1. This article should not be seen as bashing; it is not written that way but to offer a point of view (a different one, I hope) from the "politically correct".
  2. I love our ecosystems and all the people (often volunteers) who give themselves to keep them alive. Hats off to them for everything they bring!
  3. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater; many very good things have been done by our government (and previous ones) to "ride" the Tech wave in France for years and turn it into a real economic and performance tool for our country.

However, I find the latest measures particularly concerning (in terms of relevance as economic tools, I mean…).

I want to talk about the "Pass FrenchTech" measures, the direction and new roadmap of FrenchTech 2019 "Capitale FrenchTech", and finally the "FrenchTech Visas".

All these schemes have one very clear aim: how to foster hyper-growth and (finally) the emergence of unicorns in France. The schemes, the roadmap and the visas are designed specifically to get closer to these objectives.

The Americans, the British, the Germans… have unicorns (more than France) and damn it, we don't have enough. We need our own French GAFAM!!!

I'm fully questioning this goal by asking the (naive?) question:

Do we need to chase the creation of unicorns in France?

I'm increasingly convinced that France missed a turn - the unicorn turn, the super-structure turn, the hyper-growth turn. That momentum is (mostly) behind us, that battle has been lost (like the one for control of the Internet, when Minitel and Transpac lost against Arpanet/Internet).

We've often arrived late in Tech for more than 50 years. We have outstanding researchers (when we can keep them on national soil), but we struggle to make it past the industrialisation and democratisation stage to reach widespread adoption (the grail). That's a fact, it seems to me.

So it's not a question here of saying everything's over and we won't have any more startups in hyper-growth. The startups that have obtained the "Pass FrenchTech" are there to confirm that we have very fine startups, generating value, jobs, growth in the regions where they're based. Bringing France to the international stage (cf. CES 2019).

On the other hand, I still feel that economically we would be more on a long-tail business model (incidentally Amazon's business model). GAFAM and unicorns represent less than 10% of the world's startups; and the rest, 90% of companies that can be valued at several hundred million dollars (that's not negligible, and even forms the bulk of the market)…

So why not have much more open schemes in terms of eligibility criteria.

Right now, the 3 schemes mentioned:

These 3 schemes are essentially reserved for a club of "happy few" and focused on the race to the 🦄.

Why not say we're not trying to create unicorns but rather really create value and think long-term about supporting and facilitating the long tail (the 90% of startups) and not just 200 startups in France. By the way, how many of these 200 "Pass FrenchTech" startups will be unicorns?…

We've understood each other: if they are not acquired (another French problem…) they will sink, or (the best outcome in my view) will remain flourishing mid-cap companies. But certainly not unicorns.

These schemes are elitist and reserved for a minority. My job puts me in contact with dozens of startup founders, and their concerns and difficulties are not taken into account enough.

Before being in hyper-growth, you have to be able to clear many obstacles that these schemes, if more open, would help overcome; de facto creating more chance of obtaining in the long term flourishing mid-caps, viable and well-known SMEs, a richer and more varied economic fabric. And not a minority eugenics with a more than uncertain future…

Available to discuss this very interesting topic.

Update 07/02: The Visa FrenchTech website was updated 2 days ago to broaden the criteria required for companies wishing to benefit from it… #callMeInfluencer 😋