Green and industrial tech companies are a key focus for France and will benefit from additional public funds, Macron said Monday evening at an event gathering CEOs and VCs at theMacron touted the use of public funds aimed at financing innovative fields like AI or quantum technologies.
The French president said early stage financing should also be reinforced by getting the French public to invest in innovative startups. The government has been exploring creating a French version of the UK’s Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, which offers tax breaks to startup investors. Macron called on French tech CEOs to put aside worries about job cuts at larger companies or difficulties in raising capital. “There is a real adjustment, and the context is harder,” Macron said. “But it brings opportunities, as always.”, with much of the growth coming from green and industrial tech companies.
“We doubled our staff last year to 350,” said Clement Ray, chief executive officer at Innovafeed, a startup producing insect-based protein used for animal feed that just joined the “Next 40”, France’sFunding for French startups rose 17% to €13.5-billion last year while falling in the UK and Germany, an