. No sector is targeted, even if “deep tech” (companies resulting from basic research) are currently favored by France – with regard to the France 2030 plan – and Europe to acquire dominant positions. The European Innovation Council (EIC), endowed with 10 billion euros, also unveiled, on the same day, a support program devoted to the hundred most promising companies in these fields.
Another axis of development: facilitating the arrival of extra-European talents to support the development of the European tech scene. The stakeholders undertake in particular to develop a one-stop shop to facilitate administrative formalities for job applicants in the young shoots of the Old Continent.
“A collective dynamic”
These announcements are part of the French Presidency of the European Union (PFUE). The first step was to collect the recommendations of entrepreneurs over the past few months, in order to be able to place these topics on the agenda of the PFUE.
Why bring this subject to the European level, when the policy of support for the ecosystem of French start-ups has made it possible, in 2021, to see the fundraising of young French shoots more than double, to the tune of 11 billion? euros? Cédric O agrees that this is a plan “variable geometry” while considering that this made it possible to initiate “a historic turning point in start-up policy at European level, a collective dynamic that is taking shape”. “If we want to take the next step, it is at European level that it is played”he argues.