This is the PYMNTS story I was going for when the monstrosity below popped up.
From Pymnts.com, December 27:
Recent data from Dealroom, supported by France’s startup movement La French Tech, has revealed that the combined enterprise value of French startups founded since 2000 was €179 billion in 2021 — up 17.7x since 2010.
With 31 homegrown unicorns — firms with a valuation of over $1 billion — France has also now surpassed Sweden and the Netherlands (24 each) for the number of unicorns created, coming only second to Germany (53).
According to the report, venture capital (VC) investment in French startups doubled in the past year alone, from €5.1 billion ($5.8 billion) to over €10 billion ($11.3 billion) in 2021.
The top three VC funding rounds this year were the $680 million Series B raised by soccer non-fungible token (NTF) trading platform Sorare, the $555 million Series E by Software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm Mirakl and a $400 million Series D by French neobank Qonto.
Overall, 2021 was a record year for megarounds — fundraising of at least $200 million — in France, with 11 out of the 15 rounds since 2016 taking place this year alone.
Commenting on the achievement, Clara Chappaz, director of La French Tech, said the country is “finally attracting the means to match its ambitions,” with foreign investors at the source of the most of those funds....
....MUCH MORE
