Facilitating entrepreneurship for all in the regions: this is the objective of Bpifrance Création, a new scheme launched by Bpifrance during the Salon des entrepreneurs event held in Paris on 6 and 7 February. This is an opportunity to review the latest news from this subsidiary of Caisse des Dépôts, which is dedicated to supporting and financing companies.
Bpifrance serving all entrepreneurs across the country
Since 1 January, Bpifrance has taken up the missions of Agence France Entrepreneur (AFE) and those of Caisse des Dépôts for the creation of companies. Bpifrance Création, which is a result of this reconciliation, aims to facilitate entrepreneurship for all by removing obstacles to information, funding and growth.
Its missions:
- raise awareness, prepare and guide project leaders;
- support and finance all stages of the design, takeover and development of the company;
- observe and understand the company creation phenomenon in France, to better understand creators’ needs and expectations;
- act on behalf of all individuals in all territories, “be BPI all of France” as highlighted by Nicolas Dufourcq, General Manager of Bpifrance.
Spotlight on Bpifrance news
CDC International Capital (CDC IC), created in 2014 by Caisse des Dépôts with a view to developing long-term partnerships with foreign sovereign funds to carry out joint investment operations in France and worldwide, was transferred to Bpifrance on 17 January.
Bpifrance will continue to carry out direct joint investment operations in French companies, and particularly intermediate-sized enterprises (ETIs), alongside sovereign investors, whilst striving to widen partnerships’ scope of action towards new segments of business such as venture capital or growth capital, or towards new arrangements (investments in French funds for example).
On 30 January, Bpifrance unveiled its Plan Deep Tech, the purpose of which is to help 2,000 start-ups originating from scientific research to emerge by 2023 and to develop through dedicated accompaniment schemes.
To this end, Bpifrance and Deep Tech stakeholders have created a framework which characterises and identifies breakthrough projects, to be shared with all stakeholders in the Deep Tech ecosystem.
Characterised by their high technological risk and developing over long periods of time, Deep Tech start-ups require large investments. For this reason, Bpifrance will mobilise €550mn over 5 years to promote the emergence of these projects, including €80mn for Technology Transfer Acceleration Companies (SATT).
Over the same period, close to €800mn will be dedicated to financing the launching and acceleration of start-ups straight out of the laboratory.
Lastly, Bpifrance and private stakeholders have committed to investing €1bn in Deep Tech venture capital funds and €300mn directly into Deep Tech start-ups by 2023.
On 31 January, Bpifrance presented its 2018 activity report: a record year for financing (+11%), with €7.5bn in investment loans (+8%) and €10.4bn in short-term financing (+13%).
After a slight decline in innovation financing, dropping to €1.2bn (-10.2%), in 2019, Bpifrance will launch its Plan Deep Tech (see above).
Direct investments in SMEs (€196mn) have experienced a record growth of 59%, as have investments in innovation capital (€328mn) with a growth of 20%.
2018 is also an exceptional second year for the activity of the Fund of funds, with close to €1bn invested in partner funds.
SME and intermediate-sized enterprise exported products have also made great progress, with a rise of 10% in the number of beneficiaries.
In 2018, 80,000 companies were funded by Bpifrance and 500 companies were accompanied through the SME and Intermediate-sized enterprise accelerators (+77%).
2019 Prospects
During the Salon des Entrepreneurs open plenary, Nicolas Dufourcq set out Bpifrance’s 4 priorities for 2019:
- Bpifrance Création (see above), which aims to support all companies across France: in particular, a tour of districts is planned;
- industry, with the French Fab: a tour of the regions has also been planned as part of Année de l’industrie (Year of industry) driven by the government. The aim is to highlight the network of small and medium-sized French industrial companies;
- Deep Tech, which contributes towards reinventing industry based on research works (see above);
- securing the French position of strategic French companies, by creating a fund capable of investing in these potentially “vulnerable” companies.