French fintechs have raised a record 200 million euros since January

July 16, 2018 | Publications

The Parisian startup Ledger, which has sold more than a million copies of its digital safe for crypto-assets, has achieved the largest fundraising in the sector and all of French Tech: $ 75 million last January. (Credits: France Fintech)

Article originally published in La Tribune by Delphine Cuny

 

Startups in the financial world - from cryptocurrencies and loans to SMEs to online insurance and payments - have attracted a record level of capital in the first half of the year. Average tickets are increasing but these young shoots remain small on a European scale and even more on a global scale.

La « bonsai forest » saw a huge surge in the first half of the year: French Fintech startups, combining finance and technology, have raised more than 200 million euros since the start of the year, through around twenty operations. This is more than during the whole of 2016, welcomes the professional association France Fintech. The rounds of the table had reached 172 million euros according to the census of the KPMG cabinet. If the trend continues, last year's record of 318 million euros raised in 2017 is set to be broken.

“Fintech was already the leading fundraising sector, ahead of Adtech (advertising) last year, in France and globally,” puts Alain Clot, president of France Fintech, into perspective.

He underlines that the interest of foreign investors in the French market has grown significantly, particularly in the context of Brexit.

“We have never had so many cards in our hands to raise money. There are funds, (wealthy) families via family offices, manufacturers, banking or insurance, which is not the case in all sectors. And many foreigners are interested in France: for example, Alan (Assurtech) raised his 23 million with the Index Ventures fund ”analyzes Olivier Goy, the president of Lendix, and member of the office of France Fintech. “There are more and more people around the table,” he rejoices.

Its SME lending platform, leader in continental Europe in crowdlending, carried out the second largest fundraising in the sector this semester in France: 32 million euros, from the German insurer Allianz, from the French fund Idinvest (which recently joined forces with Eurazeo) and the Italian family's holding company De Benedetti. " You have to look for foreign shareholders to be able to develop internationally »Insists the boss of Lendix.

[Summary of fundraising since January 2018. Credits France Fintech]

At the head of the French Tech round tables

The prize goes to the Parisian startup Ledger, who has sold more than a million of her small digital safe securing the private key of a crypto-asset wallet: she raised $ 75 million (61 million euros) in January from venture capital funds , Draper Esprit, FirstMark Capital, Cathay Innovation and Korelya Capital, the Franco-Korean fund headed by Fleur Pellerin who sits on the board of directors. This is the second most important fundraising by French Tech this semester, for all French startups, regardless of the sector (behind Voodoo in the video game). A first for the still young Fintech, even if the sector only weighs 13% of the total 1,5 billion euros raised by French startups.

"The reason for the levies is interesting: it is very often a question of financing acceleration and internationalization" notes Alain Clot.

Average tickets overall have increased from 3 million in 2016 to 5 million euros last year and 8 million this year at this point. However, out of the twenty or so transactions that took place in the first half of the year, there are only 7 in double digits.

"There are still two holes in the racket, the priming and the rounds of 15 to 35 million euros, which are more difficult" analyzes the president of France Fintech.

No French unicorns in FinTech

The size of French FinTechs and their fundraising remains modest compared to their German, Dutch, Swedish and especially British neighbors. Since the beginning of the year, the German neobank N26 has raised 160 million dollars and the British Revolut 250 million dollars.

"The mega-roundtables deceive the statistics, especially in the United Kingdom," said Olivier Goy. "We must also restate the development costs, which are a factor of one to three with London: with 10 million raised here, you do as much as with 30 million raised elsewhere, across the Channel or in Silicon Valley" he relativizes. “This is also reflected in the exit valuations, which are of a completely different order. "

Some Fintech success stories, however, originate in relatively low-cost countries, such as Adyen, which just had a stunning IPO on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (doubling its first-day value to €14 billion). And France has still not produced a "unicorn" (one billion valuation) in Fintech, when there are 3 or 4 in Europe out of twenty in the world, even if some French companies would be half-unicorns .

“A few leaders are emerging like Younited Credit [strongest fundraising in the sector last year at 40 million euros], Lendix or Lydia, who are starting to be consolidators,” notes Alain Clot.

If he does not risk to put forward a prognosis for the whole year, Alain Clot confides that there is " very good records under investigation. »

___

The top 10 FinTech fundraisers in France this year:

  • Ledger (cryptocurrency software): 61 million euros in January
  • Lendix (crowdlending): 32 million euros in June
  • Alan (digital health insurance): 23 million euros in April
  • Lydia (payment app): 13 million euros in February
  • lunch r (dematerialized restaurant vouchers): 11 million euros in May
  • + Simple.fr (insurance for professionals): 10 million euros in January
  • LaFinBox (asset management): 10 million euros in April
  • Spendesk (expense management in companies): 8 million euros in January
  • Margo Bank (neobank): 6,4 million euros in March
  • QuantCube (IA economic forecasts): 5 million dollars in May

All the news of French fintech!

Once a week, receive a summary of the latest news from the ecosystem.

You have successfully registered!